Rumors continue to abound that Florida State and Clemson are looking to leave the ACC for the Big 12. In the myopic world of conference realignment, a quote from Big 12 interim commissioner Chuck Neinas that his conference has tabled expansion for now is met with rolling eyes (and considering the track record of half-hearted denials and misleading statements on this topic over the past couple of years, it’s not surprising). I had been thinking for the past week about putting together a 5-step plan to save the ACC (to the extent that it needs saving). Tony Barnhart of CBS Sports actually beat me to it with the same concept here, but while he has a couple of good ideas under steps 4 (scheduling arrangement with the SEC) and 5 (top tier bowl game) that I had been also thinking about, the first step (the old Al Davis motto of “Just Win, Baby”) isn’t possible this summer, while his third step (talk to Notre Dame) is praying for a miracle as opposed to a plan. Most importantly, Barnhart’s second step (getting Florida State to stay) is what the ACC specifically needs a plan for in the first place (not just a step in an overall plan). With all of that in mind, here’s my own 5-step plan to strengthen the ACC this summer:
(1) Change the Football Divisional Alignment to North/South – As much as people have talked about national conferences and TV markets with respect to realignment, the only expansion among the five power conferences into a non-contiguous state was the Big 12 with West Virginia. (The Big East, of course, expanded into a couple of different continents.) Geography is still a powerful factor for both conferences and schools as isolated members tend to end up being unhappy members over the long-term. That factor ought to weigh heavily on Florida State and Clemson in terms of staying in the ACC as they would largely be isolated members of the Big 12 outside of being in the same time zone as West Virginia. However, the ACC’s football non-geographic divisional alignment largely takes that geographical argument off the table. Currently, Florida State and Clemson only have Wake Forest and North Carolina State as fellow southeastern members in the Atlantic Division. Here’s how I would re-align the ACC:
NORTH DIVISION
Miami
Syracuse
Pittsburgh
Boston College
Maryland
Virginia
Virginia Tech
SOUTH DIVISION
Florida State
Clemson
Georgia Tech
North Carolina
Duke
N.C. State
Wake Forest
Florida State-Miami and UNC-UVA would be protected cross-division rivalries, for sure. It’s probably not necessary for the other schools to have cross-division rivals, but the schools can set them up that way if they want to. Miami is placed in the North Division despite being the southernmost school because it’s really a Northeastern school in terms of culture and character, which was why the Hurricanes insisted on bringing along Boston College and (originally) Syracuse in the ACC raid of the Big East in 2003.
Does a change in the divisional alignment alone cause Florida State or Clemson to stay if they really want to go? Probably not. However, geography can be extremely important as part of the overall package of factors to persuade those schools to stay.
(2) Lobby the Faculty Members at Florida State and Clemson – There’s a continuous debate as to whether academics ought to matter in terms of formulating athletic conferences. This has played out at Florida State at the highest levels, where the school’s chair of the Board of Trustees took an almost anti-intellectual viewpoint of stating that “[c]onference affiliation has no impact on academics”, while the university’s president took the opposite view that “the faculty are adamantly opposed to joining a league that is academically weaker.” My take is pretty simple: conferences would rather have better academic schools than not, while schools would rather have a better academic conference than not. That’s not to say academics are completely outcome determinative – the Big Ten chose Nebraska not because it was the best academic school available, but rather it was the best football program with acceptable academics available. However, the point is that the Big Ten actually does have an academic threshold that potential expansion candidates need to meet. The only other FBS conferences that have a legitimate academic threshold are the ACC and Pac-12. It’s a strong calling card for those three conferences, whether football fans want to admit it or believe that it should even be a factor.
It’s one thing if you’re an academic heavyweight such as Vanderbilt or Texas where conference affiliation isn’t going to impact academic perception. However, are Florida State and Clemson in that same category? Do the faculty members at those two schools want to go from a conference where academic prestige is a clear value-added to one where it’s net neutral? (Please note that I’m not saying that the Big 12 doesn’t care about academics or is made up of poor academic institutions. However, the ACC, much like the Big Ten and Pac-12, have made a conscious decision in targeting highly-ranked academic schools in a way that other conference haven’t.) This is new territory in the modern world of conference realignment where two schools would leave a conference that’s higher on the academic pecking order, which is a reason why I’ve stated previously that this isn’t anywhere near the no-brainer decision that Nebraska had in moving to the Big Ten, Colorado and Utah had in moving to the Pac-12, Missouri and Texas A&M had in moving to the SEC, Pitt and Syracuse had in moving to the ACC and West Virginia and TCU had in moving to the Big 12.
Much like the geography factor, the outcry of faculty may not overshadow the wishes of blood-thirsty fan and donor bases. However, academics are certainly critical (let’s not forget that’s why colleges exist in the first place) and it’s an asset that the ACC needs to pound publicly and privately over and over and over and over again if it wants to avoid defections.
(3) Change the Football Scheduling to Appease Florida State and Clemson – The supposed ACC bias in having Florida State and Clemson play tough conference opponents (if not each other) right before their in-state rivalry games with SEC schools Florida and South Carolina, respectively, seems to be a popular complaint among Seminole and Tiger fans. From an outside view, this seems to be more of a piling on conference leadership when fan bases are simply convinced that everything is being controlled by Tobacco Road (similar to how Big 12 schools view Texas and Big East members look at Providence). Still, scheduling concessions are an easy give from the ACC’s leaders that takes a red meat on-the-field issue that has been firing up the Big 12 supporting crowd off the table.
(4) Sign an Orange Bowl Tie-in with Notre Dame as the Opponent – This suggestion was the subject of some unsubstantiated message board rumors, but the concept itself makes sense. Now the Big 12 and SEC champions are locked-in with each other in a bowl and the Big Ten and Pac-12 are obviously bound to the Rose Bowl, the feeling is that the ACC is left standing in the proverbial game of bowl musical chairs. Should the ACC be sending its champion to play, say, the #2 selection from the Big Ten or SEC? If I were running the ACC, that might ultimately be acceptable and there are plenty of bowls that would take that matchup in a heartbeat, but that would also be a tough pill to swallow psychologically and in terms of the perception of the league in the college football power structure. As an alternative, does the ACC really want to play the Big East champ? That would likely be even less desirable to the powers that be within the ACC and to the bowls themselves.
There’s one power player without a bowl dance partner, though: Notre Dame. I’ve never been one to believe that the Irish have anything to worry about in terms of qualifying for the new college football playoff (even in a conference champs only format, the TV networks at the very least will insist that an exception will be made for a top 4 independent). However, the new bowl world outside of the semifinals might be a different story. In the current system, Notre Dame had access to potential at-large spots in the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange Bowls. It’s very unclear whether the concept of at-large bids will exist in the future – the Fiesta Bowl, for instance, could decide to sign with the Big Ten and Big 12 for their second selections. The Irish might not have the bowl flexibility that they have had up to this point. On the flip side, though, is that the new system may present an opportunity for Notre Dame to sign directly with a top tier bowl that would always rather take a 4-loss Notre Dame team as opposed to, say, a 1-loss Conference USA school.
Note that despite the perception that the ACC is toxic horse manure to the top tier bowls, somehow (1) the ACC championship game loser ended up getting a Sugar Bowl at-large bid last year instead of an almighty Big 12 school ranked at #8, (2) the highest paid bowl tie-in outside of the BCS and the Big Ten #2 and SEC #2 slots in the Capital One Bowl is actually the ACC #2 tie-in to the Chick-fil-A Hallelujah That They’re in Chicagoland Now Bowl (NOT the almighty Big 12 #2 tie-in to the supposedly endless flow of cash from the Jerry Jones Cotton Bowl) and (3) a quick look at the top-to-bottom bowl tie-ins indicates that the ACC is, at the very least, has more leverage than the Pac-12 (whose overall bowl depth weakness is masked by the Rose Bowl tie-in at the very top). All of those facts indicate that the ACC champion isn’t going to have a problem getting a top bowl slot. The only question is who the ACC champ will end up facing. The ACC and Notre Dame are the two most powerful players and brand names left that aren’t paired up, so it’s natural and logical that they could end up with each other in a bowl. It’s the best value proposition that’s available to both entities with the Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC and Big12 off the table.
(5) Push ESPN to Maintain Value of TV Contract if There are Defections – There might be a point where the fan bases at Florida State and Clemson are putting such overwhelming pressure in favor of a move to the Big 12 (similar to Texas A&M fans wanting the SEC last year) that the schools end up defecting to the ACC. At that point, the ACC’s goal shifts to preventing a complete unraveling of the league. Personally, I don’t buy that Armageddon situation at all (as we saw the Big 12 and Big East suffer even more crippling defections with dire predictions of those leagues dying, yet they’re still kicking), but the ACC still has to be proactive to ensure that it doesn’t happen.
This is pretty simple: agree with ESPN that even if Florida State and Clemson leave, ESPN won’t reduce the value of the recently signed ACC TV contract (which averages a bit over $17 million per school per year). There’s pretty clear precedent for this scenario with ESPN agreeing to do the same with the Big 12 in 2010 and then coming to an understanding with the Big 12 again in 2011 to have a new contract extension. As I’ve noted in a previous post, the ACC is actually the single largest content provider to ESPN of any sports entity (whether college or pro), so there’s even less incentive for ESPN to see the ACC break apart compared to the Big 12 (with whom ESPN has a much more limited package) the last couple of years. Contrary to what many fans seem to believe, ESPN has a significant interest in not seeing the formation of superconferences because they do not want to deal with concentrated power entities that have NFL-type negotiating leverage. Dispersal of power is how ESPN is able to keep college sports rights fees somewhat in check. (To put rights fees in perspective, the Big Ten, which is the wealthiest conference, currently receives about $100 million per year from ESPN/ABC for first tier rights. By comparison, ESPN pays over $100 million per game to the NFL for Monday Night Football.)
The irony of this scenario is that would kick in over $2 million in TV money per year extra to each of the remaining 12 ACC schools, which would raise their total annual per school payouts to close to the $20 million level that the Big 12 is reportedly negotiating with ESPN and Fox. So, Florida State and Clemson could end up leaving for more TV money in the Big 12, which would actually result in an increase in TV money for the rest of the ACC that would match what the Big 12 schools receive. That would certainly be enough to take TV rights fees off the table as an issue for the remaining ACC members.
These are 5 realistic steps that the ACC can take without having to compromise on their core principles (such as equal sharing of TV revenue). I’ve said before that I believe that the ACC is stronger than what many football fans give it credit for. That statement is certainly being put to the test right now.
(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)
(Image from Zimbio)
FRANK THE TANK'S SLANT 
1st?
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Much like the geography factor, the outcry of faculty may not overshadow the wishes of blood-thirsty fan and donor bases. However, academics are certainly critical (let’s not forget that’s why colleges exist in the first place) and it’s an asset that the ACC needs to pound publicly and privately over and over and over and over again if it wants to avoid defections.
Why are the pro-move factions cast as the bad guys, ‘the bloodthirsty’? Why not the faculty with their academic snootiness and (often out of touch) elitism? (“We are for the little guy, unlike those evil 1%ers, but don’t make us live next to or actually be associated too closely to them.) How exactly would FSU be harmed by being in the B12 instead of the ACC, other than ephemeral perceptive reasons that make little difference in the real world? Any hiring admin that would rule out an FSU graduate based on conference affiliation would just as quickly rule them out for being one of the lowest ranked schools in the ACC. Snobbery is snobbery.
You make it sound as if FSU and Clemson are contemplating joining a collection of junior colleges and online diploma mills. The B12 is not that big a step down from the ACC. Texas is world-class, Kansas and ISU are AAU, Baylor is a highly-rated undergrad institute, while TCU and OU are academically at the same level as FSU. So only 4 of 12 would be academically inferior to FSU. In comparison the P12 has 5 ranked below FSU (using the US News rankings, which while imperfect do have some merit.) Yes the P12 is more top heavy, but this tendency to portray the B12 as an academic slum is quite silly.
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/facepalm
You haven’t understood it and I don’t think you will. This entire post is how to keep FSU and Clemson. That section of the argument isn’t appealing to ‘hiring admins’, as you put it; it’s appealing to the faculty and you can bet there is a difference between the ACC and Big 12 in their mind.
Faculty, while not donors, still have a major effect on university administrations. As a University President, Provost or Dean, you don’t want an exodus of your research and published talent because they’re pissed your school is ‘picking’ football over academics. Completely ignore the faculty at FSU and Clemson and run to the Big 12; see how that goes. There’s a reason FSU’s President put out that response advocating academics while an old soon to be retired attorney/Board of Trustees chair only cares about football.
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I think it is hilarious how people keep playing the academics card for FSU when they are one of the lowest ranked ACC schools and would be among the lower ranked Big 12 schools. Miami and Clemson could play this card, FSU puh-lease. Look at Texas. Your academic standing is really a matter of your own efforts and not who you are associated with.
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FSU would be a top half academic institution in the Big 12, they are bottom 2 in the ACC
Cheers,
Neil
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You’re making the assumption that people are rational. They are not.
At face value, an athletic conference makes little difference to the quality of a degree, but people aren’t logical. They have biases and make generalizations, discriminate and congregate with each other over trivial things. I mean, the company someone keeps is a measure of who they are as a person.
There’s a reason why the “Ivy League” will never expand.
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Playoffs Now,
“Why are the pro-move factions cast as the bad guys, ‘the bloodthirsty’?”
Because they are the ones showing little rational thought behind their preference to change conferences because they see football as the top priority for FSU over the education of students.
“Why not the faculty with their academic snootiness and (often out of touch) elitism?”
Because part of the job of the faculty is to try to make the school better. What you perceive as snootiness or elitism is them doing their jobs.
“How exactly would FSU be harmed by being in the B12 instead of the ACC, other than ephemeral perceptive reasons that make little difference in the real world?”
Perception does matter in the real world. When an FSU grad applies for a job outside the area or for grad school, the reputation of the school and the conference matter.
“Any hiring admin that would rule out an FSU graduate based on conference affiliation would just as quickly rule them out for being one of the lowest ranked schools in the ACC.”
Most of them might not know much about FSU outside of the southeast. The difference between ACC and B12 affiliation would make a difference to them. It’s not enough to rule a candidate in or out, but it might be enough to decide between person A and person B.
“You make it sound as if FSU and Clemson are contemplating joining a collection of junior colleges and online diploma mills.”
Right. Except for the part where Frank explicitly said he wasn’t saying that.
“The B12 is not that big a step down from the ACC. Texas is world-class, Kansas and ISU are AAU, Baylor is a highly-rated undergrad institute, while TCU and OU are academically at the same level as FSU. So only 4 of 12 would be academically inferior to FSU.”
So 6 of 11 are on par or less than FSU? And that’s not a big step down from the ACC where 0 of 11 are on par or less than FSU academically? I think we’ll have to agree to disagree about that.
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I’m fairly confident that 10 out of 10 faculty members — those who even care about sports — would say that they wanted their school to associate in athletics with the best academic partners possible.
I know, for example, that there is a vocal segment of Rice faculty (not a majority) that would prefer that the school de-emphasize athletics, and either drop it or drop to D-III.
But the idea that faculty hold sway I find somewhat of a joke. Back in the day, when I was at Texas, the regents hired a new president. The individual may not have been qualified — the faculty, as represented, didn’t think so. A professor of mine spent five minutes of class railing against the hire. There were demonstrations on the main mall, (some) classes were cancelled — none of mine.
In no more than two weeks, everything died down. The regents said nothing, the new president said nothing, did not quit, and retired four years later. All that prior noise was sound and fury.
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Well Illinois’ President was just forced to resign after the faculty launched an insurrection less 2 years into his reign. Just because UT’s faculty couldn’t oust their president doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
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Bob,
I didn’t say the faculty had much say in the outcome. It varies from school to school and over time, though. OSU’s faculty kept them out of the Rose Bowl in 1961 because they felt athletics were getting too important. I’m not saying that would happen now, but OSU was a football king back then, too.
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frug: I guess what I am saying is that if FSU’s BOT wants to move athletics to the B12, the faculty can march, jump repeatedly and hold their breath… and nothing will happen.
Brian: Around that time, OSU also limited to its schedule to nine games when other schools had gone to 10. Once they joined everyone else, they’ve never gone back.
I’d also generally say that there is no resemblance, absolutely none, to the manner in which high D-I is promoted and played now and how it was done then.
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Speaking of ACADEMICS and MONEY… recently, the U of Minnesota forged an agreement with Fairview Medical for a $180 Million expansion/improvements to the U of M’s Fairview Medical Center.
This is already one of the nation’s best hospitals… $180 million trumps the U’s athletic revenue (approx. $78 Million) by a large margin—and that is just one small piece of the entire puzzle…
Another thing to consider— at the U of M there are ~51,000 total students, <1000 of that total are involved in inter-collegiate athletics…
SMART institutions are looking at the BIG picture.
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Add
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add
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Hawks.
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Hook em
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add
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“suck my dick, north/south is never happening.” — UVA/VT
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Thankyou for your reasoned and logically applied train of thought. And really, naming your dick suck, that’s quite original.
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1) Division realignment helps, but that’s still a weak football conference overall. Even with FSU and Clemson, the ACC is a clear #5. With the BCS is shifting to a system where only #1-4 matter, divisional alignment won’t be enough for the two football schools.
2) “”No FSU graduate puts on his resume or interviews for a job saying they are in the same conference as Duke and Virginia,” he said. “Conference affiliation really has no impact on academics” – FSU BOT Chairman Andy Haggard. The faculty might like rubbing elbows with UVA and Duke, but it’s not helping FSU attract students and money, at least not compared to an elite FB team.
3) The B12 could offer the same thing, while also offering regular games with OU and UT.
4) Agreed. The ACC should try for this regardless of what FSU and Clemson do.
5) ESPN could actually benefit from more compelling match ups with FSU, Clemson, OU, and UT. Sure beats watching FSU pound Duke. Plus, this point ignores the additional money from the conference championship game, as well as whatever FSU and Clemson can pull from 3rd tier rights.
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#2 – Haggard is an outgoing board chair that will be dead relatively soon. He doesn’t have to worry about appeasing faculty and hiring talented researchers and teachers.
If FSU does go to the Big 12, they will lose considerable faculty and drop precipitously in undergrad AND graduate school prestige/rankings/recognition, which will hurt future faculty recruitment. If the faculty like ‘rubbing elbows with UVA and Duke’ as you say, the good ones will just go get jobs at schools still associated with them.
Faculty hold a surprising amount influence over university decision makers and for good reason.
I am simply amazed at college football fans’ ignorance of how a large university is actually run.
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Ted,
No professor leaves a university especially if they are tenured or on a tenure track because of the conference they are associated . Unless you are a rock-star researcher and/or you are professor in a subject where there is high demand (engineering) you are not going anywhere. A friend of mine who just graduated with a PhD tells me that for every liberal arts professorship open there is between 200 – 300 candidates. Faculty at these schools can get angry, but they are not leaving. Besides if you are one of those lucky PhDs with an in-demand subject area the last thing in the world you are probably thinking about is what football team your school plays each fall. More likely you are thinking about research opportunities, the others in your department, location of the campus, etc.
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hangtime79,
“No professor leaves a university especially if they are tenured or on a tenure track because of the conference they are associated.”
That’s just not true. Professors seek promotions like anyone else, and getting the same job in a better conference can be a promotion. Or do you believe no professor would ever leave to take the same job at Harvard?
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Whatever. I am sure academics is what drove A&M and Mizzou to the SEC, CU to the PAC12 and NU to the Big10. Funny how we aren’t blogging about Academic Conference Realignment.
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If what you say is true, why did FtT just write an article about ‘saving’ the ACC?
I think what’s happening here is the B1G and ACC fans are getting a reality check on how much academics matter in conference affiliation, and they don’t like what they’re hearing. As a Kansas fan, I had the same reality check a couple years ago, only it was elite basketball and not academics. Both factors are considered, but neither are the primary consideration for most schools and conferences.
FSU is who it is because that’s how it chooses to allocate the resources it has to work with. It serves a different market than Duke. The ACC will not bring FSU up to Duke’s level, nor will it bring Duke down to FSU’s level.
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Jeremy says: “Division realignment helps, but that’s still a weak football conference overall. Even with FSU and Clemson, the ACC is a clear #5.”
I’m not sure it’s that clear of a #5. The Big East with Boise State (the best team in the nation of the past decade [112-17 (.868!)]), Houston, SMU, Cincinnati, Louisville, and UCF… these are all teams with better records, better bowl records, better teams than anybody in the ACC over the past decade save Va Tech.
I’ve been a professional big least hater for years, but they’ve finally made the moves i’ve always wanted them to. On a neutral football field, the ACC2014 loses to the BE2014 top to bottom. The #5 spot is severely under contention, which is why the ACC is justifiably panicking.
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Koxinga,
“I’m not sure it’s that clear of a #5. The Big East with Boise State (the best team in the nation of the past decade [112-17 (.868!)]), Houston, SMU, Cincinnati, Louisville, and UCF… these are all teams with better records, better bowl records, better teams than anybody in the ACC over the past decade save Va Tech.”
W/L records are not representative of a team’s skill level unless the opposition is equivalent. Boise played a ton of terrible teams in the WAC and MWC which inflated their record. I’d take a record like OSU’s 105-24 in the B10 over Boise’s any day. There are also the multiple national title winners with a claim (UF, LSU, AL, USC), and those who came close like OU.
The same goes for comparing CUSA and BE schools to ACC schools. #20 BC had a higher winning percentage over the decade than any 2014 BE or CUSA school except Boise. Others of relevance:
1. Boise
8. VT
20. BC
30. UL
32. UC
34. FSU
35. Clemson
37. GT
39. Pitt
41. UH
67. UCF
107. SMU
Getting a nice bowl or two after breezing through a bad conference doesn’t make a team good for a decade.
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I’m just going to leave this here…
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigeast/post/_/id/32766/big-east-must-begin-to-sell-itself
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Help yourself. It’s a biased blog post with misleading information. The BE is equal to the ACC because the ACC has stunk up the BCS? That’s not a valid argument. Let’s look at her points more closely.
Overall BCS record – BE 7-7 (she claims 8-6, other sources say 7-7), ACC 2-13
1. I notice that the ACC got an at large bid while the BE never did.
2. 6 of the BE’s wins came from former member Miami (3-1) and from exiting member WV (3-0). To be fair, VT, Syracuse and Pitt (all 0-1) also left or are leaving. That leaves 1-3, with Boise (2-0) coming in but they haven’t done it in a decent conference yet. That record isn’t nearly as impressive.
3. Both conferences are 1-2 in NCGs, but all the BE appearances were by current ACC members Miami and VT. That makes it more like 6-0 in favor of the current ACC.
4. Worst BCS teams of all time:
2010 Unranked UConn
2004 #21 Pitt
Taking all those factors into account, the current BE doesn’t seem better than the ACC to me.
“The ACC has gotten two schools into the BCS just once”
Last time I checked, 1 > 0.
“the Big East and the ACC are the only conferences to send teams with at least three losses to a BCS game multiple times”
That’s an argument in favor of the BE? They still provided the 2 worst BCS teams of all time.
Since 2005 the BE had three teams finish with 1 loss, and the ACC had none.
So what? How would the ACC teams have done playing a BE schedule and vice versa?
And what about other points?
The BE has been an 8 team league, leading to easier schedules. Meanwhile the ACC is moving to 9 games plus a CCG. The BE plays a terrible OOC slate, too. In addition, the ACC pumps out a lot more pro talent.
I’m not saying the ACC is a juggernaut, but they are clearly ahead of the BE right now.
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Pingback: May 27, 2012 « Expansion, expansion, expansion
Great points, all around. And it’s crazy how many fans I’ve seen completely blasting the geographic and academic factors of conference realignment — which is why the Florida State fan base (and to a lesser extent, Clemson’s fan base) is sprinting for the exits as their school sits in place.
What most FSU fans are forgetting is the money factor. It doesn’t just appear, so if they’re already in the red, how are they supposed to be a huge exit fee. The Big 12 isn’t paying it off like they did for WVU, since they’re not in the same bind they were then (getting back to 10 teams).
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The geographic argument is valid, the academic one is not. FSU’s academic profile is not raised by piss pounding Duke in football. FSU will still be FSU, regardless of the conference it is in.
Regarding the money, if the B12 wants FSU and FSU wants to compete with UF, a one time $20M hit is not going to stand in the way. There is too much money on the table long term for each side here.
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Disagree that academics don’t count, at least based on my experience at IU.
Salaries, incoming SAT scores, academic rankings are routinely compared to other Big Ten schools.
You don’t think it matters that IU and Purdue are in the Big 10, and Ball State is in the MAC? Ask Ball State.
And it’s entirely possible that the FSU trustee that says otherwise is simply a jackass.
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Haggard is an outgoing board chair that’s not up for re-election. He’s a lame duck politician for all intents and purposes. He’s appealing to the fanbase because he’s old and wants to win before he’s dead. He thinks the Big 12 can do that and doesn’t have to worry about FSU’s academic future.
He is definitely a jackass. He’s already undercut his university’s President and AD but he doesn’t hold any real future power other than being an old, rich attorney that is friends with other boosters.
Old people say and do crazy shit.
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I can’t claim to know how much the academic impact is, but its foolish to completely deny its existence. Lake Forest College was at the inaugural Big Ten meeting. Do you think it’d still be considered a regional liberal arts college if it had been in the Big Ten for the last 120 years? Would Iowa have their current reputation if they had been in the Missouri Valley for the past 100 years?
Universities are all about whom they associate with.
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Not only the exit fee, but neither TCU or West Virginia are getting full shares of TV money for several years. So both are short term hinderances in terms of financials. Both will eventually go away in the long-run, but they have to be considered.
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GEAUX LSU Fightin’ Tigers with great finishes to the baseball, softball & track seasons
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Two small, but related quibbles;
The ACC and Notre Dame are the two most powerful players and brand names left that aren’t paired up, so it’s natural and logical that they could end up with each other in a bowl. It’s the best value proposition that’s available to both entities with the Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC and Big12 off the table.
I agree that the ACC should pursue a matchup with ND, but I’m not really sure how you are defining power and brand names. What I mean is that on the open market both rank behind (at least) the Big 10 and SEC #2s even if the ACC holds onto FSU. To be honest, in an open market I wouldn’t be surprised if the Big 10 and SEC #3s and Big XII and PAC-12 #2s were valued higher than the ACC and ND.
Note that despite the perception that the ACC is toxic horse manure to the top tier bowls, somehow (1) the ACC championship game loser ended up getting a Sugar Bowl at-large bid last year instead of an almighty Big 12 school ranked at #8
Yes that happened, but it was also and unmitigated disaster for the conference. The horrific TV ratings and poor ticket sales by V-Tech despite facing arguably the biggest draw in all of college football (UM) proved once and for all that for elite bowl purposes the ACC is FSU and Miami or bust.
Combined with Clemson’s complete destruction at the hands of a Big East team and you can make a case that the second BCS bid was the worst thing that could have happened to the conference.
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frug,
“I agree that the ACC should pursue a matchup with ND, but I’m not really sure how you are defining power and brand names. What I mean is that on the open market both rank behind (at least) the Big 10 and SEC #2s even if the ACC holds onto FSU. To be honest, in an open market I wouldn’t be surprised if the Big 10 and SEC #3s and Big XII and PAC-12 #2s were valued higher than the ACC and ND.”
You can argue the ACC champ’s place in the pecking order, but you’re crazy to lump in ND with them. ND is still a big TV draw and thus has big value.
“The horrific TV ratings and poor ticket sales by V-Tech despite facing arguably the biggest draw in all of college football (UM)”
You can’t even argue that point. There is zero rational basis for MI being the biggest draw in all of college football. Maybe in the B10, but I think OSU is a bigger draw right now. There’s no way MI is a bigger draw than AL right now, just to name one.
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On point 1) go back and compare ND to those other ties over the past few years and you will see that they are probably just as valuable as ND.
2) We will just have to disagree. I don’t think they are the biggest draw but I can see someone making that case. There is really no solid way to prove it either way.
Of course even if you disagree about UM’s drawing power my overall point stands; V-Tech’s performance was disastrous.
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Agree, VaT was bad both on the field and at the box office.
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frug,
“On point 1) go back and compare ND to those other ties over the past few years and you will see that they are probably just as valuable as ND.”
Not sure how we determine value. Back when bowls had choices, they took bad ND teams over better conference teams. My bigger objection was to treating ND and the ACC champ as the same value, not to who you placed above them in your list per se. It’s all conjecture, though.
“2) We will just have to disagree. I don’t think they are the biggest draw but I can see someone making that case. There is really no solid way to prove it either way.”
Sure there is. They could look at TV ratings and attendance and ask people who would know, like TV and bowl execs.
“Of course even if you disagree about UM’s drawing power my overall point stands; V-Tech’s performance was disastrous.”
That’s why I didn’t argue that point.
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My bigger objection was to treating ND and the ACC champ as the same value
Final regular seasons record for ND and ACC champ since the ACC moved to 12 teams in 2005
2005: ND (9-2) FSU (8-4)
2006: ND (10-2) Wake (11-2)
2007: ND (3-9) V-Tech (11-2)
2008: ND (6-6) V-Tech (9-4)
2009: ND (6-6) G-Tech (11-2)
2010: ND (7-5) V-Tech (11-2)
2011: ND (8-4) Clemson (10-3)
From a bowl desirability stand point Notre Dame wins in ’05 and ’06 and loses the rest of the battles.
I really don’t see how Notre Dame is a bigger “get” than the ACC champ at this point (especially since ND didn’t get to go to bowls twice in the past 5 years).
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Because ND has upside. With the same record, ND is much more valuable. The tradeoff is ND is independent while the ACC has 14 teams to choose from. That said, I think most BCS bowls would still prefer a mediocre ND to an ACC champ based on recent performance.
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With the same record, ND is much more valuable. The tradeoff is ND is independent while the ACC has 14 teams to choose from.
But that’s the key; only once since ACC expansion has Notre Dame matched the record of the ACC champ. Unless Kelly actually turns the team around in the next 3 years, I don’t see anyway ND would get a better payout on the open market than the ACC champ even if the conference loses FSU and Clemson.
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They don’t need to match. The brand is worth about 1.5 games (some years more, some less depending on the losses and who the ACC champ is).
8-4 ND ~ 10-3 ACC champ
9-3 ND ~ 11-2 ACC champ
10-2 ND ~ 12-1 ACC champ
11-1 ND > 13-0 ACC champ
12-0 ND >>> any ACC champ
That means ND was more valuable in 2005, 2006, and about the same in 2011. The period in between was a low point in ND history (winning 3, 6, 6, and 7), so not a wise basis for comparison. When you consider that ND is trending up, the value proposition is even more in their favor.
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11-1 ND > 13-0 ACC champ
I’ll give the others, but I don’t buy this one. A 13-0 ACC champ is probably playing for a national title, an 11-1 ND might need some help.
Like I said, if Kelly turns them around they will be fine, but frankly people have been saying for a decade and half that this is the year Notre Dame turns it around and we have seen how that has worked out…
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Brian,
Michigan probably isn’t the biggest draw nationally RIGHT NOW, but they very well might be long-term, along with the likes of Florida, Alabama,Texas, Ohio State, and maybe USC. Michigan has one of, if not the biggest living alumni bases worldwide, it has a national brand name, and is located in a populous state.
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Art,
MI is in that top group, but they clearly aren’t #1 right now and that’s the point that was under discussion.
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Carve up the ACC:
B1G adds Notre Dame, Rutgers, Maryland and Virginia.
Big 12 adds Florida St, Ga Tech, Clemson, NC St, Pitt, Miami
SEC adds Virgina Tech, North Carolina
Rose bowl winner plays new B12/SEC bowl winner in the championship game. If a lesser conference champ manages to get ranked 1 or 2, they can take the place of the lowest ranked B1G/P12/SEC/B12champ in the respective bowl.
60 schools in four big time conferences.
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Is that any better? You just realigned the ACC into existing conferences. It’s either 4 conferences of 60 schools or 5 conferences with 62 schools. Not much difference between the two
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4 conferences can play two bowl games to seed a national championship game. 5 can’t.
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What happens to the ACC if, assuming FSU & Clemson leave, NC State and Va Tech (political considerations noted) decide the SEC’s grass is greener?
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Indeed, what if FSU and Clemson leave (whether decided this summer or next) and as a result VTech decides to act on their discussion with the SEC? (There’s increasing smoke to that fire, too.) Does the new blood at GTech decide to ride it out with a semi-gutted ACC that can’t improve it’s football (other than a Big East-esque Notre Dame and BYU hail mary?) NC St stay loyal as the SEC woos them, knowing that if UNC changes its mind and goes SEC they could be left out in the cold? Pitt and (long time rumored to be flirty) MD won’t look?
FSU and Clemson leaving might not kill the ACC, but if VTech then goes SEC this could unravel relatively quickly. To the point that UNC might even grab a lifeboat.
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I apologize for the spelling/grammatical errors, but there is no way to correct them.
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FSU and Clemson guarantees the eventual death of the ACC.
It may not happen for another 5 or 10 or even 20 years, but that conference is a dead man walking if those two schools bolt.
All they’d have left in the way of football powers is Miami and Va Tech. That wasn’t enough to carry the Big East in 2003, and it’s certainly not enough to carry the ACC in the 2010s or 2020s.
It’s just a question of how far they fall behind before other schools bolt. Right now the difference may only be a few millions, but what happens when it’s $10M per year? That’s what will doom the conference if FSU and Clemson leave.
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Great post founded in reason and sanity, Frank.
I’m going in the other direction. The Big Ten Network’s plan to take over the world. http://www.nittanylionsden.com/2012-articles/may/the-big-ten-networks-big-takeover.html
Most of what I learned about this stuff I’ve learned from this blog, so there are a few shoutouts to Frank in here.
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Reason and sanity aren’t the big issues here. Money and passion are.
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Stellar article. At the current, revolutionary rate of change his very well could happen. The addition of ND would insure its plausibility and success. They would be wise to consider it.
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Frank,
I will pose the same question to you that I posed to Mr SEC. How do your suggestions put Clemson and FSU at parity with South Carolina and UF? Those are the schools that Clemson and FSU benchmark themselves against. Answering those question will ultimately keep the ACC intact as it is today. All you have done with these suggestions is reshuffle the deck chairs.
1. Agree on a North – South alignment rather then the god awful zipper, but it doesn’t move the money needle; its a nice to have and would have played better a year ago.
2. Faculty has little to no say in these discussions and the Big 12 has begun talks to create a conference research arm. While the ACC is undoubtedly a stronger academic brand, no faculty member is getting up in the Faculty Senate and pushing a university to leave $8 – 10 MM on the table. It will not happen.
3. Changing the football schedule is a nice to have. These moves doesn’t move the money needle and would have had a great deal more impact a year ago and placated FSU/Clemson right after the Pitt/Cuse move. Now its seen as a desperate move. Bad non-play by Swofford.
4. How does putting Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl directly impact Clemson and FSU? It doesn’t. It doesn’t do one thing for them. Notre Dame 10 years ago could have saved the ACC by itself, but not today.
5. Getting a B12 like deal for the ACC, this only helps those left behind not FSU or Clemson.
We have two options: keep the ACC intact as it stands today or save it/reload it after a Clemson/FSU + others defect. If you wanna keep the ACC intact; these suggestions have zero probability in doing that because they do not answer the fundamental question: how do you put Clemson and FSU at parity with UF and South Carolina. Even with 5 year look-ins, the ACC will be perceptually behind every other major conference with the exception of the Big East for the near future (< 10 years). If you are FSU and Clemson, you are going to be at a disadvantage for the next decade like the last decade at least to your competitors. So the question to those schools do you wanna fight at a disadvantage and stay in the ACC or do you want to explore your options like what is happening today.
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That’s the crux of the matter, hangtime, and I don’t see anything in Frank’s suggestions that go beyond wishful thinking. The football-oriented schools are tired of being dragged down by their ACC brethren, and while dealing with Texas has its own perils, at least it speaks the same language as Clemson and Florida State — language rarely spoken in Chapel Hill and Durham.
If Clemson and FSU go, the pressure is next on Virginia Tech to flee for the SEC, something its fan base — especially those outside northern Virginia — would savor. If that passion becomes more intense and Tech takes such action, the question then shifts to who goes with the Gobblers. North Carolina (Slive’s dream, even though it’s not really UNC’s)? N.C. State (Slive’s plan B)? Maryland, which would prefer the Big Ten but now desperate (if UNC says no, then blocks State)? And might the Big Ten decide to swoop in to grab the likes of Maryland and UNC before the SEC does? A FSU/Clemson defection makes the ACC a heckuva lot more vulnerable.
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How exactly are the football “powers” of the ACC being dragged down by their conference brethren? Last year FSU lost at home to UVa one week and beat UF in Gainesville the next. If being dragged down means losing, then that’s the nature of sports. FSU’s fans’ complaints about the ACC are completely without merit.
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The ACC really hurt FSU (and Clemson to a lesser extent I guess) by basically handing their 3rd tier rights over to Raycomm (through ESPN) for basically nothing. UF gets around what, $10 million a year for their 3rd tier rights? Now FSU probably can’t get that much for theirs, but they could probably get at least $3-5 million I would think.
You have to ask yourself what Swafford (or whoever negotiated the tv contract) was thinking by including the 3rd tier rights in with their ESPN deal. If you believe the conspiracy theory going around that Swafford did it to help out his son who works for Raycomm, then I guess that would be one reason. But outside of that, I don’t understand their thinking other than they figured that none of the other schools would be able to make much off of them, so why not just let ESPN/Raycomm just have them. Now FSU is at a big disadvantage with their neighbors in the SEC, and that is without the upcoming SEC network being factored in.
I don’t see the ACC being able to do anything about that (which is the really issue facing them concerning FSU). I think their only hope is that the Big 12 (UT) decides not to expand. Outside of that, I don’t see the ACC being able to bridge the financial gap facing FSU. I guess if ESPN really wants to see the ACC stay intact, maybe they could give the ACC back their 3rd tier rights for no cost. But I don’t see that ever happening.
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@bamatab – I can’t really blame the ACC for negotiating that position. Remember that up until maybe last month, the third tier rights in the Big 12 were much more of a source of instability than a drawing card because of how much Texas is able to receive compared to everyone else. (And considering that the Longhorn Network can’t get carriage, it’s doubtful that anyone could ever expect anything close to what Texas receives for its third tier rights ever again.) Even a school such as Nebraska that could sell PPV games very well and make good money off of their third tier rights in the Big 12 found it better to assign those rights to the Big Ten. The Big Ten and Pac-12 have strong financial models predicated on having all TV rights for football and basketball (including third tier rights) owned by the conference as opposed to individual schools. We may very well end up with the SEC having the same position if they form a new TV network as reported since the third tier rights are the only items on the table that the SEC doesn’t have to buy back from ESPN somehow if the conference wants equity in the network.
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@Frank – If I’m being honest, I really think that the Big 12 (UT actually) has also dug itself in hole as well. It appears that the conference networks are the future of maximizing tv revenues, and the LHN has severely hampered the Big 12’s ability to capitalize on it unless ESPN, the Big 12, and UT can figure out a way to bundle the LHN in with a Big 12 Network. If I was DeLoss Dodds, I’d be a little worried that a SEC Network might be able to gain a foothold in the Texas tv cable/satillite markets, while my LHN is having a hard time gaining traction in those same markets.
As in regards to what content the SEC will actually have for the purposed SEC Network, I’m not sure anyone (including Slive or ESPN) knows how that will all shake out. The SEC doesn’t need that many games to fill a Saturday of live football (what they really need is the ability to have/gain the replay rights to the games so that they can replay games during the off season). You can really only broadcast three games at the most on a given Saturday. And as it stands now, ESPN already has to sell some of its 2nd tier SEC tv rights to local distributors because they can’t show it all on the ESPN channels. So would ESPN be willing to sell those rights back to the SEC in 2014 when their contract with the local distributors is over? Maybe but it’ll probably cost the SEC an arm and a leg for them. Where does the new content that the additions of TAMU & Mizzou fall in with regards to the current ESPN contract? I don’t think I’ve read where anyone has commented on that. But I’m thinking worst case scenario is that the SEC and ESPN work out a deal that gives ESPN 51% ownership of the SEC Network, and the SEC would get 49% like the current B1G Network. That seems to be a pretty lucrative deal for the B1G, so I’m sure it would probably work out for the SEC as well.
It’ll be interesting to see how these conference networks all shake out over time. The B1G is the only conference that has proven to be able to make money over an extended period of time with one. We’ll see how the Pac 12’s format works out over an extended period of time. My only concern for the Pac 12’s regional networks is whether or not they get enough demand for them by their fanbases. That isn’t a problem for the B1G, and I very seriously doubt it will be for the SEC.
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bamatab, we have no idea that the ACC got “basically nothing” for 3rd tier. They probably had to provide that much inventory to ESPN to get the money they ended up getting. It says more about the ACC’s bargaining position than anything.
Also, 3rd tier broadcast rights valuations continue to be exaggerated. UF gets $10M for 3rd tier broadcast rights and a slew of other stuff. OSU gets $11M for no 3rd tier broadcast rights but a slew of other stuff. Little brother and non-football power NCSU just signed a deal for $5M a year for their other stuff, with zero 3rd tier.
I still think the 3rd tier broadcast rights (for the conferences that retain them) are worth $1-$2M per school. There are indeed outliers like Texas, but Clemson and FSU aren’t going to make a killing on Tier 3.
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So which is it? Either they’re worth nothing, or they’re worth something. In this case, we will never really know. Those who have the contract will know what the allocation was, but the chances that the most popular football programs in the league got a raw deal — whatever it might be — are pretty good.
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They’re worth something. The football schools didn’t get a raw deal. They are part of the unattractiveness. Now they want to blame the conference.
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FSU gets $6.5 million already for much the same rights Alabama gets $10 million for. The Tier 3 thing is a huge red herring for the most part.
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add
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Pingback: ACC Football Daily Links — Big 12 Not Interested in Expanding Back to 12 At This Time | Atlantic Coast Convos
Some thoughts on the post
(1) Change the Football Divisional Alignment to North/South
While I agree almost anything is better than Atlantic / Coastal, the terms North and South may not be the best given the history – even tho I personally like North and South simplicity. If you make Miami a North team, you would have to do the same for Duke. The root issue tho is sound in that you need to make it easy for the fans to comprehend. I do agree that teams nearest to you are the ones that are in your division. With all this realignment we still have yet to see how distance plays out on fans who must pay more to travel. This IU vs UK thing in basketball is a mess because neither team will wind up with a border rival game. If IU plays UCLA now instead it sounds good, but do I follow UCLA enough to care? If the money is driving this, then is it too much to ask the networks to protect the games that make the fans happy? Playing more game in football venues in non touching states is the sign we are leaving the traditional fans behind.
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(2) Lobby the Faculty Members at Florida State and Clemson
While it sounds good, does the Faculty really have a voice? While I wish this were true, this is a money grab which means the thoughtful answers will be shouted down by the mob of sports fans. I keep thinking we should just spin off the sports teams as for profit farm teams and call it what it really is. If the control is now in the hands of a few TV executives, and not in the hands of the schools, having the Faculty involved would be great, just don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen.
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(3) Change the Football Scheduling to Appease Florida State and Clemson
This seems like a no brainer as a simple and effective fix, which means it will not happen
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(4) Sign an Orange Bowl Tie-in with Notre Dame as the Opponent
The bigger issue is how do you fix the ACC to stop predation? Playing Notre Dame is not the same as having Notre Dame in the conference. While most were lamenting the lack of football prowess of the additions of Syracuse and Pittsburgh, they missed the point that both had more MNC’s than the majority of ACC schools. The problem is they have not had that success lately and we live in an age of ADD and the 5 second sound byte. Perhaps the better move was to add Notre Dame and Pitt instead of Syracuse and Pitt. This did not happen and that cow is already out of the barn. Scheduling Notre Dame vs the ACC in the Orange Bowl is too little, too late. To be fair tho, if Florida State and Clemson were beating the other ACC schools with regularity they would not be in this position now.
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(5) Push ESPN to Maintain Value of TV Contract if There are Defections
Aside from the economics – and remember ESPN is a for profit entity – there is the bigger issue at the root, which money will not fix. Florida State is new to the ACC, but Clemson is not. The Tigers were a charter member of the ACC, so this says way more about what is happening in the ACC beside the money. When Miami is mentioned as leaving the ACC, that is not the same as Maryland, or even Georgia Tech because they have less time vested in the community of the conference. Clemson is not equal to Florida State in this sense, and yet people keep neglecting this part of the discussion. Clemson looks at charter ACC member South Carolina and the growth they have made in the SEC, and the ACC has not made the effort to see it not happen again. If Clemson goes, it means Georgia Tech and Maryland are serious concerns for leaving the ACC on Clemson’s heels. Once the wall is breached, the barbarians are going to sack the city.
All along I have argued the predator vs prey argument, and while the ACC was never an apex predator, they were at least a pack predator like hyenas. The issue here is that to be affective they need numbers, and if Florida State and Clemson are out the door that means the loss of the alpha dogs in ACC football. The loss of these schools means substitution by teams with less football strength, which weakens the ACC as a whole. Would the B1G survive the loss of Ohio State and Michigan? Would the B12 survive the loss of Texas and Oklahoma? The loss of just Southern Cal from the PAC would probably damage that conference beyond repair. This is why I keep issuing the question of what is the ACC if they crack?
An ACC without Clemson and Florida State is damaged, and if they lose Georgia Tech and Maryland they are done. Sure they may be the ACC in name, but they will no longer be the ACC that we know today. This is the part folks keep forgetting in the discussion. When I read boards folks seem to be under the illusion that the remaining ACC will be the same as the current ACC, and this is just wrong. The B12 may have been on life support, but they did not lose their anchors in Texas and Oklahoma. UNC + Duke + basketball may have been the past, but we are in the age of football decisions, and Duke football has no value, and no apparent desire to get better. At least Wake Forest has tried to overcome size limitations and field decent teams.
For a collection of bright academic schools the ACC seems to ignore history. Just down the road was a strong football conference that held academics in high standing. They won MNC after MNC and dominated the rest of college football in a way even the SEC would envy. They had the media monopoly and huge stadiums and yet they still fell from grace. Sure the ACC may live on the same way the Ivy League lives on, but when was the last time you saw the Ivy League getting a big media deal, or saw one of their games on national TV?
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In what way, exactly, has the Ivy League “fell from grace”? The league is comprised of institutions of extraordinary wealth and prestige and virtually every high achieving high school senior would give their right eye to receive a thick packet in the mail from a member of this “lesser” athletic conference. The ACC may wind up as an Ivy League lite, a collection of well regarded Universities that struggles in football competion against ginormous state funded football factories. I would suggest that most non-subway alumni would be okay with this.
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I never said they fell from academic grace, but when was the last time they affected who went to the MNC game? It may not become Ivy League Lite because not all academics in the ACC are equal. If a “reduced” ACC is drawing 20K – 40K to football games, they will prove that history does indeed repeat. Maybe a school like UNC holds it together, but it is a state school and all that cash and power will tempt the Tarheels, especially if NCST goes to the SEC and starts dominating NC sports the way South Carolina is beginning to dominate SC sports. Do you really think Tulane leaves the SEC if they knew where the SEC would be now? Nobody is doubting the academic ability of Tulane, but they have fallen far from their glory days in college sports. On a side note, did you choose your handle from the greek or from the fruit drink since you mentioned non-subway alumni?
Ivy League MNC’s in college football
Princeton = 28, 1 since WWII in 1950
Their old stadium held 52,000 and the new one holds 28,000
Yale = 26, 0 since WWII
Built in 1914 it seated ~71K and held 80K for the Army game in 1923
It seats ~61K and drew ~12K, ~14K, ~18K, ~19K, and ~55K (harvard) at home in 2011
Harvard = 7, 0 since WWII
Built in 1903 it seated ~57K, but has been reduced to ~30K
Harvard drew ~19K, ~16K, ~11K, ~6K, and ~11K at home in 2011
Penn = 7, 0 since WWII
Built in 1895 it seated ~78K, but has been reduced to ~53K
Cornell = 5, 0 since WWII
Built in 1915 it seats ~26K
Dartmouth = 1, 0 since WWII
Built in 1923 it seated ~22K, but has been reduced to ~16K
Columbia = 0, 0 since WWII
Built in 1928 it seated ~32K, was rebuilt in 1984 ~17K
Brown = 0, 0 since WWII
Built in 1925 it seats ~20K and held 33K for the Colgate game in 1932
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I agree that the Ivy league has long since left the conversation in regards to the national collegiate football championship. And while football is certainly important, I would suggest that overwhelming majority of the schools in Division 1 would push aside their football ambitions if they were offered a spot among the Ivies.
While the ACC is not at that level, I would suggest that most colleges really want to be associated with schools like Duke, NC and Virginia even if only on an athletic basis. Admittedly, the ambitions of schools in the ACC vary wildly. BC uses football to distinguish themselves from the many other highly regarded and insanely expensive schools within a short train ride of the Chestnut Hill Campus while FSU requires football success to bring in state funding and alumni donations. But I think it will be exceedingly difficult for schools like FSU and Clemson to pull away from the ACC for a Big 12 that is highly dependent on the generosity of the SEC for its recent jump in stature.
My handle is derived from the fruit drink with the rainbow colored zebra mascot.
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They don’t give out athletic scholarships. That’s why they can’t compete.
Arguments about the Ivy League being irrelevant in the MNC are like saying Chicago is irrelevant. It was a conscious decision by Ivy League schools and one of the reasons Michigan didn’t join the Ivy League when invited.
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point 4 seems to assume that having ND join the ACC for football was ever on the table. There’s little reason so assume that it was.
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Your divisions are exactly how I thought they should have done them a year ago. If all 5 Big East members had joined together, that’s almost certainly how they would have gone. I hope that ends up happening as it makes too much sense not to.
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I also like Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl provided they meet some minimum threshold.
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Apology if this was already posted, but it is an article by Chadd Scott (the guy that dates / dated Kristi dosh?) about the Wal Mart nature of modern college football.
http://dev.chuckoliver.net/2012/05/realignment-and-the-wal-martization-of-college-football/
here is the link
Looks like he is saying what I have been saying on FtT for quite some time. 😦
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Thanks. That’s a great read. Another CFB blog to follow!(sigh)
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I think this could be a good thing…that CFB can preserve its “corner store” appeal rather than a “Wal Mart” feel. But the problem is in how things will be carved up. Geography isn’t a huge deal in most cases. The Big Ten going a bit west and then a bit east or a bit south…not a big deal. The Big East going San Diego to Connecticut…that’s ridiculous. The MWC/CUSA spanning the nation…that’s not good for the sport either. The other albatross for CFB is the smaller D1 schools. If you’re talking about mass appeal, a casual fan who is unaffiliated with a school doesn’t want to be troubled with the Eastern Michigans and Southern Alabamas of the world. Give them Duke/Alabama or Michigan/Texas Tech…they can live with that. Mismatches…yes…but 120+ schools is too many for “big time” college football.
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How would the ACC and Notre Dame distribute the revenue from the Orange Bowl (or, like the new SEC-Big 12 game, a new bowl given to the highest bidder)? Could they work out something where the revenue is split 16 ways. Each ACC team gets a share, Notre Dame always gets a share whether they play in the game or not, and the extra share goes to Notre Dame if they are in the game, or another school if Notre Dame is in some 4-team playoff or not bowl eligible. If the revenue from this ACC-Notre Dame game is comparable the SEC-Big 12 game, individual schools could actually make more as the pie is being shared by fewer schools.
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How does the ACC survive in the long run without FSU and Clemson? They’re the two biggest football schools in terms of stadium size/fan support, and you just have Miami/Va Tech to carry the football banner (of which Miami doesn’t have great fan support even if it is a television draw).
Big East in 2003:
Miami
Va Tech
WVU
Pitt
Syracuse
BC
Rutgers
Temple
ACC in 2012 (minus FSU/Clemson):
Miami
Va Tech
UNC
NC State
Ga Tech
UVa
Maryland
Pitt
Syracuse
BC
Wake Forest
Duke
It’s really hard to argue that the ACC minus FSU/Clemson is much better in terms of national football TV quality than the 2003 Big East especially given that FSU and Clemson were probably the two most discussed ACC schools this past football season, even though Va Tech got that Sugar Bowl bid. Clemson always seems to do well in recruiting and preseason rankings even though they typically end up flaming out sometime during ACC play…
Yes, it’s better than the Big East of 2003 because of the Tobacco Road region that anchors the population fanbase with schools like UNC/NC State/UVa/Maryland, but other than population base, that isn’t a much better conference in terms of football quality.
Over time, the disparity between the ACC and the Big Ten/SEC would probably grow large enough ($10M+ per school by 2020?) that schools like Va Tech and UNC are going to have to ask why they’re still there…
That’s why the ACC can’t afford to lose FSU and Clemson.
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Frank,
Where was your 5 step plan for saving the Big 12 a couple of summers ago?
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@Josh – There was only one step for saving the Big 12: Texas needed to stay.
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http://www.tampabay.com/sports/big-east-tv-deal-might-be-small/1232903
‘The “most conservative estimate” for a new Big East TV deal is $6.4 million per school annually, San Diego State president Elliot Hirschman said Wednesday.’
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Assuming the 6.4MM is the share to a full member and a 70/30 split for football/basketball, Big East football only is worth 4.5MM to Boise and SDSU.
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Assuming that SDSU is a football member, that is the amount for football only members.
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football only
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A few thoughts …
(1) I’m fine with the north/south divisions, although whether or not it’s critical, I’m not sure. The south would probably be tougher. Everyone would laugh at Miami being in the “North” division … but I guess that doesn’t matter either, and I understand the logic behind it.
(2) I don’t think this will be a huge factor. If the athletic department is successful, it brings in more money for the school (including for academics), and if FSU and Clemson think they can make substantially more money in another conference, then that will trump the faculty concerns about the “academic strength of the league.”
(3) I think the ACC, as long as it has 14 teams, might reconsider moving to a nine-game conference schedule, and instead keep it at eight (perhaps use the SEC’s 6-1-1 plan). I’d also have no objection to “weaker” teams being played before FSU / GT / Clemson play their SEC opponents.
(4) I think the Orange bowl needs to move back to New Year’s day (that’s part of the problem) and should also consider getting the “next best team out of the SEC and Big 12 (and possibly Big Ten),” whoever that might be. I think that would be a better matchup (either ACC champ or #2 vs. an SEC or Big 12 team) than anything against the Big East. Having Notre Dame as an additional option might be good.
(5) That could help some, but the ACC would still be a crippled football conference if FSU (and someone else) left.
What you didn’t include, and what I think is critical (and I’m very frustrated by the ACC management regarding this) is to form an ACC TV network. The “ACC Digital Network” is fine, as far as it goes, but it is NOT THE SAME as a network on TELEVISION. If the ACC partnered with ESPN, then some of the ESPN3 content could be shown to a wider audience via television, more advertising revenue would be acquired, carriage fees for carrying the TV network would come in (the BTN receives a lot from these alone), and there could be substantial additional revenue for the conference. If the Big Ten can do it in the midwest, the ACC can damn well do it on the east coast.
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Regarding point 5: The Big Ten can do it because it has large public institutions that deliver virtually all of their internal TV markets in terms of cable network carriage.
The ACC only accomplishes that in 3 states: North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland.
For the rest, there are big questions. How much of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina are delivered by FSU, Miami, Ga Tech, and Clemson? All of those states have SEC schools that are the dominant TV draw, so there’s no given that you can get all the big markets in central Florida (Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville), and there’s no guarantee that Ga Tech and Clemson deliver all of their states (although Clemson comes closest out of the 4).
Looking up to the Northeast, what exactly does BC, Syracuse, and Pitt get a TV network? Coverage in Pittsburgh and the Northwest part of New York at best? What is that worth?
The ACC covers an enormous span of territory in terms of states, but the crucial question is how much of the TV markets are delivered if you’re talking about networks.
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As someone originally from SC with family still there, you overestimate South Carolina’s dominance. The Gamecocks have gotten the press recently, but the are on equal standing in the state. Not sure how valuable delivering all of SC is anyway, unless you consider the Charlotte market, which is definitely Clemson Territory
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That’s fair, and Clemson’s the only one that I could see delivering because that state is basically 50-50.
But the problems with Ga Tech, FSU, and Miami as well as BC, Syracuse, Pitt, etc. aren’t understated.
I’m not sure what kind of carriage you get for those 6 schools; you might get Miami, but what does FSU actually deliver?
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FSU has about 40,000 students, so there are a fair number of FSU people out there.
If we assumed that FSU & Miami could get carriage in the Florida Panhandle, Jacksonville, and Miami (including the urban areas nearby), that’s about 7.8 million people (about 40% of the state). Whether or not that’s a wishful assumption, I don’t know.
I agree that I wouldn’t expect the ACC having one school in a state to deliver the entire state, but I do think that it will be able to get a good bit of distribution (even if not quite as much as the Big Ten). The BTN is available (not subscribers, but is available) to 75 million people, which is a little more than the entire population of all of its member states. The last numbers I’ve found have 26 million subscribers, and the last estimate I saw was a $0.36 carriage fee. That translates to $112 million per year in carriage fees. If we assumed the ACC could only get a $0.24 carriage fee (2/3 of the Big Ten) and only 13 million subscribers (1/2 of the Big Ten), that’s still $37.4 million per year.
The potential for an ACC TV Network is also why I think Rutgers is worth adding to the league (if Notre Dame could be convinced to join), despite their relative mediocrity in athletics.
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I imagine a lot of cable deals either include internet broadcast rights or prohibits anyone from using them.
ESPN has ESPN3 for this sort of thing, and it’s in their best interest to kill any potential competitor in the womb. They’re the middleman: content creators cutting them out of the picture is their biggest nightmare.
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I get that, but if an ACC TV Network is a joint effort between the ACC and ESPN, then ESPN is not a as much a competitor as it is a partner.
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Right, but cable networks cost money. ESPN has a lot of the resources already available, but there’s still time and effort needed, and if ESPN thought it would float, they’d have done it already.
The Longhorn Network was a gambit to keep the Big XII together, and we’re seeing the difficulties the LHN has with getting on people’s television sets.
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LHN difficulties are not much different from BTN difficulties in getting carriage at first-yet.
If ESPN doesn’t get better carriage this summer, then they will have to re-think the rates or length of the carriage agreements they want.
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The issue with the LHN is pretty simple. Content. There just isn’t enough of it that anyone really wants to watch on TV. The BTN and the LHN really can’t be compared.
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ESPN as a charity (#5) is hard to believe. The B12 contracts were undervalued and near expiration and included Texas, one of the most valuable properties available. It was in the network’s interest to pay more now to lock in to a longer term. Not so with a ACC minus FSU. At a minimum ESPN will take back the bump it just provided with expansion so the $$$ will be less.
:
VATech got the Sugar bid over XII but that turned into a disaster. Lots of tickets not sold by VA Tech while KS St sold out its Cotton allotment in 24 hours. Not much bowl value in ACC schools outside the SE (still lots of FL bowls), and ND will take at least half of the bowl money for any tie-in.
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Not in any way to insult Frank’s column, but the most informative and useful part of this post is the knowledge that Chick-fil-a is in the Chicago area. I will be at the one in Schaumburg this weekend. Thanks Frank!
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@Fryguy – They’ve opened up a few Chicago area locations in the past year, including one that’s only a couple of miles from my house. I absolutely love the spicy chicken sandwich.
We’ve been getting an influx of previously regional chains expanding here lately. Five Guys is almost ubiquitous now and Sonic has started opening up locations, too.
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Frank,
Don’t sleep on that chicken biscuit either. It’s is absolutely sinfully good, and horrible for you, but man do I love that breakfast item. And to think, 14 years ago I said bad things about people that ate chicken for breakfast….
Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm…
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If you all think Chick-fil-a is wonderful, wait until a Bojangles hits your area. They have been slow to move from the Southeast, but fried chicken n biscuits never tasted as good.
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@Psuhockey – Preach it brother! I have yet to eat a chicken biscuit (from a fast food chain at least) that compares to Bojangles, Chick-fil-a included (although they are cajun seasoned). Plus you can get the chicken biscuits all day long (not just in the mornings), and can get their cajun seasoned fries with it instead of having to settle for tatter tots.
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B-Tab – I haven’t eaten at a Bojangles in 20 years, but back then neither its biscuits nor its chicken could compare to Popeyes.
Also, on behalf of the Great State of Louisiana, although I’m not a cajun, you’re welcome for cajun seasoning.
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Alan – I don’t think any of the Popeyes around where I live serve breakfast or chicken biscuits. But if you are talking just a chicken plate (breast/wings or thighs/legs), then I’ll have to agree with you that Popeyes is better (along with their mashed potatoes and cajun gravy). But the Bojangle chicken biscuit is awsome. You might want to pick one up the next time you are around a Bojangles for breakfast.
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“a little cayuun, a little oonyuuun” 🙂
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KFCrap < food pantry leftover chicken < Swanson's TV dinner sorta fried chicken < Bojangles < Hartz Buffet < Popeye's < Church's spicy (but some locations have inferior quality) < original Frenchy's (only found in Houston)
That's for fried, but nothing really beats the Mardi Gras baked chicken from Publix.
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Popeyes and Churchs have slipped a little in recent years. Popeye’s used to be great.
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Hook ’em
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FSU and Miami should be in the same division. Those are your two marquee programs. So why make them have to potentially beat each other twice to qualify for the playoff? That is great for TV and the fans. But it sucks for those schools and the rest of the conference as it makes things a lot harder. I would go to the following:
FSU, Miami, Pitt, SU, BC, NC St, Wake
Clemson, GA Tech, VT, UVA, MD, UNC, Duke
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For those who keep mentioning UNC to the SEC – it’s not happening. UNC views there academic reputation too highly (similar to Texas) to associate with the SEC. If the ACC implodes they will reach out to the B1G for a lifeline.
Also, for those who do not understand the governance system for the state schools in North Carolina. All the schools: UNC-Chapel Hill (the UNC you know of), NC State, UNC-Charlotte, App State, etc. are all part of the UNC system which all are controlled by the SAME Board of Governors. Thus, its the same people who would decide if UNC and/or NC State would go to another conference. Thus, there is absolutely zero chance they would vote to allow UNC or NC State to go to the SEC without the other.
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Thus, its the same people who would decide if UNC and/or NC State would go to another conference. Thus, there is absolutely zero chance they would vote to allow UNC or NC State to go to the SEC without the other.
You’re close, but that is not totally right. While they do share a BoG, that doesn’t mean they are bound to each other; it means they have veto power over each others movements so long as the ACC remains viable.
If UNC and NC-State mutually approached the BoG with a proposal that would send UNC to the Big Ten and NC-State to the SEC I doubt the BoG would overrule them so long as the two continued to play each other OOC.
That said, I do agree that the only way UNC ends up in the SEC is if the ACC collapses and the SEC is only willing to take NC-State if they paired with UNC (the Big Ten wouldn’t take NC-State for academic reasons). At that point, the BoG probably would force the Tar Heels to take the SEC deal and drag the Wolfpack with them.
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While schools and academics may hold sway in discussions with private schools, the same is not true of public ones. State politicians, big donors, and voters will have a say behind the scenes before it is said and done. How many citizens of NC actually went to UNC? If it becomes political, and it will, all bets are off. The current governor of the state is a democrat who holds degrees from SEC schools Kentucky and Florida. Granted a new election is approaching, but realignment may happen in the next month or so, and there may already be efforts in place on what happens to UNC and NCST in the next month or so if Florida State, Clemson, and others depart the ACC for new conferences.
I can easily see a deal made that sends UNC to the SEC and NCST to the B12. I can also see a deal made that sends UNC to the B1G and NCST to the SEC. If professors have their way, then UNC may be B1G bound, but if donors and voters have their way it would not surprise me in the least to see UNC in the SEC. I said it before, and will repeat it, that when a charter member leaves, the ship is sinking and those with the best chance will find new homes first. Just as UT was leading the charge to the PAC, it would not surprise me to see UNC leading the charge if the ACC begins to fail. Just look at the past :
Missouri grumbles in 2010, Maryland grumbled early on
Nebraska left in 2010, Florida State may leave in 2012
Colorado left in 2010, Clemson may leave in 2012
TAMU & Missouri left in 2011, ???? & ???? may leave in 2012
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Yes, fans/donors are very important to certain school decisions, but that’s not always the case.
UNC is like Texas or OU. They can choose whatever they want, and their fans/donors will follow.
Texas could go anywhere, just as UNC would be able to choose where they want to go. Those two are powerful enough that their fans would fall in line in general. I’m not sure the fans of those schools really care either way. Texas’ fans weren’t really unanimously in favor of anything, and it doesn’t seem like UNC’s have reached that point either.
Now, other schools like FSU, Va Tech, and Clemson may end up in the same situations as Texas A&M and Mizzouri where they have to do something because the fans rise up.
I just think we spend too much time assuming all these schools are going to follow one model of behavior, when that’s never been the case.
UNC seems to carry itself like a king in the fashion of Texas or OU. Those schools tend to have fanbases more inclined to believe that “the school is always right.” That’s a different attitude from what we see with other schools where the fans are more adamant about making a move to other places…
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There is one major difference between Texas and North Carolina.– football revenue and football power…and these days, football calls the shots. Texas can afford to be the alpha dog in the Big 12 because it wields enough football influence (in conjunction with Oklahoma) to keep it going. If the ACC collapses, UNC doesn’t carry enough football weight to maintain its current level of revenue, even were it to win three NCAA men’s basketball titles in a row. If the folks in Chapel Hill are sufficiently delusional to believe they can keep the ACC sinking ship afloat without top-tier football $, let them go ahead and try; I doubt they will like the outcome.
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Still not sure where I see too much disagreement. I mean I guess it’s possible that UNC could end up in the SEC without NC-State but that would have to be last resort and just for academic reasons. Remember, UNC is a basketball school first so they are going to make more money in the Big Ten (which has led the nation in MBB attendance 36 years running and makes more money per team than any conference) than they ever would in the football dominant SEC.
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Keep in mind that while the B1G may have led the nation in MBB attendance, the SEC has been second (more than the ACC and the Big East) and is not that far behind. Now I don’t know much about the MBB revenue numbers, but whatever they are pale in comparision to what football brings in. And the SEC and B1G are about even when it comes to having the over all top revenue producing athletic departments.
I’ve looked at several of the UNC fan forums, and the majority of the fans want in the SEC (they view themselves as a southern school and don’t like the idea of having to play games in the northern and western parts of the B1G). Now the question is how much will those fans push back if the academic side really pushes for the B1G. I don’t think anyone knows the answer to that right now. But if the big money athletic donors want in the SEC and are willing to fight for it, then I wouldn’t count the SEC out just yet.
Again, I’m not saying that they would choose the SEC over the B1G, but I am saying that it could come down to a showdown between the academic side and the athletic side of the school. But it is a moot point unless NCST is assured of a place in one of the other major conferences.
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Wilner on B1G, PAC and postseason.
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegesports/2012/05/31/the-pac-12-the-big-ten-the-four-team-playoff-and-larry-scotts-line-in-the-sand/
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Everyone should read this article. Wilner is rigth. The CEOs are not committed to a seeded playoff. They are more likely to support sending conference champions to the Rose Bowl and SEC/B12 Bowl with a Plus-1 to follow.
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New Years Day Bowls:
ROSE: B1G champ vs P12 champ
SUGAR: SEC champ vs B12 champ
ORANGE: ACC champ vs highest ranked non-champ
FIESTA: highest ranked champs of other conferences
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FIesta will take number two teams (and probably #3 teams if it came to that) from the B1G/XII/PAC/SEC before it takes the champ from the MWC/CUSA/BE/MAC/SB.
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StevenD,
“New Years Day Bowls:
ROSE: B1G champ vs P12 champ
SUGAR: SEC champ vs B12 champ
ORANGE: ACC champ vs highest ranked non-champ
FIESTA: highest ranked champs of other conferences”
I can’t believe the Fiesta would accept that. If they did this, I’d think more like:
Option A – Sugar = new champs bowl
Rose – B10 #1 vs P12 #1
Sugar – SEC #1 vs B12 #1
Orange – ACC #1 vs at large
Fiesta – at large vs at large
Option B – Sugar = new champs bowl
Rose – B10 #1 vs P12 #1
Sugar – SEC #1 vs B12 #1
Orange – ACC #1 vs at large
Fiesta – B10 #2 vs SEC #2
Option C – Money = new champs bowl
Rose – B10 #1 vs P12 #1
Money – SEC #1 vs B12 #1
Orange – ACC #1 vs at large
Fiesta – B12 #2 vs at large
Sugar – SEC #2 vs B10 #2
I think A is the least likely of the choices.
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Wow. Wilner tells everyone to step back.
Last year, this would have meant
LSU vs. OkSt in CHAMPS
Wiscy vs. Oregon in ROSE
Clemson vs. Alabama in ORANGE
Stanford vs. Arkansas? in FIESTA
It would probably clear some things up…but there’d still be oodles of controversy and no clear-cut NC.
It would definitely make January 1 a hot commodity again!
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P12/ B10 ego. One of the criteria was public acceptance. A true plus 1 at this point would be a public relations disaster of the highest magnitude.
Interesting interview TH on college sports radio. Talked to commissioner of MAC. Said they were fine with 4 team playoff, but probably preferred +1. Also said he preferred a committee to select teams. He talked of coaches being too busy and sportswriters favoring teams based on their past history. Other talk on the show was basically that everyone was favoring plans that favored their own interests. Swofford liked straight top 4, but apparently looked at how it would impact his conference and switched to 4 conference champs. Neinas liked conference champs but Big 12 backed top 4 when they looked at the results. Scott pushed conference champs because he knew it was better for Pac 12 than top 4. Top 4 probably benefits SEC and Slive has been behind that all the way.
Many presidents would prefer a +1, but know that it would generate massive backlash.
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Also talked to Dennis Dodds on the show. Said Deloss Dodds said that it would be either 4 conference champs or top 4, but not a compromise.
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Dodd also made the comment about the Big 12 expansion. Basically, he said he couldn’t get them to say the words, “FSU” or “Clemson.” His implication was that it was inevitable and they wouldn’t say anything for fear of litigation.
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P12/B1G ego? From a “we own our own conference” supporter? If the SEC (you know, the conference that just took the remaining value outside Texahoma) hadn’t tossed out a life raft I’d assume champs only would be favored by the owner of the smallest major conference.
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Many on this board are just having a problem with their worldview challenged. That the Big 12 is surviving and thriving means many of you are making up, ESPN saved the Big 12 by overpaying for the LHN (remains to be seen whether they overpaid, but it sure wasn’t intentional) and the SEC “saved” the Big 12 in some altruistic manner.
Big 12 favors top 4 because it serves their interests, just like everyone else is favoring what serves their interests. SEC partnered with Big 12 because it served the SEC interests.
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Purchasing a controlling interest in UT for the next 20 years in order to thwart a P16 was unintentional?
Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer a Big8, PAC8, Big10 etc, but I’m old. Times have changed but leopards haven’t changed their spots. An association formed with power does not necessarily restore power. Ask ISU. If/when FSU and Clemson join and stay a decade in the B12 then boasts of strength and stability may be warranted. But even those two aren’t an equal to the four that left.
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@bullet – That has long been my impression: if the presidents had their druthers, an unseeded plus-one would have been the choice. However, the public expectations of a 4-team playoff are so high now that they realistically can’t turn back.
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The new Big 12 TV deal is expected to be announced any day, perhaps here this week as a celebration of the league’s new-found strength. Within that deal is a clause that will give any new expansion candidates the same money as the current members (estimated to be at least $20 million per year).
If this is true then it would seem to reduce the financial benefits of expanding past 12 since the current members wouldn’t see any new TV money through expansion except for the CCG.
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http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/19206833/big-12s-born-again-and-feeling-its-oats-sitting-at-10-12-or-14
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I believe that to mean that any new member that joins would receive whatever the rest of the members received whether the contract goes up or down per school based on the contract. For example, there was an expectation that WVU and TCU wouldn’t join as full partners – I think this places a clause in to ensure that any school that joins will join as equals. Remember unequal revenue sharing in payouts was one of the reasons for the problems in the B12. This sets in stone Tier 1 and 2 is the same for everybody – ie NU and TAMU getting higher payouts out of the conference money.
I do not believe this to mean that the number stays steady regardless of what schools are invited. That would be a serious and unnecessary concession on the Big 12’s part.
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That would be a serious and unnecessary concession on the Big 12′s part.
I don’t know, if the conference was only lukewarm to expansion anyways then it wouldn’t be unreasonable for them to let ESPN/Fox buy them out of renegotiation rights especially if they are going to sign a relatively short term deal.
(I should say that if I were in charge I wouldn’t recommend that course of action but I can understand why the conference would)
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The TV deal would not cover the allotment of shares per school by the Big 12. That’s internal to the Big 12 and their bylaws. The TV deal would only deal with the total payout to the Big 12 as a whole and how that payout would be structured if new schools were added (for example, both the ACC and SEC were able to renegotiate by adding schools). It sounds like this clause, if included, would limit the bump in revenue by keeping it flat (i.e. if FSU joins and everyone’s earning $20 million per school, then FSU raises the total allotment by $20 million only).
This would minimized the economic benefit of the Big 12 expanding and would also minimize the economic benefit of FSU (or any school) in leaving. Of course, it’s all speculation right now.
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That and the deal that the Pac-12 got (the money and the content they kept for their own network which included tier 1 content) is what makes this a terrible deal for the B12.
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I am a Kansas fan and am concerned about stability yet just as the current situation with the ACC demonstrates I think conference instability is caused by twitter, fear and panic. Why is conference expansion the end-all, be-all solution for raising more money? What about conference affiliations? Give more value to non-conferece games. As of late (last 15 or 20 years) teams have taken to scheduling patsies during the non-conf sked so they could chalk up wins, get fan expectaions up therefore support, use the easy sked to fine-tune their teams. Good practice but not the most financially sound. Why doesn’t the Big12 just approach the ACC or SEC and say we would like to have a series with you?
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As of late (last 15 or 20 years) teams have taken to scheduling patsies during the non-conf sked so they could chalk up wins, get fan expectaions up therefore support, use the easy sked to fine-tune their teams. Good practice but not the most financially sound. Why doesn’t the Big12 just approach the ACC or SEC and say we would like to have a series with you?
Because scheduling patsies lets teams maximize the number home games they get and the worse the team the cheaper they come.
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Twitter didn’t cause the ACC to sign a horrible TV contract. It didn’t cause so few ACC fans to go to bowl games that it fell behind in the Bowl tie in situation.
The ACC caused the instability of the ACC.
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You could try scheduling a series with Missouri. We’d love to play you in all sports. It would make a lot of money. As it is we’re going out and scheduling non-conference games against Syracuse and Indiana in football, and UCLA, Syracuse, and Arizona in basketball. Those are all nice, but Kansas is just 3 hrs down the road. We’ve done it 120+ times, why not 120+ more?
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A true mystery, caused almost entirely by Kansas’ child like behavior. If Missouri leaving caused the Big 12 to desolve and Kansas was forced into second citizen class, then I could understand some bad feelings. But Kansas ended up alright and Missouri got out because of major problems that caused pretty much anyone that could leave to do so. Kansas just seemed jealous that no one else wanted them. But I see no reason to stop playing what it claims is its biggest rival. It’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
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A true mystery, caused almost entirely by Kansas’ child like behavior.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but that is crap. Why in world should Kansas be expected to rearrange its schedule when Missouri is the one who left the conference, especially since the game always meant more to Missouri anyways (Kansas still has its K-State rivalry). If Mizzou was interested in continuing the series then they shouldn’t have left the conference (and with less than a years notice to boot)
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“rearrange their schedule”? How so? Do they not play non-conference games in Lawrence?
If they have prior obligations, sure, get those out of the way. But it makes perfect economic sense to play your main rival every year. MU/KU games are a hot ticket. They’re typically on national TV. There’s a ton of money to be made. Who are they going to play instead? Colorado? Like anybody cares about that game.
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KU fans have an act that they’ve played for about a century now where they say they don’t really care about Missouri. I’m not sure why they do this, but it has always been bogus. They care. Their fans get up for Missouri like nobody else. I’ve seen it in person many times. And when they played Missouri for the “last time” this past season, there were a few quotes that slipped out from former players to the effect that it was “the biggest game in Kansas history”.
They don’t really care about K-State. They see them as a little sister school. Missouri is, was, and always will be their main rival, whether they play them or not. A rivalry that goes back to before the Civil War. MU/KU is at the very heart of both schools’ sports traditions. KU fans will deny that now, but you don’t have to look very hard to find lots of evidence of it.
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Texas A&M and Missouri completely made the correct decision to go to the SEC. It’s a stronger and more stable conference on all levels. However, that doesn’t mean that Texas or Kansas have any true incentive to schedule them, either. UT and KU are marquee national names in football and basketball, respectively, so they have the leverage to play whoever they want in the non-conference schedule. Losing those rivalries is just the cost of doing business for A&M and Mizzou going to the SEC.
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Well Kansas only gets 3 OOC games a year now so locking in a rivalry game really restricts them. And yeah KU-MU may be a hot ticket but it may not be worth sacrificing scheduling flexibility. Really, their isn’t any clear evidence that keeping Mizzou on the schedule would make more money for KU especially since they still have a major rival they play annually.
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MU/KU in KC in football and basketball every year would make more money than any other non-conference games they could find. The ticket would be so hard to come by that fans would have to make major donations to the athletic departments just to be able to buy tickets. Missouri plays Illinois every year in basketball (used to play in football too until Illinois canceled the series because we beat them 7 straight times). Those MU/Illinois tickets often sell out within minutes. All 20k seats. MU/KU would be significantly more popular than MU/Illinois. Maybe even double. There’s just no way KU could find a better money making opportunity than that.
What are their options? Nebraska? No. Poor match in both sports. Colorado? Yawn. They could try for Kentucky or North Carolina in both sports, but I’m pretty sure even those wouldn’t draw nearly as well as Mizzou.
Is KSU a rival? Sure. And NCSU is a rival for UNC. And MSU is a rival for Michigan. But UNC’s true rival is Duke and Michigan’s true rival is Ohio State and Kansas’s true rival is Missouri. It’s been that way as long as there’s been college sports.
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That may be all be true from Missouri’s perspective, but that doesn’t mean the reciprocal is necessarily true. Kansas can already schedule (pretty much) anyone they want in basketball so they will have no problem replacing Missouri (even if they don’t get annual rivalry than can simply schedule teams like UK, UNC, Indiana, UCLA, etc.). As for football? I just don’t think it would make that big a difference. Home games are increasingly important for AQ teams and while KU-Mizzou is a big game its not UF-FSU or USC-ND. The closest comparison would be probably be something like USCe-Clemson and those schools are already discussing whether or not they are going to continue the series.
Of course none of this changes the fact if Missouri really cared about continuing the series they wouldn’t have left the conference in the first place.
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Is KSU a rival? Sure. And NCSU is a rival for UNC. And MSU is a rival for Michigan. But UNC’s true rival is Duke and Michigan’s true rival is Ohio State and Kansas’s true rival is Missouri. It’s been that way as long as there’s been college sports.
Nonsense. For several decades, UNC didn’t end its football season with Duke, or with NCSU, but with Virginia –– and from the Cavs’ point of view, it’s still a heated rivalry. And in the 1960s and ’70s, State was as big a rivalry for UNC as Duke (heck, Duke and State were heated rivals on their own); only the distorting power of ESPN has changed all that, largely because relatively few northerners attend NCSU.
And if Kansas doesn’t have the courage to schedule KSU as its season-ending rival now that Missouri is off the table, I have no tears for the Jayhawks.
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Frug, you know and I know that Missouri leaving the Big 12 had nothing to do with Kansas. I would say that what would be best for everyone is if we treated it for what it was: a business decision. Nothing personal. And then look at this from a practical perspective.
Yes, Kansas can schedule whoever they want in basketball. Although I read on an ESPN blog just a couple of weeks ago that they are having a very hard time convincing name opponents to come play in Lawrence. Missouri would be happy for a permanent rotating series between Lawrence and Columbia.
And to say that Missouri has trouble scheduling good teams simply isn’t true. Next year Missouri plays in the Battle for Atlantis with Duke, Louisville, Memphis, Stanford, Minnesota, VCU and Northern Iowa. They also have a game vs Illinois in St. Louis, a game at UCLA, and they host Syracuse in Columbia. I’d say that’s a pretty good non-conference schedule. The year after they’ve already lined up games with Illinois, UCLA, and Arizona, and a yet-to-be-named top team from the Big East. Missouri is not lacking in quality basketball opponents. And that’s the great thing about basketball. Everybody can go out and play tough games and even lose them and it doesn’t matter. Even the best teams lose 4 or 5 games per year. There’s really no penalty for Kansas to play Missouri in basketball, and plenty to gain.
With football, yes, there are limited spots and losses can hurt. And with the way Missouri has been beating Kansas lately, I’m sure they’re a little gun shy. They’re booked up for the next couple of years with South Dakota State, Rice, and Northern Illinois in 2012 and South Dakota State, Rice, and Louisiana Tech in 2013. So if they can’t afford to buy their way out of one of those thrillers and schedule a game that will actually make it on national tv and sell a few tickets, we can wait until 2014. But starting in 2014 their schedule is basically open, with some far off serieses with Memphis and Duke.
I suspect Kansas will wait until they can win more than 2 games per season before they start taking on tougher non-conference opponents. But it’s foolish to blame Missouri or make excuses for Kansas. They can play us any time they want, and it would benefit them monetarily. They’d likely lose to Missouri in football and likely beat them in basketball. That’s the way it has typically worked in the past, since around 1890. That’s the way it can work in the future when they get up the courage.
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After the dust settles (may take a few years), I expect the KS vs MO game will get reinstated because as you say, it benefits both shcools. No so the TX vs A&M game; TX does not get enough benefit, will make more money with a home patsy, etc.
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vp, my apologies. I’m not well versed in ACC football. I’m a Mizzou and Michigan alum living in California. I’ve watched a lot of different conferences, but the ACC is not one of them.
Frank, I agree that Mizzou and A&M made the right move, and that UT and KU aren’t obligated to play them. But I disagree about incentives. I think there’s plenty of incentive to play your main traditional rival. Two big ones: 1) it’s fun for the fans, and 2) it makes a lot of money. And isn’t that what it’s all about?
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KU is going to make plenty of money either way and like it or not Missouri is the one that ended the rivalry. Kansas said they would be happy to continue the series the way it has been played for the last 104 years; in conference. Missouri is the one that changed the dynamic and that is all on them.
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frug, you have to weigh the pluses and minuses of continuing the series:
*plus: the series is very fun and the fans love it
*plus: its nearly guaranteed to make a lot of money
*minus?: you could also make as much money if you find other people to play, although I don’t really see how that’s a minus, more like a neutral statement.
*minus?: it’s not a conference game anymore. although, again, I don’t really see how this is a minus. There are lots of good non-conference rivalries. Think Florida/Florida State, Kentucky/Louisville, Georgia/Georgia Tech, South Carolina/Clemson, Missouri/Illinois. It can be done. All of those are good games.
So really I don’t see how you can get your minuses to outweigh your pluses unless you add in a couple more minuses that KU actually has going on
minus: KU is angry and if they play Missouri then somehow “Missouri wins” or something like that. Thus the whole “childish” accusations at KU.
minus: and this one is more practical, but not at all more honorable. KU is down in football right now. Like, way down. The last few times Kansas played Missouri, they got absolutely manhandled. Attendance to the games in KC dropped from over 80k down to below 50k, and the Kansas side of the stadium was nearly empty. Playing Missouri in football has become an embarrassing proposition, and it seems they are in full retreat mode (much like Illinois was when Missouri beat them 7 straight times).
So in a way, Missouri might be better served finding a non-conference rival that can hold their own on the field. Maybe Nebraska? But it would be a shame to end the basketball series. It was truly one of the great rivalries in basketball. Yeah KU won around 60% of the time, but they were usually good games. Lots of passion.
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@Andy – I think the main tangible “minuses” for Kansas are recruiting and protecting its home TV market (and Texas is in a similar position with respect to playing A&M). Missouri now has the benefit of being in a more national conference. The flip side. though, is that Mizzou is giving up virtually all of its Midwestern presence and will have drastically reduced exposure in the Kansas City market. So, KU’s competitive recruiting advantage is that its players get to play close to home in the Big 12. If you’re the KU AD, you wouldn’t want to allow Mizzou to “have its cake and eat it, too” by giving them a platform to play a high profile game close to home in the Kansas City area on top of its SEC conference schedule.
As frug mentioned, it was Missouri’s choice to end the series by switching conferences (not KU’s choice). To be sure, Mizzou will be better off for that switch overall, but the loss of the KU series is collateral damage. At least the Braggin’ Rights Game has survived.
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Frank, it’s unfortunate if they choose not to play us, but other plans can be made.
Missouri has committed to playing games in both football and basketball in KC every year, whether Kansas participates in those games or not. Missouri’s athletic director has stated that there are “several” high profile football opponents who are interested in playing Missouri in KC. I don’t know who those are, but I would imagine possible candidates to be Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, and Kansas State, along with perhaps some outside the region from the ACC, Pac 12, or Big Ten. In basketball, as I’ve said, Missouri already has upcoming non-conference serieses with UCLA, Arizona, and Syracuse, and I’m sure they’ll find more.
And yes, there’s the Braggin’ Rights series. That’s always fun.
The idea that Kansas thinks that they can take over the Kansas City market in recruiting, and that not playing Missouri will help them do that, is laughable. Kansas City is in the state of Missouri. The University of Missouri campus is less than two hours away from KC. There are over 25,000 Missouri alums living in the city. The KC media is giving the SEC near constant coverage right now, in print, on tv, and on the radio. But more specific to recruiting, Missouri already has 4 top level commitments from KC in football right now, including a four star who is considered to be one of the top 3 players in the state of Missouri, and one from Kansas City, KS who is considered to be one of the top 2 players in the state of Kansas. And signing day is still 10 months away. I think Missouri’s KC recruiting will be just fine.
If anything KU should seek to play, and beat, Missouri in KC if they want to ever have any shot at getting top recruits out of KC again.
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I love the Mizzou fan behavior in this. It was Mizzou’s flirtations that started this whole realignment process first withe the B10 then the SEC. Mizzou fan can’t get their head around the fact that its actions nearly put KU in the Mountain West and that might be very upsetting to KU. So yea, I completely endorse KU’s stance on not playing Mizzou going forward. You can’t tell your parents I hate you, I hate this place, and I am leaving then try and come back and do laundry on the weekends.
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That’s absurd and you know it. Missouri didn’t start realignment, the Big Ten did. The Big Ten had a big press conference announcing to the world that they were expanding. Had they not done that, none of this chaos would have happened. Missouri wasn’t the first and certainly wasn’t the only school to express interest in making a move. And by the time Missouri actually left the Big 12, 3 schools had already done so. And two more had left the ACC. And TCU had joined the Big 12. Etc, etc. Missouri was just one small part of a much larger picture.
If Kansas wants to be pissed about that they’re free to do so. But it’s counterproductive.
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I don’t have a dog in this fight either, but I can’t blame Missouri for ending it. That’s baloney. Missouri leaving the Big 12 conference did terminate the automatic scheduling of the series. However, Missouri offered to continue it outside the conference (at a neutral location no less). That put the ball back into the Kansas court and they said no.
I’ll grant you that Kansas is not obliged to do anything. They have freedom to schedule anyone they want. But the idea that they can’t “fit in” Missouri is laughable. Basketball has tons of out of conference games and there’s no real penalty for scheduling a tough opponent. Kansas managed to schedule Towson, Florida Atlantic, South Florida, Long Beach State, Davidson, Howard and North Dakota this past year (I’m sure at least some of those came in some tournament, but most did not) The idea they can’t for Missouri in that schedule is BS.
The football side is at least more convincing. If Kansas has prior commitments, then they would have to honor them. But nothing is stopping Kansas from scheduling Missouri down the road. Surely, Kansas football is not booked up for 10 years. And since no one seems to actually care about Kansas football, it would make sense to schedule an interesting opponent.
The thing that gets me is that scheduling Missouri could be a great money maker for both schools. Kansas tries to claim a grand rivalry with Missouri, but then steps aside when they get an opening. UF-FSU play. Clemson-USC play, Georgia-GT Tech play. Out of conference rivalries are very doable. You can’t have it both ways. Either Missouri is a meaningful opponent and you keep the rivalry or maybe it never really mattered and you let it go. It seems the fans and media believed the former (it was a good rivalry) and the Athletic Department believes the latter (it was not meaningful).
If there actually was a rivalry, apparently its more important for Kansas to be bitter and spiteful and try and hope for some theoretical recruting advantage than to schedule a game that the players and fans and alum want to see. You know, to go schedule patsies like South Dakota State, Northern Illinois and Rice (all on the 2013 schedule). I think everyone loses in that scenario and Kansas has the sole power to fix it.
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However, Missouri offered to continue it outside the conference (at a neutral location no less). That put the ball back into the Kansas court and they said no.
That isn’t putting the ball back in KU’s court, it’s changing the rules in the middle of the game and whining if they don’t continue to play.
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It’s not “changing the the rules” at all. It takes two to tango. Missouri will. Kansas won’t. Kansas may have reason why it won’t, but it’s still Kansas’ choice.
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It’s not “changing the the rules” at all.
The game has been a conference game for the past 107 years. Missouri leaving the conference means by definition they are altering the nature of the game.
To put it another, for the past 107 years conference rules required the two to play. It was conference rule. Missouri leaving means that rule no longer applies.
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Yep.
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hangtime79,
the notion that “Mizzou flirtations” caused anything have been put to rest long ago. this expansion train is being driving by a whole lot more (read: e$pn) than one MO governor’s silly comments. as far as Big XII instability is concerned, A&M’s President is on record saying that many folks in the Big XII new as far back as 2009 that UT was negotiating w/ the PAC. if you must point your finger towards someone for nearly putting kU in the MTN, you need to look in Bevo’s direction.
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@frankthetank “Losing those rivalries is just the cost of doing business for A&M and Mizzou going to the SEC.”
As far as A&M fans are concerned that’s a very cheap ticket to get in the best conference. A&M vs. LSU on the last week of the football schedule will be a fine replacement game.
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Here’s something that might help the ACC. Why does the SEC supposedly want schools in North Carolina and Virginia? Supposedly to extend its footprint for network purposes (which the SEC is developing with ESPN). An expanded footprint would ideally mean more $$$.
Now, is there any footprint bigger than the ACC population wise? With the primary schools in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina along with major state schools in Florida, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Georgia – there’s no bigger population base out there. If networks are the goldmine some seem to think they are, this can make the ACC very profitable.
Supposedly the ACC looked into this and did not go that route. So maybe it’s not a goldmine. But the ACC can easily go to ESPN/Raycom and develop one within their current rights contract. If the money is there, everyone could make more money. It’s at least something that can be looked at…
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Too late, Swofford signed a horrible 15 year TV contract.
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It’s not too late. ESPN owns all the rights. But nothing stops ESPN from spinning off its programming into their own ACC Network and making money off that. ESPN has the power to place the programming on any channel it sees fit (well probably not any channel. The contract will surely have limitations. But I doubt the ACC would oppose such a move). The schools can align with this new network and sell some of their other multimedia rights to it (something the Pac-12 schools are doing with their Network). It could be a money maker for both involved.
I don’t know if it will be a moneymaker. But if the topic is how to save the ACC, something like that has to be on the table doesn’t it? I don’t know if it is economically feasible. But all this conferences seem to think it will make money. And the SEC is developing its own network with ESPN, so ESPN doing one with the ACC seems fairly viable.
Just a thought…
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It might work for basketball, but ACC football just isn’t that popular. If it were they wouldn’t be getting such terrible TV deals. I doubt an ACC network could be successful.
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But the Conference Networks are largely showing Tier 3 stuff anyway, not the cream of the crop stuff. I believe the Pac-12 Network is all Tier 3 stuff, while the Big 10 includes both Tiers 2 and 3. Which means the vast majority of the programming is non-football in nature. And let’s be fair, the ACC can’t really be all that different from the Pac-12 in football viewership. If the Pac-12 can do it, you’d think the ACC could too.
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True, you have a point. I imagine the ACC and Pac 12 are similar. The Pac 12 has a true powerhouse in USC, but beyond that they’re pretty much even. So maybe the ACC/Swofford did botch it, I don’t know.
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That powerhouse makes all the difference. While Florida State isn’t Southern Cal by any means, it is a brand of sorts, and Clemson has the most passionate fans in the ACC. Take them out of the conference, and aside from Virginia Tech (Miami is a program in the past tense, especially after the scandals), you don’t have very much — especially since four schools (really more like three, since Wake recruits for in-state football talent more than Duke) divvy up the North Carolina prep talent that chooses to stay home.
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Well, this would be before FSU and Clemson leave (and give them an incentive to stay). Look, I’m just brainstorming, here. But I figured the Network idea should at least be tosssed out there if the topic is trying to save the ACC. It’s doable and if these Networks make money, ESPN should be on board with it as well.
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Did John Swofford write this? Horrible. That won’t save the ACC.
You ignore the HUGE money differences. How can you do that? 10-15 years ago, the ACC had the highest payout. Today, the 5th.
Swofford botched that and it can’t be fixed. TV contract is signed for 15 years.
You also miss the horrible bowl tie ins, reffing, and lack of fan interest (which can’t be fixed).
There is NO saving the ACC. No matter how much you try to avoid it.
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How huge is HUGE? If you’re comparing the Big 12 to the ACC, it may not be the massive amounts that some think it will be. Something like $10 million seems to be on the very optimistic end of things. It may only be half that. Which is still something, but not devastating.
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How huge is HUGE? If you’re comparing the Big 12 to the ACC, it may not be the massive amounts that some think it will be. Something like $10 million seems to be on the very optimistic end of things. It may only be half that. Which is still something, but not devastating.
For schools in direct competition with SEC programs (the southern third of the conference), it’s something indeed, especially since the gap between ACC members and their SEC brethren will get substantially wider with the latter’s next contract.
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But we’re not measuring the gap between the SEC and the ACC. It’s the gap between the ACC and the Big 12. I know the FSUs and Clemsons what to compete with the SEC schools, but the SEC isn’t sending invitations. So it’s trying to maximize the money among the available options. And yes the Big 12 would be more money. But is that $5 million or whatever going to magically make the difference in everything?
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No, but perception would make the difference. For Clemson and Florida State, being in a conference with Oklahoma and Texas has a lot more cachet — particularly for recruiting — than being in one with almost-but-never-quite Virginia Tech, program-in-the-past-tense (and staying that way after the scandals) Miami, and a group of football no-names. Yes, you have the likes of Iowa State, Texas Tech and Kansas in the Big 12, but is that frankly any different from a Clemson or FSU point of view than Maryland, Wake Forest and Boston College? (Yes, you can argue that FSU shouldn’t have had trouble with Wake in recent years, but the football neighborhood FSU inhabited hindered recruiting, especially considering the weak image ACC football has in the Southeast. Playing in the Big 12, against two genuinely elite programs, should make the Seminoles be seen as substantially stronger.)
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That is hogwash. Or at the very least it is opinion.
The SEC schools that are in the national title picture in any given year are there because of the school commitment to football, not the money. Having expensive assistant coaches is nice, but having quality assistant coaches is more important. It’s all just excuses. Somehow West Virginia is able to kill Clemson despite having 1/4th the money. Happens all the time.
Recruits are not choosing SEC schools because of TV revenue (except maybe Cam Newton…ha ha ha). If Kentucky puts its TV revenue towards basketball facilities, so be it. If Mississippi State puts it towards—whatever the heck they put it towards–so be it. Who is to say what part of the revenue trickles to football facilities? If FSU uses the extra Big XII money to finance its women’s basketball team, how will that help FSU outrecruit anyone?
And who is FSU being outrecruited by anyway? FSU is still crushing most schools in recruiting and underperforming relative to the recruits it is getting. Instead of worrying about who Alabama has, maybe it needs to do a better job developing the 4-star guys that are on campus right now. A kid is not choosing Alabama because Maryland is on FSU’s schedule. A kid from Fort Lauderdale might choose FSU because Miami is though. That is why FSU can recruit so well as it is.
Wake Forest is NOT ever going to have better players than FSU. No hindrance with recruiting can justify losing 4 of 6. Florida had its Zook era. FSU has its Bowden transition era. It’s not money. It’s talent.
If the B1G offered FSU, I think FSU should strongly consider it. If the SEC offered FSU, I think FSU should strongly consider it. Those are rock solid conferences with impeccable stability and substantial revenue. The geography might eliminate the B1G’s financial package, but the SEC is a no brainer for FSU. That is a true promotion.
A few extra bucks to slide to the Big XII is just wishful thinking that money and association with a few football schools like Texas and Oklahoma will magically cure FSU’s ills. I am still waiting for anything beyond complaining and excuses from FSU fans. If there is some coach that FSU wanted but could not afford, maybe I would reconsider. If FSU was unable to field a more talented team than 110 other BCS schools, maybe I would reconsider. But everything wrong with FSU can be resolved within FSU today. Unless the SEC comes calling, FSU should focus inward, not outward.
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Why blame Swofford? Blame the ACC football teams for being mediocre. Who wants to watch mediocre football?
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People in Missouri? 🙂
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There are only two things that can save the ACC now. One, of course, is Notre Dame. If Notre Dame joins the ACC then their TV contract will improve significantly and everybody will stop complaining.
The other thing that can save them is Texas. Not by joining them, but by blocking Big 12 expansion. I’ve come to the conclusion that Texas does not want the Big 12 to expand past 12 teams. Why? Because they already make more money than any other school. The status quo is working perfectly for them. So why would they want to change anything? If they take Florida State and Clemson from the ACC, that could lead to all kinds of dominoes falling and before you know it we have no ACC and 4 super conferences. Would this be good for Texas? Maybe, or maybe not. But the status quo sure is. So why risk it?
I think they’ll try to block FSU’s entry. I think Oklahoma and others want FSU in the Big 12. I think there’s a battle going on behind the scenes right now. If Texas wins, the ACC survives. If Oklahoma wins, it dies.
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Meant to say Texas doesn’t want the Big 12 to expand past 10 teams. No way to edit it.
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I do agree that Texas does seem anti-expansion. And it makes sense. They already make so much money that the athletic side is sending money back to the academic side. The few extra million (if its even that much) that they would get by adding FSU or anyone else aren’t really worth it. The trade off is more teams, more travel, and more competition. Particularly in the grand gem of all sports, men’s football. There’s very little incentive for Texas to want to add anyone else. for most of the other schools, you’d have to thin it is worth it, however. We’ll see.
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It’s entirely possible Dodds already knows the outcome and is merely playing to those in the UT faithful who don’t want expansion. If the rest of the conference wants expansion, it will happen.
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Why say anything? If expansion is inevitable, all it will do is make Dodds look ineffective.
Better to spin this as why expansion is actually good for Texas. Whatever the reasoning is.
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“If the rest of the conference wants expansion, it will happen.”
I can’t tell if this was facetious or not. The only opinions that matter in the Big 12 are Texas, and to a lesser extent OU. The rest of the conference members are simply thrilled to still be members of a major conference, and certainly will not risk pushing UT’s buttons.
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The other XII conference members will go against Texas to pick up a pair of schools that will allow the XII to survive without Texas. FSU or ND, and a partner (VT, Clemson, GT) will do this. Any BE school or BYU will not. Texas is just blocking members that want to expand with anyone just to get to 12, not an ACC raid that would be a major coup for the XII given where it was a few months ago. If two quality schools like FSU and Clemson had joined the XII a year ago, TCU and WVU would not make the cut to expand to 12.
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@Mack
Great point! I’ve never read that anywhere, but FSU/Clemson, IMO by a long distance, beats WVU/TCU. It is similar, but not as extreme as to the B1G adding PSU/Nebraska, and then the next year having the chance to add Texas/ND. Would the B1G stop at 12? We all know that answer. There obviously is a lot of posturing going on in the Big XII-II. Is everyone covering their butts(i.e. SEC vs Baylor)?
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I disagree Mack and largeR.
There was a huge incentive to replace Texas A&M with a Texas based school (in Dallas or Houston) so that everyone in the conference would get extra games in Texas over time.
TCU filled that need. I’m not sure that changes whatever happened to FSU or Clemson back then.
Maybe they invite FSU instead of WVU, but they did in fact need TCU for that extra Texas based game, and having them based in Dallas makes them a nice replacement for A&M.
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My point was that if it were an either/or, WVU and TCU or FSU and Clemson, IMO you take FSU and Clemson. It doesn’t make WVU and TCU a bad add, just that if you now have the ability to add a better pair, why not do it. Especially now that those two would bring you a CCG which UT abhors. 🙂
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Mack, just to be clear, if the deal was FSU and ND, Texas would be on board and they would stop at 12. ND is the white whale.
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The bottom line is the Big XII will expand if ESPN/FOX give them the go ahead to expand. The conference will not extend invites without vetting the TV contract situation. The conference has maintained a position that they can expand, but don’t absolutely have to expand at this point. It’s why they didn’t bring Louisville last year or even this year to get to 12. They are not going to 12 just for the sake of going to 12. The networks advised them of needing to get back to 10, which is what they did. Now they’re at the point where they don’t have to expand in a blind position.
The Big 12 has a very good relationship with each network and both sides will be upfront with each other. They worked with the Big 12 to prevent the complete breakup of the conference assuring they would bring their respective contracts up to market value, which they have done. They also forked over 15 million a year for the Longhorn Network to keep Texas in place. So the bottom line, is if FSU/Clemson are given invites to the Big 12, it means that the 3 million dollar difference between the two conferences will get wider. If ESPN/Fox tell them those two teams won’t increase the value of the TV deal, then they won’t expand.
Who knows what ESPN/Fox are thinking. I’m not sure how the Big XII has a verbal agreement in place for a deal that will average 3 more million a year than the ACC, despite the fact the ACC has a population footprint of 54 million more people. But they have a plan and end game. They always have.
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The B12 hasn’t signed off on the deal with *SPN yet and surely has the provision that calls for re-negotiations if the conference expands or contracts by two or more schools with Fox. Adding FSU and Clemson would raise the value of the conference so the B12 would make more money. And then you add the CCG. The conference also needs to create a network whether the LHN is folded into it or not. A network with all the schools is going to be a lot more attractive than one with just UT content in every other state and possibly Texas too.
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@Joe – Maybe not.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/19206833/big-12s-born-again-and-feeling-its-oats-at-10-12-or-14
The new Big 12 TV deal is expected to be announced any day, perhaps here this week as a celebration of the league’s new-found strength. Within that deal is a clause that will give any new expansion candidates the same money as the current members (estimated to be at least $20 million per year).
One industry source said that number applies whether the Big 12 invites, “Appalachian State or Florida State.” And according to another industry source, ESPN wouldn’t stand in the way of Big 12 expansion even after negotiating a new deal with the ACC.
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Unless the B12 knows that they can’t attract anyone like ND or FSU, signing that contract would seem to be a mistake. If they know that Louisville and BYU are the best they can do and that those additions are actually worth less than $20Mil a year to the conference, then the contract sounds like a good idea.
I cringe at this “ESPN wouldn’t stand in the way of Big 12 expansion.” This is one of the reasons why I’m hoping that Fox and NBC’s presence in college programming grows.
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You actually want ESPN to block the Big 12 from expanding?
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I agree with joe4psu. But perhaps the Big XII had to include that in order to get up to $20M in the first place.
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@Mike,
No.
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@Mike,
I was confused about your question. Apparently you thought I said that I cringed because *SPN would let the B12 expand. I said that because I don’t like *SPN or anyone else to have that level of control.
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Pingback: College Football Analysis: Conference Expansion, Big Ten Network and Notre Dame
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/may/31/big-east-will-pay-sdsu-firm-says/
San Diego State and Boise State stand to earn about $7.8 million annually from the new TV deal coming up for the Big East Conference, according to estimates by an independent national market research firm…
Football-only members in the Big East stand to make $7.8 million per year. Basketball-only members would make $3.2 million per year, and full members in all sports would make $11 million. SDSU and Boise plan to join in football only on July 1, 2013…
If SDSU and Boise State stayed in the Mountain West instead of joining the Big East, the Big East deal still probably would be at least double that of the Mountain West.
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Also:
If the Big East added BYU, the Big East would add value for all football members, though not by much. Navigate Research projects the TV revenue share for football-only members would jump from $7.8 to $8 million annually if it included BYU.
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This means Big East members would be making roughly $6M to $9M less than the programs in other major conferences on an annual basis.
Not surprisingly, that means teams in the Big East have as much motivation as before to try and move into another conference, if possible.
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http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7994476/ncaa-president-mark-emmert-proposed-playoff-spark-more-realignment
Big 12 administrators said this week that they support a four-team playoff model in which participants are chosen by a selection committee, rather than a complicated formula such as the BCS standings, which are based on computer rankings and polls.
The Big 12 also has said it favors playoff semifinals occurring outside of the current bowl structure, even though some conferences prefer to keep intact some of its historic relationships between bowls and leagues.
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I don’t like any of their stance. A selection committee would just be too controversial with 4 teams. They need set criteria out from the beginning that everyone knows about.
Assuming the Big 12 isn’t talking about home game semi-finals (and I don’t think they are), then I definitely don’t want the semi-finals outside the bowls.
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I cannot help but feel that Big XII expansion is not happening. Perhaps ESPN is drawing a hard line on any expansion that harms the ACC. And now the Big XII, FSU, and Clemson are all covering their bases. Or perhaps it truly is that Texas does not want expansion right now.
But everything seems to me like an effort to chill out the FSU fan base. FSU people quashing it are ignored… Big XII people putting the kibbosh on expansion generally is more placating. For FSU fans, it’s not that we didn’t try… it’s that the Big XII is not expanding right now.
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That will only serve to get them angrier. Ask anyone in College Station or the Missouri Columbia.
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I have to think schools like Oklahoma, Kansas, and West Virginia would be thrilled to get FSU. This is going to really show just how much control Texas has over the Big 12.
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Andy,
It all goes back to the TV deal
If the networks tell the Big 12 adding FSU/Clemson will help the deal, they will be invited
If the networks tell the Big 12 adding FSU/Clemson will not help the current TV deal, they will expand.
That’s the theme right now in the Big 12. They are not in favor of expanding just to expand
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The B12 has not signed the *SPN deal. NBC, and possibly others, would love a chance to bid on B12 tier 1 content.
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Texas doesn’t need more money. They have plenty of money already. Expanding might make Texas a little bit more money but it may end up hurting them overall. The status quo is great for Texas.
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Someone, I think Chip Brown, said Texas would be fine with the “right two.” I think Texas is against expansion for expansion’s sake.
Texas experienced the SWC. They aren’t going to be against an FSU addition that will strengthen the conference both competitively and financially.
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I agree that WVU and Oklahoma would prefer adding FSU, but I’m not so sure about KU (and KSU and ISU). Yes, the extra revenue would be nice but it would cut their access to Texas in half and (probably) see a return to the old Big XII South which they really don’t want. It sort of reminds me of the North Cal, Arizona and Mountain schools blocking the addition of the Oklahoma schools to the PAC because they didn’t want to give up annual games in LA.
Now I’m not saying they wouldn’t agree to expansion I just think the extra money would have to be really good or the South schools would have to make some serious concessions to the Midwest schools.
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ISU came close to making the Big 12 title game in 2004, a miraculous achievement in Ames. Why wouldn’t it be for expansion, especially since it’s recruited in Florida since Big Eight days?
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That is because they are petulant, ignorant babies. If the Big XII does not want to expand, or it is not fruitful to expand, that is tough crap for FSU fans. If they want to take their tantrum to a new level, that is their prerogative. Maybe they will convince the Big XII that FSU would be a poor addition. Once the fan base looks at the SEC’s even more superior financial position, there will be clamoring to go that route. Going from the Big XII to the SEC was a no-brainer for A&M and Missouri, and it will be for FSU too.
The idea that Clemson wants to be as successful as South Carolina is laughable too. In the past 10 years, Clemson has 10 more wins than South Carolina. Not like the Gamecocks are winning any national championships. Clemson came a lot closer last year than South Carolina ever has.
If money is such a big deal, perhaps FSU should see what Syracuse and Pitt can do when they have their TV revenue increase by 400%. If FSU can rationalize crap performance based on SEC schools getting a few million more right now and fret over that growing to several million, imagine what the Big East schools have had to deal with. But no… FSU fans bitch about Syracuse/Pitt sucking because they cannot win with $3M/year. It’s terrible football for them, but excuses for FSU.
FSU’s failures have nothing to do with Florida’s money either. They have to do with FSU not doing enough with the ample talent that they brought in. If anything, the issue was poor coaching–something that had zero to do with Florida having more money. Who exactly from 2007 to 2011 was FSU deprived of at the expense of an SEC school?
It’s all red herrings. FSU can take a few million more and go to the Big XII. It will not solve any of their problems because their problems were never about money in the first place. Those people with IQs and lives outside football running FSU will be wise to realize that in the first place. I am sure Texas already has that figured out too.
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Stop making sense! It ruins the irrationality of the Internet!
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Really Frank? Notre Dame would pick the ACC? The also-rans of college football?
I suppose Florida is a good enough place to retire and die in.
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The ACC (especially as currently constituted) is a much easier league to spin to the Alums, who will be furious, than either the B1G or the BXII. That’s why the idea of ND going anywhere in the short term is <1%.
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Still don’t understand the ACC angle. At this point, ND isn’t moving without further major changes to the landscape. The most likely element of such upheaval would be an FSU/Clemson move to the B12, leaving the ACC as way deep in 5th place of the major football conferences. ND would favor a move to the ACC under such circumstances?
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If you’re making the argument for the ACC angle it would be this: All things considered, some believe Notre Dame would feel most comfortable in the ACC. Not saying it will happen, but if a gun was pointed to Notre Dame’s metaphorical head, they’d choose the current ACC over any other conference. If Notre Dame felt like joining a conference was inevitable, then making a move on their terms to their preferred choice is the way to go. Basically meaning, if the ACC is the best choice, choose it now or else risk choosing between the Big 10 and Big 12 down the road.
Notre Dame would have to believe joining a conference is inevitable and would have to prefer the ACC to anyone else to make this scenario viable.
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If Notre Dame did join a conference, I think they’d be quite content with one that would be fifth in college football. I suspect the ND leadership would feel that an undefeated or perhaps one loss Irish team that was an ACC Conference champion would in all cases be one of the four teams in a conference championship game.
In an ACC conference with twelve members or more, ND would like play nine conference games (unless you’re the SEC, but they’ll revisit that question in 3 or 4 years, or the Big Ten, but the B10 has the scheduling agreement with the P12). Plug in the annual game with USC, drop the contest with Navy, add two more non-conference opponents and that’d be the schedule.
Most of the teams in the new ACC would be ones that Notre Dame has played in recent years or has scheduled for the near future–Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Maryland, Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest, Boston College, Miami and Georgia Tech come to mind. It’s been awhile since they’ve played FSU (who may be in the Big 12 by then) and I don’t think they’ve had regular season games in recent years with Clemson, North Carolina State, Virginia or Virginia Tech.
So let’s assume Florida State and Clemson do make the hop and a combination of Connecticut or Rutgers and Notre Dame join the ACC. What’s left?
Boston College
Pittsburgh
Syracuse
Maryland
Virginia
Virginia Tech
North Carolina
NC State
Duke
Wake Forest
Georgia Tech
Miami
With those teams in the ACC, Notre Dame would probably feel it’s positioned itself nicely for getting into the national championship game. This is the same strategy that Texas is following by advocating keeping the Big XII at only ten teams with no conference championship game.
So yes, it actually makes sense for Notre Dame to put itself in a position where it feels it has a better chance to go undefeated and/or win a conference championship game and thus get into a four-team playoff.
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@FLP_NDRox – What has changed for ND since 2003 when ND decided to join the B1G if the Big East collapsed after the first ACC raid?
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@cutter
Dropping Navy is a non-starter, so the schedule will be ACC, USC, Navy, one to rotate (personal guess is hopefully a Texas Turkey bowl, and failing that the best offer between Purdue and Michigan State) if nine conference games. So, the schedule will likely be:
Navy
Purdue or Michigan State
BC
Miami
Syracuse
Pitt
2 of GT, Rutgers, or UCONN
3 of who’s ever left in the other pod (since I don”t see a huge drive for 9 games in this group)
Southern Cal
Texas or whoever
Which, for those of you scoring at home, is essentially the highlights of a Big East schedule c. 1995…and thus really lame.
That said, it still means staying out of Texas’s orbit and has the added bonus of keeping us from being shanghai’ed by the gargantuan, secular B1G.
@Mike
After 1999, I have a hard time believing ND was that close to joining the B1G in ’03 completely on the downlow. It was a major issue on campus, and I can imaging the alumni were going nuts. Despite TPTB’s desire to keep things quiet, they had to know that there was no way a decision to join the Big Ten would be accepted as a fait accompli. Besides, there was a great deal of discussion how this decision could not be made at the Presidental level, but required BOT approval.
Since the only “leak” was someone telling Mike Brey to get ready, my guess is that someone in the office assuming rather a lot, and Coach Brey, who was not at ND in ’99, assuming even more.
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I could see Notre Dame having a tough time dropping Purdue unless the Boilermakers agreed to release them. That could be a major PR (and maybe even political) problem. I could see it being the same sort of problem if the school decide to drop Navy without Navy’s blessing (not that they would do that anyways).
Also, while I don’t know about ’99 or ’03 Notre Dame did come pretty darn close to joining the Big Ten in ’10 after the Big Ten pledged not to expand past 12 (i.e. no superconferences). According to reports, they actually took a straw pool of the BoT and the younger members actually supported the move but the older/senior members still had the majority.
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Notre Dame did agree to join the Big 10 in 99. The President, AD and faculty Senate all enthusiastically approved. But then the Board of Trustees shot it down.
I just get the feeling that their attitudes (other than the board of Trustees) have changed. Then again, it could be like several other schools with long courtships who end up in the conference they were originally attracted to.
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And Notre Dame agreeing to join in ’99 is not just “reports.” For those who don’t remember, that was all very public.
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Why not? They want in the playoff every year, but if they can’t get that, what better bowl can they get then the Orange Bowl?
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The conferences can dicker over the proposed format of a 4-team playoff all they want, but even if they go to a “champion in the top 6” model, it’ll evolve closer to a pure top 4 model after you get an unsatisfactory result. Anything that leaves out the team perceived to be #2 by the polls/BCS standings is going to be a train wreck. Even something that puts in the #5 and #6 teams over, say, an undefeated #3 or #4 is going to be problematic.
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How can a team be undefeated at #3 or 4 and not be a conference champion? I’m pretty sure any undefeated independent will have access somehow written into the selection rules.
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I think an “undefeated independent” rule is unworkable, but if you have a rule that says a #3 or 4 independent makes it, that partially works. I say partially because it’s not clear why an 11-1 Notre Dame should make it in over an 11-1 Alabama just because Bama happened to lose a game to a conference opponent — its possible that Notre Dame’s loss could have been to Alabama yet ND would still be in.
The history of the Bowl Alliance + BCS era has been about fixing perceived errors. I think this will continue. Even if the next plan is not a “top 4” plan, all it will take is one year with a major flaw in the selection process to push the next plan closer to top 4. I’d be shocked if they pass a plan that could EVER leave the #2 team out, but if they do, it will be fixed eventually, because people in general won’t perceive the champion as being fully legitimate.
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I disagree. I think the opposite is actually more likely. If #4 Alabama doesn’t make, then people can say, well they should have won their conference. If #5 PAC-12 champion Oregon is left out for #4 Stanford (who didn’t win the conference) though, people will be mad.
For independents, all you need to say is they make it while in the top 4. They aren’t penalized for not being a member of a conference, but also don’t benefit (since can’t move into the playoff ever if ranked #5 or #6).
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In other news, adios, the mtn.:
http://www.themtn.tv/05/29/12/Knudson-Goodbye-Farewell-and-Amen-/landing201203.html?blockID=715912&feedID=9997
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Is UNC like Texas?
Again, all this is predicated on what happens. Losing Florida State is not the same as Clemson because Clemson is a charter ACC school. The discussion here is limited to when the ACC as we know it can no longer hold a place at the grown up table. While some may view them as Ivy League Lite, they are still large state schools, and beholden to the populace in their home state for funding and BoT composition. While some on FtT view UNC as a game changer, like Texas, they are not! If basketball is 25% – 33% of football that is a very small bargaining chip when compared to the majority stake holder in football. UNC vs Duke – like the Red River Rivalry – is limited in scope when viewed in the context of the entire schedule. Look at it this way based on each decision tree available to the tarheels.
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#1 The ACC exists, but as a shell of its former self
Without football the ACC becomes a newer version of the Big East with dwindling football revenue and fan support. Stadium crowds draw between 20K and 60K with an average game drawing maybe 40K fans. Odds of getting to a championship narrows greatly along the same vein of a MWC/CUSA/BE type conference. Any remaining ACC schools with any football possibility – Miami / Georgia Tech / NCST / Virginia Tech / Maryland – are going to feel more pressure as the money they receive grows smaller and smaller.
Given this situation IS NOT like Texas as UNC has no PUF, they are not a Top 10 football program, and they do not have another Top 10 football program at their side like Texas has Oklahoma. Texas is #1 in sports revenue according to Forbes, and Oklahoma is #10, while not a single ACC team made the Top 20! It is a death by a 1,000 cuts as the gaps between ACC football (and other sports) and schools at the grown up table widens each and every year. If you are a governor, donor, voter, taxpayer, or businessman this means lost money and jobs for schools that get left behind. Wake Forest may be doomed to a CUSA lifestyle, but that will not set well with a school used to being in a position of power. UVA may have the luxury of being a private / public state school, but UNC does not operate with that luxury.
No politician will sit by an let this happen if they want to get re elected, and no group of non alumni voters will sit on their hands while the flagship school is reduced to second class status. Michigan may have alumni who buy the seats and the merchandise, but without the Wa Mart Wolverines buying gear, and more importantly putting eyeballs in front of the TV, the value of Michigan as a media property is greatly reduced. It may be the thing nobody wants to talk about, but no school in college sports can survive on alumni dollars and eyeballs alone. Given a fade to obscurity or survival in a new conference, UNC must move where they are no longer in control or perish by standing still.
The next steps are possibilities, moving up the ladder for long term survival strategy
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#2 The ACC exists, but it merges with the Big East
The important thing to remember here is this merger does not mean the ACC and Big East as we knew it in 2010 before conference realignment where :
Big East = Uconn, SU, Pitt, RU, WVU, UC, UL, USF
ACC AD = BC, Clemson, FSU, MD, NCST, WF
ACC CD = VT, GT, Miami, UVA, UNC, Duke
But may look like
@ 16 teams
Uconn, SU, Pitt, RU, UC, UL, BC, MD
NCST, WF, VT, GT, Miami, UVA, UNC, Duke
@ 12 teams
Uconn, SU, Pitt, RU, UC, BC
MD, NCST, WF, UVA, UNC, Duke
Not bad but certainly not setting the world on fire. Maybe seating in the 40K – 60K range for the good games. You have a solid east coast market and you may get Notre Dame as a member in everything but football. It keeps the Irish with the independence they crave, and gives the ACC some additional eyeballs, but having Notre Dame as a member in everything but football sure did not stop the destruction of the Big East as we knew it over the past decade. UNC could rule this collective, but 2 primary issues remain unresolved:
a) UNC would step down in power from where they are in sports
b) If NCST moved to the SEC it would be Clemson / South Carolina the sequel
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#3 UNC joins the PAC
While the probability from a logistics standpoint is near zero it does allow for a PAC 16 with 3 pods in the west, and 1 in the east. UNC + Duke + UVA + GT would all fit as an academic + sports competition add that would expand Larry Scott’s PAC to new TV sets in the east. Long term it probably creates as many problems as it solves, but I mention it as a possibility for out of the box thinking that Scott seems to embrace. UNC and UVA support baseball, and the PAC allows this to remain. If UCLA can get back to the top and stay there, it would give the PAC solid basketball presence on both coasts. Stanford and UNC are competitive in the Directors Cup and seem to mesh in desire to win this type of trophy.
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#4 UNC joins the B12
With a probability greater than a PAC move, it seems low at best as UNC would be under the thumb of Texas, and if Nebraska did not like it, chances are UNC will like it even less. If Clemson and Florida State do go to the B12, it seems hard to believe the Tarheels would follow the very schools that killed the ACC in the first place. The bigger issue is the GoR for the B12 is only 7 years or so which means Texas could still wind up in the PAC where they already tried to go in both the 1990’s and now 2010’s. In another decade or so could the longhorns still bolt for the PAC? I think the answer is quite possible, and that alone should make any school take notice before joining the B12.
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#5 UNC joins the B1G
On the surface this seems like the most probable outcome, it is not assured. Delany is a UNC grad, the academics fit, and on paper the sports fit. Before I break out the bubbly to celebrate some stumbling blocks need to be addressed before I consider it a done deal. They are real obstacles :
a) The number 16
People say passing 16 would be easy for the B1G, but I disagree. 12 gets you a CCG, and 16 gets you pods, but 17+ gets you diminishing returns, bigger revenue moats to cross, and makes the conference more unwieldy as a whole. The problem is to take the ACC 4 + Notre Dame the math does not work. UNC / UVA / Duke / MD / RU / GT / Miami / Notre Dame all in the B1G just does not work. If 16 is the new 12, then it is adopted by the other power conferences as well. Passing 16 would mean another expansion war with the PAC and SEC and that really does raise the specter of the government getting involved in college sports with a a regulatory agency. The base issue in 16 is that the B1G can add the ACC 4 or Notre Dame, but they can not do both.
b) The line of supply
Early on in this blog I suggested Kentucky as the next B1G add and was soundly trounced. Yet these same voices were suggesting Georgia Tech and Miami in the same breath. I still believe having neighbor states in the group is the best long term strategy for realignment. Adding Miami or Georgia Tech with no touching states seems like an issue of defending territory with a maxed line of supply while surrounded by enemy hostiles. Adding Maryland, then UVA, then UNC + Duke makes some sense, but adding UNC without such a supply line seems like a long term plan for failure. Just as trying to hold an island like Georgia Tech or Miami has always seemed far fetched to me, the notion of adding ACC schools like UNC + Duke without a bridge of Kentucky or Maryland seems like an invitation to disaster.
c) The cultural fit
It feels like Maryland and Duke would fit the B1G better, I still see UVA as Ivy League, and UNC as southern. While we discuss academics and sports here we are far too short in how the locals view THEIR state university. Duke and Miami have dictatorships in that the college president really can make a move without the approval of the governor. Put the shoe on the other foot for a moment and think how the Wal Mart Wolverines would feel if Michigan moved to the B12. Would Buckeye fans without a degree from Ohio State suddenly embrace a move to the SEC just because Gee said he wanted it? My guess is riots might start in Ann Arbor and Columbus with such news breaking to the local (mob) populace! Yet we as armchair realignment quarterbacks seem to think we know more of how the locals will react than the actual locals. This is a big part of the equation, and we keep forgetting to add it to the discussion.
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#6 UNC joins the SEC
a) The number 16
The “white whale” discussion for every other conference is Notre Dame, but the SEC has UNC as their “white whale” and for a school used to being popular, the folks in Chapel Hill are smart enough to know this. Slive can say to UNC we are holding a space for you and another school YOU chose to finish out our realignment to 16. Adding UNC and another southern school means pods or divisions that can easily mesh with where UNC wants to be on the national level in multiple sports. If Slive lands 16 including UNC, he would have no reason to break that barrier. Planting a flag in NC with UNC + NCST or UNC + Duke would solidify the footprint without cannibalizing it.
b) The line of supply
UNC + Duke or UNC + NCST or UNC + UVA or UNC + VT all are a simple border expansion for the SEC. In the B1G, crossing KY/SEC, TN/SEC, or WV/B12, is necessary to reach UNC. In the SEC the Tarheels share a border with SC, GA, and TN. If the SEC added UVA with UNC, then UNC in the SEC means being totally surrounded by SEC states. UNC would not be an island state in the SEC, but an actual part of the SEC continent.
c) The cultural fit
Professors until they get tenure are as transient as coaches in sports, while employees are probably native born and more anchored in southern roots and culture. How many students or teachers will be at UNC in 5 or 10 years? How many native residents will still be in Chapel Hill in that same time frame? To this group the academic standing of Northwestern to Vanderbilt means little to them. Florida is equal to Ohio State in their view of academics, but they are light years apart in how they view their culture. If UNC does not wind up in the B1G this would be the counterpoint to the academic argument of the B1G. Before being quick to dismiss this, think how a B1G would react to future membership in the B12 or SEC. I am guessing the cultural crowd would drown out the academic crowd in that discussion. Is it so hard to see the folks inside of the NC borders reacting the same way?
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I think UNC in the B1G is about 60% and UNC in the SEC is about 40% but I really think the tipping scale will be how UNC views the reactions to their actions over the action itself.
If UNC goes to the B1G, and leaves the SEC to add NCST while UVA goes to the B1G, and leaves the SEC to add VT, they have opened the very real door of becoming number #2 in their home state. Like it or not the SEC at this time holds the catbird seat in football, basketball, baseball, and W basketball. Granted Pat no longer coaches the Vols, and the SEC has no power in hockey, these are the lesser of the “demand” sports. With TAMU and Missouri now in the SEC they may have the power to dominate baseball the way they have in football. UNC and UVA both have baseball programs, and neither will flourish in the B1G unless the home office and Delany push the B1G to do so. Right now the SEC and PAC have 3 schools each in the WCWS while the B1G and ACC have none. While this may not seem like much, imagine if it is the CWS in 5 years with the same numbers. All that ESPN coverage is being dominated by just 2 conferences. Perception becomes reality.
If the ACC no longer exists NCST in the SEC means a serious threat to recruiting NC for football, basketball, and baseball. The same applies to UVA and the state of VA going to VT. This can not sit well for either of the flagship schools if they are marginalized by their “little brothers” over time. The better strategic move would be to hobble their “little brothers” now while ensuring the better long term solution. UNC and UVA in the SEC means NCST and VT wind up in the B12 which is much less stable, and much more centered on Texas and Oklahoma.
If UNC and UVA wind up in the B1G, it means they have sent NCST and VT to the SEC. The SEC is wealthy, stable, and promotes each school to grow to add to the collective. Clemson said no to the SEC, and watched their “little brother” outstrip them in 20 years. Texas having TAMU now fully funded in a much bigger footprint has to watch the next 20 years with the possibility that they will be cannibalized by their “little brother” in the fight for TV sets in Texas.
In short, where UNC and UVA wind up may end up being about where they want their “little brothers” to wind up when the dust settles. UNC may be Texas like, but not even close in size, wealth, and football prowess.
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Do you have any other thoughts on this topic? 🙂
From the Big Ten’s POV, I just don’t think they want to add more than 3 teams from one league. You don’t want to lose/compromise identity. That’s why I think UMD is odd man out. Unc/duke/UVA in. Also, the BIG doesn’t want to be perceived as a home wrecker. I think they let the SEC do the damage before they swoop in.
The SEC is the Rob Lowe of conferences. Filthy handsome but a little sleazy. They can threaten the ACC and then settle for NCSt and VaTech. This will make an exodus acceptable to UNC alums.
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The Big Ten has added a total of three teams over the past 62 years. The idea that the league would decide to add three or four schools at once is the exact opposite of how this highly successful athletic conference has behaved since its inception. It is fun to speculate regarding how the ACC will be carved up the various conferences, with the Big Ten deciding to open up an East Coast branch. But given that the recent upgraded status of the Big 12 is based on a five year bowl agreement and dependent on the continuing generosity of the SEC, the far more likely scenario is that no ACC teams make a conference change.
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I think the home wrecker thing went out the window with Nebraska. It does get back to my point tho of MD being out, when they are the bridge either way for an east coast expansion. If MD has a Phil Knight type of supporter in the Under Armor guy, seems like there is upside. Maybe I am just a fan of the RISK type strategy where you add adjoining territory as you expand.
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This is a huge point that I think gets glossed over way too easily…
There has been no conference (that I know of anyway) that has proven it can exist on a long term timeline at greater than 12 teams. I have to believe the Big Ten knows this and is not in fact studying potential expansion candidates closely, but instead is studying conferences with more than 12 teams closely.
The SEC might be able to maintain, but a case could be made only for monetary reasons and they may very well start to lose cohesion as a conference (you already see it with Georgia and Florida publicly calling out certain other SEC teams). Does anyone see the Big Ten giving up its conference cohesion and ability to work together on all aspects of conference activities? Does the Big Ten look like it would go with an 8 game schedule and not play teams in the opposing division for half a decade at a time?
The ACC has slowly become “Big East-y” as it has acquired…well, more of the Big East and it practically had to sell its soul to ESPN to get the payout it did (and even then the numbers weren’t that spectacular). Going to 9 games of conference play is something I think the Big Ten would be amenable to, but look at the Clemson / FSU fiasco to see the problems the Big Ten is worried about.
Heck, even the Big12 was torn apart and it was “only” at 12 teams.
In the end, I recognize the Big Ten is a slightly different beast due to its Grant of Rights and the Big Ten Network, but the Big Ten conference has shown itself to epitomize that ancient Greek maxim…”Know thyself” and acts accordingly in any endeavor…whether it be to take risks like putting its content on ESPN/ESPN2 or starting the BTN, or acting conservatively like waiting ~10 years to ask another school (ND), and another ~10 before actually adding one, that complements the Big Ten while still exhibiting many of the core qualities the conference members hold in highest regard.
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The Big 12 was already supposedly told by colleagues in the SEC that 14 was really difficult and that they should think twice before going beyond 12. In addition to the WAC and the continuing disaster in the Big East, the PacWest and Lone Star Conference in Division II are examples that have split with more than 12.
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And while I myself have been a big proponent of 16 team conferences with a pod based alignment, the facts are those have never really been tried and the NCAA may rule against such setups…in which case you have two groups of teams that play each other slightly more often than an out of conference team.
The Big Ten will definitely not go for that.
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And while I myself have been a big proponent of 16 team conferences with a pod based alignment, the facts are those have never really been tried and the NCAA may rule against such setups…in which case you have two groups of teams that play each other slightly more often than an out of conference team.
Why would the NCAA rule against pods? It didn’t have any objections to the late ’90s 16-team WAC pod format (a concept that failed because the conference was too disparate in geography and goals, not because of any inherent problem with using pods). I can see a 16-team pod conference working for the likes of the SEC, Big 12 or Big Ten, provided the members are at least semi-contiguous and occupy no more than two time zones. (Adding West Virginia to the Big 12, signifying future moves would be to the east, probably spelled the end for Brigham Young as a Big 12 candidate, even without the LDS baggage it would bring.)
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When it comes to the NCAA I don’t pretend to know what they will or will not do in any way shape or form.
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The NCAA objection isn’t to pods. It is the requirement that you must play EVERYONE in your HALF of a conference of 12 or more in order to be allowed to hold a CCG. This requirement messes up most plans involving pods.
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Unless the pods are rotated to create new 8 team divisions each year (no NCAA rule against that) there will be very few games across divisions. Rotating 4 pods results in games against all conference members every 3 years, CCG, and allows 1 or 2 protected games with teams that are not in that year’s division. And of course the conferences would want to keep most of the rival games within the static pods when they were created.
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Meaning a CCG is an extra, 13th game. A conference could sacrifice a regular season game and hold a CCG through whatever format as long as it is in the 12 regular games allowed.
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Guys,
The NCAA has no issue with pods or CCG. The while point of pods is to rotate them so you play more schools regularly but fewer all the time, but that has pluses and minuses.
The issues with pods are these:
1. Conferences worry about confusing the fans and media by rotating pods.
2. Schools worry about having fewer regular opponents and thus fewer rivalries to attract fans.
3. The NCAA doesn’t allow semi-finals as extra games, so the dreams of many fans to see a playoff of the 4 pod champs can’t happen unless the semi-finals are part of the last week (floating scheduling is allowed by the NCAA).
EX. Assume the B10 adds UNC, Duke, UVA and MD to get to 16 for some reason.
Fans:
East = OSU, PSU, PU, IN, UNC, Duke, UVA, MD
West = NE, WI, IA, MN, MI, MSU, NW, IL
Locked = OSU/MI, PSU/NE, PU/IA, IN/MN, UNC/MSU, Duke/NW, UVA/WI, MD/IL
B10:
Minions = OSU, PSU, WI, UVA, PU, MD, IL, IN
Myths = NE, MI, IA, MSU, UNC, NW, MN, Duke
Locked = OSU/MI, PSU/NE, WI/MN, UVA/UNC, PU/IA, MD/Duke, IL/NW, IN/MSU
Pods:
East = PSU, MD, PU, IN
South = OSU, UVA, UNC, Duke
North = MI, MSU, NW, IL
West = NE, WI, IA, MN
Locked = OSU/MI, PSU/NE, MD/UVA, MSU/WI, NW/Duke, UNC/IL, PU/IA, IN/MN
Year 1-2: E & S vs N & W
Year 3-4: E & N vs S & W
Year 5-6: E & W vs N & S
Comparison (8 game schedule):
Divisions – 7 divisions teams, 1 locked rival, never play the other 7 teams
Pods – 3 pod teams, 1 locked rival, 4 paired pod teams (if locked rival is in pod, then 1 team from another pod). Result is 4 permanent opponents, plus twice in 6 years for 10 of the other 11 and 4 in 6 for 1 team. Perhaps the B10 indicates a secondary rival that always gets those extra games, or maybe it rotates equally.
Comparison (9 game schedule):
Divisions – 7 divisions teams, 1 locked rival, play other 7 equally (2 times in 14 years), go 12 years without playing other 7
Pods – 3 pod teams, 1 locked rival, 4 paired pod teams, 1 floater. Result is 4 permanent opponents, plus twice in 6 years for 7 of the other 11 equally, plus 4 in 6 years for the other 4 (1 of these 11 will actually get 2 extra games in 18 years).
Summary
Pods let you play everyone a decent amount (8 games – 2/6, 9 games – 2.7/6, vs 0/6 or 2/14), but you have fewer permanent opponents (pods – 4, divisions – 8). You also have the possibility for confusion, especially with older fans.
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Brian:
Did I miss a change in rules? The pod system was explored by both the B1G and PAC and were told no CCG unless you play everyone in your half. Pods to semi to CCG would work, but would guarantee semi’s must be rematches in order to fit the rules.
12 teams seems enough, and easier to manage.
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The biggest problem is breaking a conference into the fixed pods. Besides the LHN, pods also prevented PAC expansion. The PAC would seem to have 4 natural pods at 16: CA-4, TX/OK-4, WA/OR-4, AZ/UT/CO-4. That worked for the first two, but the last 2 pods did not want any reduction in CA games which would have to occur with pods. Even assuming ND and 3 other new schools make up 1 pod, how can the current 12 be split into 3 pods that at least 9 members would be happy with?
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cc, it doesn’t matter what the half is, or whether it rotates year by year, as long as they face everyone in that half, that year. So, for example, if Brian’s Big Ten pods were used, the year that the pod of Maryland, Penn State, Purdue and Indiana was aligned with Michigan State, Michigan, Northwestern and Illinois, as long as all eight teams played each other, it would pass muster with the NCAA. The next year, if the Md/PSU/Purdue/IU pod were paired with Ohio State, Virginia, North Carolina and Duke, their half would all face each other, and in year three, Md/PSU/Purdue/IU would face Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin in their new “half.”
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vp19:
Exactly correct. Therefore in order to have a final CCG facing opposite half the semi’s have to be a rematch with the pod you are matched with each year. Why have a semi in that case? I can only stomach a rematch if it randomly occurs, not is scheduled.
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ccrider55,
“Did I miss a change in rules? The pod system was explored by both the B1G and PAC and were told no CCG unless you play everyone in your half.”
No, you didn’t miss anything. That’s exactly the rule. That locks 7 opponents in for the year, but the NCAA doesn’t care if they are the same 7 the next year.
“Pods to semi to CCG would work, but would guarantee semi’s must be rematches in order to fit the rules.”
Yes, which is why semi-finals under the current rules don’t make a ton of sense to me. Some people want them regardless, because they think a playoff is always better.
What many fans want from pods, though, is semis regardless of divisions, so if Division 1 (Pod A and Pod B) was won by the Pod A champ and Division 2 (Pod C and Pod D) by the Pod C champ, then the semis would be Pod D champ at Pod A champ and Pod B champ at Pod C champ. These wouldn’t always be rematches, but the system is against the current rules.
The other thing people want is to play 3 podmates, then 2 teams from each of the other 3 pods. That rotates you through everyone 50% of the time unless you have a locked rival, in which case you’d probably play their podmates less often (33% of the time). This would lead to semifinals that may or may not be rematches. This system is also against the current rules, however.
“12 teams seems enough, and easier to manage.”
No argument here. I’d say 10 is better than 12 except for the money from the CCG.
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Duff,
Excellent post… I could not agree with you more on the role of cultural fit from the perspective of local communities.
I will push back on you regarding Delany and baseball. In the midwest, it really doesn’t get warm until mid April at best. We may get a couple of warm days here and there, but consistently warm to play baseball just does not happen. By mid April, southern schools have played at least 15 games already, we can’t compete with that. The BIG would like to get better in baseball, but it needs scheduling relief to make that happen. By that I mean, splitting the schedule up between the fall and spring, which southern schools are adamantly opposed to doing. So, that’s a fat that has been waged at the highest levels with lots of political capital exhausted… I’m not sure how the BIG remedies this situation…
Again, great post.
Redsroom
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Domes? I know that’s not practical, but there’s no other way to really get around the weather issue. Unelss you wait for global warming…
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redsroom3,
I just think that is weak considering how the B1G was good in the CWS early on. Here we have PU as a host so the B1G should have that stadium sold out considering the B1G HQ is an easy drive away, and Chicago is full of B1G alumni. Like it or not, identity comes from the top down. if Delany made an appeal to all area alumni to show up and support the Boilermakers that sends a pretty strong message on the B1G and baseball. Things grow from opportunities like this.
Just because the climate may not favor you does not mean there is not a creative way to work around this. Especially if the possible solution gets the B1G more baseball exposure. Outdoor hockey in the snow sure seemed to draw a crowd when marketed properly! Is it so impossible to believe the B1G could come up with such a marketing aspect for baseball?
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Duffman,
My weather reasoning may be weak, but it is the one thing that has consistently crippled the conference in baseball. It’s also the one thing we have no control over.
We may get teams to the regionals, maybe even the super regional, but that’s really it. And Delany has tried on several occassions to galvanize the conference behing baseball and softball through many different ways. All have been for naught. This isn’t to say that the conference has tried everything to be successful, but we have factors working against us. Southern teams, not so much. That matters in a sport like baseball…
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Great read but you forgot a few important numbers. The numbers 2, 3, 9, 10, 13 versus 20 and 23. Those are research rankings in 2009 ( most recent year I could find) by the National Science foundation. The first 5 are big ten schools (UM, UW, PSU, UMinn, OSU). The last two are the highest ranked SEC teams (TA&M and UF). UNC was ranked 19 at 646 millions dollars. They were 70 mil less than OSU and 354 mil less than Michigan, who checked in the over a billion dollars. Walmart fans won’t be spending that much money on Tshirts. As far as locals go, that money represents jobs which is way more important than playing a neighboring state in football. High ranking faculty and students will be flooding into Chapel Hill, and staying, to get a piece of the action. Tax revenues will go up as will the number of businesses in the area, pleasing the politicians. Raleigh Durham and Chapel Hill is nicknamed the research triangle because of the money spent on R&D by UNC and Duke (ranked 7) and even NCState (47) and the businesses that have moved in to get a piece of it. A large population of that area is from North because of the jobs already there. Partnering with the BIG schools and being a member of the CIC will grow UNCs research department, as it did Penn States. How much is debatable.
Having lived in Texas and Raleigh, I noticed that there is a difference in fans and locals. In Texas, football is a religion with College and High School being even more important than Professional. That is the source of value in the minds of boosters. That is why TA&M could make the switch, even though it is debatable that the Big12 is better academically than the SEC. North Carolina is a basketball driven culture. They barely care about football. With that I’m ind, fans are going to really care whether it is the BIG or SEC, because in their mind, both are inferior in basketball. Their best solution is to keep the ACC together. Since they might not be possible, I don’t see the fans making to big of a stink about either move.
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[i]With that I’m ind, fans are going to really care whether it is the BIG or SEC, because in their mind, both are inferior in basketball.[/i]
PAC = 15 titles
ACC = 12 titles
SEC = 11 titles
B1G = 10 titles
It is in their mind because the B1G does not appear inferior!
Especially in attendance numbers from this past season :
#1 B1G = 12,868 average per game, up from last year by 42
#2 SEC = 11,513 average per game, up from last year by 325
#3 B12 = 11,057 average per game, up from last year by 341
#4 BigE = 10,881 average per game, down from last year – 442
#5 ACC = 9,876 average per game, down from last year – 390
#6 MWC = 7,800 average per game, down from last year – 1,322
#7 PAC = 7,143 average per game, down from last year – 665
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I’m with you PSUhockey… (looking forward to future hockey match-ups!)I’ve seen here and other places talking about HUGE money… They’re talking about the athletic stuff—the academics money is WAY more important, and WAY BIGGER in the big picture…
Some comparison numbers:
B12
Texas–athletic revenue $150.295 MILLION–endowment $17.1 BILLION (system-wide)
Oklahoma–athetics rev $104.338 Million–endowment $1.2 Billion
Kansas–athletics rev $70.028 Million–endowment $1.3 Billion (system-wide)
ACC
North Carolina–athletic rev $75.606 Million–endowment $1.979 Billion
Florida State–athletic rev $78.575 Million–endowment $452 Million
Clemson–athletic rev $61.174 Million–endowment $382 Million
Va Tech–athletic rev $66.909 Million–endowment $600 Million
Virginia–athletic rev $78.429 Million–endowment $3.906 Billion
SEC
Texas A&M–athletic rev $74.944 Million–endowment $7 Billion
Mizzou–athletic rev $59 Million –endowment $1.1 Billion (system-wide)
Florida–athletic rev $123 Million –endowment $1.295 Billion
Alabama–athletic rev $123.9 Million –endowment $995 Million
Kentucky–athletic rev $84.878 Million –endowment $915 Million
B1G
Ohio State–athletic rev $131.815 Million–endowment $2.12 Billion
Northwestern–athletic rev $56.2 Million –endowment $7.18 Billion
Wisconsin–athletic rev $93.594 Million –endowment $1.872 Billion
Iowa — athletic rev $92.903 Million –endowment $1.04 Billion
Minnesota–athletic rev $78.924 Million –endowment $2.503 Billion
I find it very interesting that some schools are discussed as “powers”, when others clearly have more $$$ on the table. I think that there might be those that think some schools wield more power based on athletics–I’d be willing to bet that behind closed doors it might be the schools bringing more to the table over-all that carry more weight…
There’s reason that the Texas, OSU, and Michigan carry a lot of weight (both on and off the field)—but, the Northwestern’s, Wisconsin’s, Tx A&M’s and Minnesota’s certainly cannot be ignored when it comes to high-level decision-making.
Without the 1990’s football success, FSU is small-time… without it’s basketball success, North Carolina would be it’s brother (NC St), with a little more cash.
Much of this re-alignment talk is speculative, and based on opinions. The average Wal-Mart fan provides little to the university–other than smack-talk. Schools will be successful based on how they take care of the students, alumni, and industry/businesses that provide them money. Success on the football field, basketball court buys only temporary prestige…
Success in the academic/industrial/business realm is lasting—providing much more than just a little prestige…
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mnfanstc, completely agree — this is why I cannot believe the extent to which some universities will go to gain an extra 5 million a year annually. The problem is: there are so many poor institutions, in terms of finances and vision, found in the big four conferences that they are a millstone around the necks of college football. The mantra is always “don’t leave money on the table, provide what the state politicians want and what the mass market demands.” I could not imagine a scarier scenario for any school with any sense of being an “academic institution” and not a performer in an entertainment and sports channel.
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I think the Texas and Texas A&M Endowments need a caveat since it is not a true apples to apples comparison. You’ll need to peel away the PUF (permanent university fund) from the total. It’s basically legacy oil royalty money that was used to establish this PUF. Both Texas and Texas A&M receive a much smaller state funding component as a result and in lieu of endowment income.
Wisconsin’s total endowment is closer to $4 billion.
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I think Vanderbilt has the #2 endowment in the SEC at around 3.5 billion
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Florida’s Bernie Machen with some direct comments on the playoff set-up and a little jab at the Big Ten:
——————————–
“We’re going to do a playoff, a four-team playoff, with the top four teams, and the semifinals in the bowl system and the championship (game) bid out,” Machen, chairman of the Southeastern Conference board of directors, said after he emerged Thursday evening from a meeting of the SEC’s presidents and chancellors. “I think we’re all together on that.”
Asked if he meant the SEC or the major collegiate conferences, Machen smiled and said, “I think they’re all coming around. We’re pretty in sync with the Big 12 right now, and I think they’ve come out in that way.
“The group that’s got to get real, the Big Ten’s got to realize that the world is going in a different direction.”
The SEC, which has produced the last six football national champions and had two of its teams in last season’s national title game, is adamant that the playoff consist of the top four teams.
“We won’t compromise on that,” said Machen, a Webster Groves native.
And when the SEC formally declares a public stance on the matter at the conclusion of its spring meetings today, it also apparently will have a black-and-white take on the notion that the plus-one model would be an acceptable form of playoff.
Under that format, the two teams to play in the national title game would be selected after the bowl games are played.
“It will get no traction with us,” said Machen, later adding, “I don’t see how the plus-one would work.”
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/mizzou/florida-s-machen-says-playoff-foundation-is-set/article_e310749c-4e69-55e5-aaf6-8492bf5efd78.html
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Wow, talk about inflammatory language ! The SEC folks better lay off the strong arm tactics…
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It’s bluster; you’d expect no less.
I think everyone knows that neither side is going to get everything they want. The SEC coaches and presidents have been positioning themselves the past week.
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I don’t think you want to piss of Jim Delaney. The SEC can squawk all they want, but they know that the BIG and PAC have the coasts and the ACC will side with them and not the Big12 /SEC behemoth.
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The Big Ten/PAC-12 lost out on the home bowls. I don’t they just going to give in on this and let the SEC win all the arguments, particularly since they’ll probably have the support of every other conference out there. A compromise still seems like the most likely outcome.
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particularly since they’ll probably have the support of every other conference out there
Yesterday the Big XII endorsed the SEC’s Top 4 model. That said, the Big 10, PAC, ACC and BEast have all endorsed a system that gives (at least) “consideration” to conference champs. I think either a 3 champs and a wildcard or conference champs in the top 6 with wildcard replacements are ultimately what will happen.
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You’re right. I was thinking Big 12/SEC there, but never actually meaning the Big 12 (embarrassed face icon).
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http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/19228863/rightfully-so-sec-commish-slive-wants-best-four-teams-in-playoff
1,2,3,4 says Slive. 1,2,3,4 says Slive.
Because the higher ranked team in the final poll is always better.
That’s why #4 Alabama smoked #6 Utah in 2008.
And why #3 Cincinnati smoked #5 Florida in 2009.
And why #8 Michigan State smoked #16 Alabama in 2010.
And why #1 Ohio State was back-to-back national champs in 2006 and 2007.
No, wait. I have that wrong. The top seeds lost 31-17, 51-24, and 49-7. OSU lost by a combined score of 79-38.
They sound so high and mighty…1,2,3,4…but what is a poll?
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+1000. The playoff process started because people didn’t trust the polls in the first place.
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I HIGHLY recommend the latest Solid Verbal podcast with Brett McMurphy as a guest. McMurphy goes through a whole host of issues, including the process he uses to sort out rumors from what he actually reports, the status of the Big 12 and the winners and losers of conference realignment over the past couple of years. Fascinating insight all around:
http://www.solidverbal.com/2012/05/31/brett-mcmurphy-531/
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So Delany is reading your blog and throwing out your ideas as a negotiating point? (Delany bringing up conference champs in top 6 as a proposal when NOONE had ever talked about it).
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@ Frank,
How about you interviewing Brett McMurphy for FtT? Possibly getting a collection of media folks across the country in a round table. Maybe 1 guy representing each of the 5 or 6 conferences and just let it roll.
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@duffman – That’s certainly something I’ve been thinking about. I actually had a Q&A lined up with a prominent reporter but some extenuating circumstances caused it to fall through.
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@bullet – It would be fun to take credit for that, but I’m sure he’s got a team dedicated to creating all permutations!
I pretty much believe all of the power conference commissioners are posturing right now. They’re setting up polarizing positions that I don’t think they’re that wedded to, so it will look like they’ve given ground when the compromises come around. For instance, the Big Ten was the conference that first brought up the on-campus semifinal proposal. Personally, I never bought that Delany and the Big Ten really cared for that proposal that much. I think what they’ve ultimately wanted from the get go were to have the semifinals that would protect (or even elevate) the Rose Bowl as much as possible, which is what the most discussed proposal of slotting the semifinals according to bowl tie-ins would do. If the Big Ten had started with that “flex” bowl semifinal proposal, they would have been accused of simply throwing things out there just to protect the Rose Bowl again. However, Delany knew that the on-campus semifinal proposal would be viewed as progressive by the media and fans but also have virtually no chance of passing with the other power conferences. So, the Big Ten put an initial stake in the ground saying that they wanted on-campus semifinals and then would “compromise” on a solution that would end up helping the Rose Bowl more than any other playoff proposal out there (which is what they truly wanted, anyway).
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Love the Solid Verbal. Must listen for CFB enthusiasts.
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Kent State/Kentucky are in the 20th.
Can they move the Perdue/Valpo game to a nearby field?
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Kent State in 21. Pitching try outs following the second game…
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The game took so long, Purdue started playing Ohio State in football! 🙂
Seriously, I was waiting on the BTN as the only one covering the Purdue game, and the first game went so long they literally played the whole Purdue vs Ohio State football game first! Midnight baseball in the B1G! Literally this will be the last game of the night, even beating the end time of the late games on the west coast. It is cold in Gary at midnight!
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I have said before that I believe in 10 school conferences. Here’s a scenario.
4 By 20
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It looks nice, but what’s the point? We’ve basically already moved way beyond that in the consolidation phase, and it doesn’t seem possible to go in reverse when we’re talking about the Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC, etc. (grants of rights and conference-networks are going to tie everyone down further).
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The power is in the conferences. Before I could ever seriously respond to something like this, I’d need to know what “big bang” would happen in the NCAA to bring this about. Gov’t regulation? Exploding travel costs so schools go back to buses? I mean, seriously, I don’t know why the conferences would fall apart.
If you wanted to speculate on the Big Ten somehow expanding to 20 teams (and maybe the SEC as well…and maybe the Pac-12), I’d engage in that hypothesis. My “Big Ten Network takeover” blog expresses my opinion that the Big Ten could become a major cable TV player if it can annex the right properties. I write about 16 teams…but 20 or 24 (if the entire “conference paradigm” changes) isn’t preposterous for a TV entity (SEC, Pac-12, and Big Ten are the only ones who could consider this).
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I’d like to keep the conversation of this on the other blog. I’m sure it sounds even crazier to most folks here than it does to me so I doubt many will want the discussion here. My stream of consciousness blogging and feedback are how I’d like to process this all and that is best done elsewhere.
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Sounds good.
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That is kinda what the Pac 12 Network & BTN might’ve had hopes for in their alliance… Together, they likely could package their networks (whether as a single entity or individually) for higher carriage rates in non B10/Pac 12 states…
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The point is that change is inevitable. The growth of conferences will eventually lead to wanting to simplify things again with smaller divisions. The logical progression has us headed to 16 school conferences and eventually that will lead to 20 school conferences. There will be divisions within 20 school conferences or simply smaller conferences. Not something I expect soon. But I do believe it will happen.
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meant to be a reply to zeek above. oops.
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There is certainly a point in that. But unraveling is tricky, even with expansion. There are a lot of rivalries that schools want to preserve (or create in the case of the Pac 12 with CU and UU).
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http://www.mrsec.com/2012/06/slive-speaks-football-rivalries-saved-basketball-rivalries-dumped/
Don’t think this has been posted. SEC payouts are $20.1M per school. B10 at $24.6M.
They’ve settled on a 6-1-1 football schedule, retaining cross-division rivalries. But it also means they will host the other division once per 12 years. Yikes.
Basketball goes with some 1-4-8 plan, but who cares about basketball.
The final opinion of the writer, unfortunately his opinion of the outcome of expansion is the same as many others, that expansion is ruining tradition for the almighty dollar. Hopefully the B10 takes note.
—-
In all — and this is solely the view of this MrSEC.com writer — the league’s dismal failure on the scheduling front makes the SEC’s current television negotiations all the more important. If Slive can milk a helluva lot more money out of CBS, ESPN, or both, fine. Money is money. But if he cannot, then there’s no debating that this round of expansion will have been a step backward for the Southeastern Conference in terms of finances and tradition.
In 1992, the SEC acted boldly. It expanded, it added conference games in football, it created a first-of-its-kind football championship game. The long-term good of the league outweighed the wishes of the fearful, the timid and the meek. The result has been near unparalleled success in the major sports (and at the bank) ever since.
But as Destin neared 20 years later, we began to have our own fears. Largely, we worried that the overly-cautious in today’s SEC would be given more power through Slive’s consensus-building style.
With the SEC Meetings now history, it appears that fear has been realized. That’s disappointing.
The SEC has been built on tradition and today some of if its greatest and oldest traditions were devalued. Now the success of the league’s most recent additions must be judged solely on the value of the SEC’s re-worked television deals.
Money over tradition. Gee. Who’d have seen that coming?
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That’s a lot of tough talk from him, but I think we’ve all come to respect his opinion on SEC matters over the past couple of years.
That’s definitely something to worry about when considering the Big Ten looking at adding an extra 2 teams. Getting it right in terms of scheduling and keeping as many rivalries as possible (within those constraints) has to be a key factor.
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Scheduling is huge. I don’t think the BIG will expand to 14 because of it. 16 teams with 4 pods makes scheduling easier with everybody playing each other at least twice every 6 years. I think if there is future BIG expansion, it will be to 16 right away instead of just 2 teams.
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If the B1G expands to 14 teams, maybe they go to ten conference games and the scheduling would be similar to what we have now. Not reading too much into this, but Tom Osborne did have this to say regarding renewing the rivalry with Oklahoma:
Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne said Thursday that the home-and-home proposal remains a possibility.
“Until we know what the Big Ten Conference scheduling requirements are going to be going forward — whether it’s the current eight league games, nine or 10 — it’s a little hard to make a firm schedule down the road,” Osborne said.
“I’d say within the next two or three years we’ll have a pretty good idea. We’ll certainly try to do it if we can.”
http://my.journalstar.com/post/Husker_Extra_Group/Husker_Extra/blog/renewal_of_ounu_still_on_table.html
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Osborn’s reference to potential 10 game “conference scheduling requirements” could include the one yearly game with a PAC-12 school from 2017 on, making for 5 home / 5 road ‘conference’ games for each PAC12/B1G school per year.
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Basketball does matter to some schools.
I’m astounded that UK and Tennessee will only be playing once two out of 3 years. UK at Knoxville was Kentucky’s toughest game for decades. It became a myth that UK wouldn’t make the final 4 unless they won in Knoxville (it was that infrequent). UK’s every year opponent is Florida, probably selected for two reasons: UF,S.Carolina and UGA didn’t want Vanderbilt and TV wanted UK/Florida.
In McMurphy’s piece that Frank linked, he mentioned that the ACC and SEC were both unhappy with the difficulties in scheduling that 14 presented.
While Slive may covet 2 of VT/UVA/UNC, I’m not so sure he would have the votes right now to go to 16. There is no certainty the ACC falls apart if FSU and Clemson go to the Big 12.
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I think even if FSU/Clemson make the move to the B12, there won’t be additional moves. ACC/SEC both have expressed some regret for 14, and B12 insiders have mentioned that SEC insiders have warned them about 14.
What does 14 get you? A little more money, a lot less cohesion and a lot of problems. What does the SEC get if they go to 16? Even if the SEC lands UNC/VT, they get… more money? At 16, they’d be playing 50% of the conference per year. So even if some crazy pod scheme is used, you can’t get around the mathematical fact that you just don’t play teams often. In basketball, you can play every team in the conference once, and a few other games.
I hope B10 stays at 12. I’m pretty confident in that outcome.
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Who in the SEC or ACC has publicly expressed regret over going to 15?
The only point I remember on this is the vague Chuck Neinas quote, and he clearly has a credibility problem.
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TV definitely wanted UK/Florida and so that decision doesn’t surprise me. That’s by far the biggest national matchup of SEC basketball programs.
It’s the equivalent of Florida/LSU for football in terms of mega $ matchup (yeah Alabama-Florida would be bigger but tradition overrides that since you have to keep Alabama-Tenn).
Keeping both of those guaranteed annually was probably a big deal for TV purposes, so it’s not a surprise that the basketball setup was chosen like that.
For UK though, now they’re not going to be playing Indiana either, that sort of takes away a bit from the schedule to not have more rivals protected for home-home.
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Frank,
Great write-up. As a UVA grad who has loved ACC sports for over 40 years, it would be a shame if some if some of these rivalries come to an end…especially Clemson.
IMHO the ACC has lost some of its cultural identity because of its rapid expansion and now needs build cohesion. Your geographic realignment makes sense…this would help FSU/Clemson/GTech build a more football-first mindset. The move to a 9 game Conference schedule will also help.
One action that most ACC schools can take is to improve OOC scheduling and/or rivalries…FSU/Clemson/GTech/WF have been willing to do this with SEC schools. VT v TN, UVA v Ole Miss, UNC v AL, NCSt v Aub, Pitt v PSU, MD v WV can help promote a football-first approach.
Another action is to build more non-football cohesion on issues that matter to at risk schools. The Ivy League (academic recruitment), B1G (research), PAC (Director’s Cup) do it in different ways. It’s hard to know where the match occurs, but FSU/Clemson’s President or AD…as well as Swofford…need to make this clear. Then other ACC schools need to follow.
It’s still difficult to believe that Clemson will leave. FSU is the key.
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Listening to the Clemson officials talk, I’m convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Clemson is ready to leave if FSU does. Not so certain they leave w/o FSU. And while probable, I’m not certain the Big 12 invites them w/o FSU.
FSU isn’t as clear. I now suspect the Chairman’s comments were due to the President refusing to focus on the issue. From the President’s e-mail, its obvious he really didn’t know what he was talking about and hadn’t spent much time on it.
Frank’s problem is that he is not thinking like a university president. University president’s have to listen to the accountants. And if the revenue gap is a big as some believe, there is nothing the ACC can do.
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As a Big 12 fan, I would gladly take Nebraska back and forget ACC schools. But that’s not going to happen.
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I don’t think there would be a strong enough group to support Clemson/Louisville if that’s the backup plan.
I mean, it’s one thing to be getting FSU. Plus, that makes it easy to have a division headed up by Texas/OU and another by FSU/Clemson/WVU. Clemson/WVU just doesn’t provide enough strength for a division to rely on…, I think FSU is the key to Big 12 going back to 12 at this time.
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I don’t think there would be enough support in either direction. Without Florida State (or Notre Dame non-football), the Big 12 I think is unlikely to expand at all. Without Florida State leaving, I doubt Clemson is willing to go to a conference that far away.
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I think the Big XII decided to stay at 10 members as Texas and its minions decided so. They are the new Big Two, Little Eight conference. Some argue the LHN overpaid but I’d argue that the Longhorns are grossly underpaid in terms of their other media deal; their 9 conference games are worth near as much as the other 30+ Big XII televised games.
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their 9 conference games are worth near as much as the other 30+ Big XII televised games.
Maybe if you exclude Oklahoma, but there is no way Texas alone is worth anything close to 9 OU games (though one is against Texas) as well as games featuring OSU, KSU, TCU and WVU all of whom have put together sold programs and can draw national interest with the right matchups.
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wmtiger:
LHN isn’t paying for 9 UT conference games. It is supposedly for one nonconference game not selected as tier one or two. That would mean either Wyoming or New Mexico next season. Which is ESPN backing up the Brinks truck for?
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I think what we are seeing is that the brands are what dominate the value of the TV contracts. I saw one estimate that Texas was roughly $85 million of the $200 million TV deal. Take out Texas and OU and there’s not much value left. The same could be said for the Pac 12 less USC and UCLA or the Big 10 less Michigan, Ohio St., Penn St. and Nebraska. Wisconsin and Iowa are nice, but are support players. Kind of like the Bulls without Rose.
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Bullet:
I agree, although I’d assign a higher value to the other members through their association. OU and UT have to play somebody. They seem to feel so also, or they’d be independent. (I guess they could just play each other over and over to maximize their brands and not have to share with the peasants. How exciting that would be )
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Nebraska is an OK comparison to Clemson’s choice…long rivalries and better fit with Big XII. But Nebraska had real worries (conference stability) and a real solution (B1G cohesion). The geographic and cultural isolation of Clemson in the Big XII contrasted by the fact that Clemson is at the center of the ACC.
IMO Clemson is frustrated with ACC ambivalence towards football. Not admitting West Virginia, while adding Syracuse (prvt northeastern), is tough to accept. They play a couple of SEC schools, while a lot of other southern schools in the ACC shy away. A concerted effort by the ACC to build more rivalries with the SEC will help address Clemson’s concerns.
Jumping to the Big XII when there are less radical solutions doesn’t make sense.
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ESPN is overpaying for the LHN to keep the Big XII together.
ESPN would’ve lost a ton of money if the Longhorns would’ve left for the Pac 16 or B10. ESPN overpays for the LHN but that was a wise investment just to keep the Big XII from falling apart as I’d bet they project they’ll do very well in their tier 2 deal with the Big XII.
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Pablo, welcome aboard. I have admired UVA’s academic planning for almost 30 years. Do you believe that the core “academic” institutions (e.g., UVA, UNC, Duke and WFU — and others) in the ACC will be more likely to join a “Super Conference” for sports to which it shares little institutionally or accept a cobbled together and re-formatted ACC that might be at a disadvantage competing for Tier 3 football rights and Final Four playoff access in football. Of course, everyone wants both and smart, innovative people view it as a challenge to “square the circle” –still
if my dichotomy prevails, which option would you urge your leaders to
pursue?
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So long as there is a sufficient number remaining…a cobbled ACC would be the preference. The Big East survives with a very reactionary approach. The ACC of the 70s and 80s was not great…but had a few surprisingly good teams.
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Rich, why do you include Wake Forest (a fine private institution, but not AAU) in your list of ACC “academics,” but omit Maryland, which has been AAU since 1969?
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Because NOBODY considers Maryland to be an elite academic institution on the level of Wake Forest, dude. Sure. Nebraska, for Pete’s sake, was an AAU member until just recently. If AAU membership equals elite academic institution, then are we calling Arizona, Florida, SUNY-Buffalo, Kansas, Missouri and Texas A&M public Ivies? Hardly.
Is Maryland a nice school? Youbetcha. More academically focused than FSU or Clemson? Unquestionably. Deserving of AAU membership? Most certainly. Qualified to carry Wake’s jock strap academically? Not in a million years.
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I know Florida State is a powerful brand, but I really can see why the Big 12 would say no for similar reasons the PAC-12 said no to Oklahoma. Both were great schools, but they were far away and would have led to a lot of arguing about alignment. Right now, everyone plays everyone in the Big 12 in football and a double round robin in basketball. There is no inherent advantage anyone has and the 10 team format allows a) the pot to be divided fewer ways and b) everyone to have a better shot at the title over the years (realistically even if all are good, it’s unlikely in the Big Ten now that Nebraska, Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State all win a title over a decade, that’s a big switch I don’t we in Big Ten country really appreciate yet). They are also secure for the duration of the contract thanks to the grant of rights.
The advantages Florida State would bring would be to make the Big 12 a little bigger national player and a little more money. The money increase may not be all that substantial though and a conference which just survived near death might not be looking for a set-up that would have more fracture points (Florida State and Clemson would strongly consider a move to the SEC if offered and Florida State would be a lot more likely to get one than West Virgina).
At the same time, Texas and Oklahoma probably see their chance to make it to the national title easier now and the Kansas, Oklahoma State’s, TCU’s, etc probably can count on conference titles (at least a share) most decades, while the same is much harder with a CCG and an extra national power.
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Writing that reminded me why I didn’t want Big Ten expansion either. I love Nebraska in, but I still miss the old set-up.
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FSU < WVU? Once they get to 11, 12 pays for itself via a CCG but Texas doesn't want any competition in the Big XII. They want to have its minions that they can control and beat up on and expand their brand.
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Same conference added TCU, a tiny private school.
Not sure how a conference can add WVU & TCU but turn down FSU. Its like choosing a Kia or a VW over a Porsche.
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I hope you meant WVU was the Kia.
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It seems weird, but it’s the same thing that happened with the PAC-10. They ended up with Colorado and Utah and then turned down Oklahoma. Actually I think the difference between West Virginia/TCU and Florida State is probably less than that gap.
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It’s harder and harder to get value from schools, the more you add; which is why i don’t see its likely any of the 4 power conferences go to 16 teams. Adding 11 & 12 is getting 3 for the price of 2 as you land a CCG. Adding 13 & 14, you need them a king or a couple princes to get value…
FSU is one of those programs you can’t pass up, yet it looks like the Big XII will because Texas likes being the only bully on the block. Big XII just signed a lucrative tier 2 deal and should get a nice raise with their tier 1 deal coming up soon; tier 1 for the Big XII is almost all Texas or Oklahoma games so FSU wouldn’t impact that a great deal…
Passing on FSU now won’t hurt them but when it comes time to sign their next contract; imo they’ll be miles behind the Pac 12, B10 and SEC.
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No Florida State is certainly greater than West Virginia, but 10 might be a lot better than 12 and they can’t uninite West Virginia now. Pays for itself not the issue. Neither is this just a Texas thing.
If everyone else wants to go to 12, Texas cannot stop them. The statements we’ve heard against expansion in recent months though haven’t just been out of Austin, they’ve been from the commissioner and from athletic departments as removed from Texas as Iowa State. 10 is a more stable formation (no scheduling or divisional issues, fewer teams in their 2nd choice conference, more opportunities for smaller powers to rise up). A few extra million dollars might not be worth breaking that up. If the PAC-12 could decide Oklahoma/Oklahoma State weren’t worth it, it’s more than possible the Big 12 could decide the same with Florida State.
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Its possible, but I think they have already unanimously decided to invite FSU/Clemson if they are interested. There have been enough leaks. FSU is just too big a brand to pass up, especially for the long run. There are a lot of small states in the Big 12. FSU creates divisional issues, but creates much more strength in the conference.
I think we are just in the deny, deny, deny, avoid litigation mode until the playoff format is decided and FSU committs one way or the other.
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Have tv deals been signed, or just worked out? UT could still veto by saying 10 or we’re gone. That’s the thing about the B12. They do have a King in a nearly literal sense. Are you really suggesting Ames and Lawrence etc would really try to strong-arm the reason they are still in a relevant conference?
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cc, were Texas to pull that stunt and leave, it would be a major public relations disaster for UT. I don’t think people in Austin would dare try it; there’s only so much a bully can pull off.
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Unless the Big XII has been misrepresenting what actually happened and the GoR doesn’t go into effect until the beginning of the league year (July 1), then Texas is stuck for (at least) 6 years, so that isn’t a huge issue.
(Of course if the GoR doesn’t go into effect until July 1 then I wouldn’t be shocked if Larry Scott made a last ditch effort to grab some Big XII schools)
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One other thing to consider is that UT needs the Big XII to survive since no other power conference would take on the LHN which the BoT has made clear is there biggest priority (it’s why they refused to Bill Powers unilateral authority to determine conference alignment even though the presidents at OU, OSU, A&M, Mizzou and WVU had been granted such power)
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http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/stewart_mandel/06/01/three-and-one-playoff-model/index.html?eref=sihp&sct=hp_wr_a4
This is silly, if not sad.
I can’t help but get the feeling that our friends in the SEC and Big XII desperately (and for different reasons – one for ego, one for relevance, both for arrogance) feel the need to demonstrate that they are the mental equivalents of the so-called intellects of the big, bad B1G and PAC via an ability to dominate (not just win) at the negotiating table.
Really, who negotiates by publicly painting themselves into a corner from which there’s no escape? This isn’t posturing. Who cares if the SEC took a unanimous vote? Who care if they claim they won’t compromise? Should they choose to not sign off on the 3 champs/1 at-large obvious compromise, then Plus 1 it will be, or perhaps a lose-lose with all this money left on the table would be more to their liking?. Geez, this shines a new light on thinking like a University President. This is more University Presidents thinking like Dumb Jocks. What a perfect mesh of Texas’ nonsense with an equally self-absorbed group.
First off, what other American sport does this “only the four best” thing? Not the NFL, MLB, NBA or NHL. Exactly how is this All-American? Just because it suits what you perceive to be in your short-term self-interest? This is starting to resemble the nonsense found in our politics. Absolutely no regard for the greater good or the potential win-win. Wake me when it’s over. Ignorance bores me.
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I couldn’t agree more. The B1G has allowed the process to play out in a private, dignified manner whereas those blowhards Dodds, Saban and Machen have only set themselves up for a fall if it doesn’t go their way.
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Here’s a good article about this very thing:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-spt-0603-greenstein-college-football–20120603,0,373503.column
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If they are going to pre-select two bowls to host the semis, I like his idea of giving the top team their choice of location.
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Talk about a homer! Don’t you ever listen to Delany? There’s very little difference, except maybe Delany’s smugness.
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Yeah, Delaney took a direct shot at Alabama when he said he didn’t have much regard (I believe that was the term he used) for a team that didn’t even win its division.
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I don’t have much regard for them either, so why I would I object to Delany saying what many people think? It wasn’t only a shot at 2011 AL, but all the non-champs that would have been in under that system.
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Yeah, and you of course are an impartial voice of reason.
The SEC is trying to force the other conferences hands with this preemptive bluster
tailor made for maximum media dissemination.
Nothing Delany has said compares to “The world is with us, we’re not budging, they’re
going to have to come to us, the Big Ten is delusional.”
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I agree 100%! I was thinking, as I read the article in the St. Louis paper, the exact same thing. Why is the President of Florida continually campaigning his league into a corner? I thought I was reading the comments of Coach Saban and not those of a University President. It truly is sickening.
“The group that’s got to get real, the Big Ten’s got to realize that the world is going in a different direction.”
Specifically, Machen was referring to one of the dividing lines on the movement: Should any form of playoff be made up of the top four teams, however they are determined, or strictly of league champions?
The SEC, which has produced the last six football national champions and had two of its teams in last season’s national title game, is adamant that the playoff consist of the top four teams.
“We won’t compromise on that,” said Machen, a Webster Groves native.
Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/mizzou/florida-s-machen-says-playoff-foundation-is-set/article_e310749c-4e69-55e5-aaf6-8492bf5efd78.html#ixzz1wgh6QYAZ
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Not sure why people get so worked up over public comments that will have very little to do with what gets discussed behind closed doors. Many of the conferences just wrapped up their meetings which is why you are hearing some press about this and the Big 10 will be no different. I think we’ll end up with something what the Chicago Tribune article discussed. The conferences are far enough into this thing that a single conference doesn’t want to be the one that prevents this from happening.
Having said this, regardless if a conference champs model is selected or not, you still need a selection method of determining the best conference champions or best overall. The notion that a conference champs model is more about proving it on the field doesn’t make sense it’s still very subjective of which conference champs go. Which is why the most important discussion that takes place will be the how the teams are selected – selection committee or ranking system
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But at least you are eliminating some (non champs) from consideration.
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Yeah, that is what people keep forgetting. If limit yourself to conference champs only you are picking from 10 teams (the WAC will fold soon) instead of 125+ (number of FBS teams in 2015). It is far simpler to pick the four best teams from a 10 team pool than a 125 team pool.
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The SEC has won six consecutive national championships.
If the Big Ten can’t see the SEC’s power in this negotiation, then that is a bigger indictment than anything that the former’s viewpoint is out of touch.
The SEC’s participation decides whether a playoff has legitimacy.
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The SEC may have the power, but act too much like a Texas-style bully and it can backfire in the court of public opinion. If the SEC doesn’t wish to participate in a playoff, the loss is theirs.
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If you think Slive’s opinion carries one ounce more weight than Delany’s in this process your wearing crimson colored glasses. As it stands now its Slive and the outgoing Big 12 interim commissioner against everyone else. The 3/1 proposal is coming.
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No, the fans decide legitimacy.
We’re in this mess because a bunch of people take issue with the SEC’s legitimacy as it is now.
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The SEC’s power? The one thing that the changing college football landscape has proven is that eyeballs are the real power. The BIG has them and in more populous areas than the SEC. The SEC is regionalized in the poorest area of the country. Without their propaganda arm in ESPN, the SEC would be only relevant in the South. The BIG/PAC alliance controls the coasts where the most people reside and the most money is located. That is power and the SEC coaches and kicking and screaming like a frustrated toddler cause they know it.
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When the SEC stops over-signing (or the rest of college football really starts) I’ll take those NC’s a little more seriously.
Its like being amazed a guy who gets 4 cards off the deal in Texas Hold’em wins more often than those getting the standard two. Its a matter of probability, not necessarily skill.
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They all need to pull their heads out of the sand— In division 1A there NEVER has been a national champion… North Dakota State is a national champion (div 1AA), New York Giants are NFL champions… Until it’s played out on the field in a multi-team playoff, no one can ever call themselves “champion”. Since the beginning of div 1A college football, “champions” have been “named” or “awarded”–only recently, TPTB created the BCS so they now can call themselves BCS “champions”—This; of course, is still based entirely on perception (i.e. Alabama would beat Boise State, my daddy would beat up your daddy—that’s just how ridiculous this has gotten!!!). No matter how you slice it, it is perception—be it direct human polls or computer polls that are programmed by humans.
I entirely agree with B1G Jeff… These presidents and commissioners are turning this all into bad politicking—themselves becoming absorbed with self-importance… If this does not stop, this will do more harm to college football, than benefit…
The irony to all this, is these guys run some of America’s finest educational institutions, yet, these guys have somehow have turned this into 3rd grade playground antics…
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mnfanstc,
“They all need to pull their heads out of the sand— In division 1A there NEVER has been a national champion… ”
That’s a complete load of crap and even you know it. You may not like the system, and you may not agree with the outcome every year, but to say teams like 2001 Miami, 2002 OSU, 2005 TX, 2009 AL and 2010 AU weren’t national champs is ludicrous. Could other teams have won a playoff those years? Sure. But they didn’t.
“Until it’s played out on the field in a multi-team playoff, no one can ever call themselves “champion”.”
The BCS has always been a multi-team playoff, so you’re already contradicting yourself..
” Since the beginning of div 1A college football, “champions” have been “named” or “awarded”–only recently, TPTB created the BCS so they now can call themselves BCS “champions”—This; of course, is still based entirely on perception (i.e. Alabama would beat Boise State, my daddy would beat up your daddy—that’s just how ridiculous this has gotten!!!). No matter how you slice it, it is perception—be it direct human polls or computer polls that are programmed by humans.”
The only other solution is a full 128 team tournament, and that’s ridiculous. Any playoff with a limited number of teams is based on perception and/or arbitrary rules that don’t try to pick the best teams, meaning someone can always complain and say that isn’t the real champion..
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He is correct in that D1 football is not recognized as an NCAA championship (because it isn’t one).
We start the season with a 120ish bracket. Conference “pool” play reduces the number greatly. Three play in games gets you to a bracket of eight. Do I want this? NO! But I’m not going to pretend we need 6+ weeks of post season competition to crown an actual recognizable NCAA D1 FB national champion.
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It’s not an official NCAA Championship (because then the big boys would have to share money), but the NCAA recognizes those championships.
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No. They may note it, but it is not an NCAA championship and can not be officially recognized as such.
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Yes. They put them in the NCAA football record book, and even single out the major selectors and teams that were consensus champs. They have a whole section just to give all the details of the BCS, too.
I didn’t say they were NCAA National Championships, I said the NCAA recognizes them. They don’t crown synchronized swimming champs either (or those in several other smaller sports), but they recognize those champs as well.
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Ok, sorry. I misunderstood what you meant by the word recognize. I was thinking recognized as the UN recognizing a nation, or a court recognizing someone as having standing.
Don’t believe the directors cup counts them.
Wikipedia doesn’t count them among championships conferences have won, but does note (recognize) them 😉 .
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ccrider55,
“Ok, sorry. I misunderstood what you meant by the word recognize. I was thinking recognized as the UN recognizing a nation, or a court recognizing someone as having standing.”
No, I didn’t mean it that formally. Sorry for the confusion.
“Don’t believe the directors cup counts them.”
http://www.nacda.com/directorscup/nacda-directorscup-scoring.html
Football does count, and they use the coaches poll:
FBS Football
The following breakdown will be used:
1st place – 1-25 using the USA Today poll, point breakdown is as follows: We will be using the 64-team non-bracket point system for the top-25 teams with 25th place receiving 49 points.
26th place – Bowl game winners not ranked in poll (45 points)
Next Available Place – Bowl game losers not ranked in the poll (25 points)
Since the coaches poll has to put the BCS NCG winner #1, you could say that they do in fact count it as a national title.
“Wikipedia doesn’t count them among championships conferences have won, but does note (recognize) them 😉 .”
Well, I can’t fight an authority like Wikipedia.
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Brian #2 and texmex: Yes, the SEC has won six consecutive national championships, but that doesn’t mean it’s their play box or they alone connote legitimacy to the process. Would you deem it still legitimate if the B1G and PAC, representing the largest footprints among the conferences, opted out of the process? The SEC’s dominance on the field of play is not the same as dominance over the CFB landscape, which they clearly don’t have.
It’s clear that you get what you negotiate, not what you deserve. I certainly acknowledge the fantastic results achieved by the SEC (by whatever means) in recent history. I understand posturing. My concerns relate to the unnecessary histrionics and planting seeds of discontent in an environment where collaboration is called for. The Big XII barely existed 5 minutes ago, and now they think they’re dictating something? Please.
Listen to these quotes:
“For some young kid from Mobile, Alabama, who has never seen snow, to have to go play a national championship game in Wisconsin — I don’t know if that’s the right thing.” (AL Coach Saban)
“I don’t see a compromise position,” (Texas AD DeLoss Dodds)
“The group that’s got to get real, the Big Ten’s got to realize that the world is going in a different direction.” (Florida’s president Machen)
The world? These guys are supposed to be leaders. They sound petulant and so stereotypical. These negotiations are about potentially billions of dollars, not who has more clout based on athletic strength.
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In case you weren’t keeping up, it was the B1G & Pac 12 that first started taking this debate into the public forum. There for a while Delany couldn’t keep his smug comments out of the media. It seemed like there for a while Delany was putting out something every week. It wasn’t until Delany started bashing an individual university that those in the SEC started with their “harsh” talk in the media. Heck, Saban wouldn’t have said what he said if Delany hadn’t attached his school publically (“I don’t have a lot of regard for that team”).
So don’t give me this high and mighty crap about the B1G is taking the high road or whatever you guys are trying to claim. The fact is that the B1G, Pac 12, ACC and whoever else has now become worried about the SEC’s recent dominance. They know that while things have been cyclical in the past, that with the current trends in population growth (which PSUhockey may want to consider along with the addition of Texas and Missouri when making an arguement on population bases) and the current areas where high school football talent seems to be concentrated in, that the SEC’s dominance has the potential to remain for the foreseeable future. It was the B1G & Pac 12 that didn’t want a playoff what, 4 or so years ago? It wasn’t until the SEC’s 6 straight that they decided to come to the table on the playoff that the SEC has been trying to push this whole time.
And in regards to the conversation as to whether or not the SEC is in a position of power, let me ask you this one question. Which conference seems to be benefitting the most with the current state of college football? The answer to that question gives you the answer as to why the B1G & Pac 12 have all of a sudden decided that a conference champs only playoff is in their best interest. Now I’m not saying that when push comes to shove in the playoff meetings later this month, that the SEC will make a “top 4” or nothing ultimatum, but if they wanted to that could take a page out of the B1G/Pac 12 playbook from the 90s and say “the Big 12 and SEC will just send our top teams to our new bowl, and you can have your playoff with the rest of the teams and do it however you want to do it”. Recent history says that the new SEC/Big 12 bowl has a better chance of pairing off the top 2 ranked teams than a playoff with the rest of the schools. Now again, I’m not saying that the SEC (and thus the Big 12) would end up doing that when push comes to shove, but they do have that card to play in the negotiations.
Now in the end I think their will be some kind of compromise on what happens, but to say that the SEC isn’t currently in somewhat of a position of power is a foolish one. And to say that the SEC/Big 12 are at fault for taking this debate to the public is definitely a false one. They are just reacting to the comments made by those of the B1G/Pac 12. Delany and crew are the ones that decided to make this personal and public.
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I know the recent trends in population growth, but let’s not pretend that Birmingham is becoming Chicago any time soon. BIG ten schools have bigger enrollments (9 in the top 27 schools while SEC has 2 in the top 50) so all those northerners traveling south are taking their affiliations with them. A Purdue grad is not becoming a Texas fan because he moved to Austin.
The current system of arbitrary preseason rankings based on hype and media bias definitely favors the SEC. These teams don’t have to play anything resembling of a tough out of conference schedule to be highly ranked Simply being in the SEC gets them that. So of course the SEC is going fight for a system where they only have to play each other to get two teams in the playoffs. Same goes for the Big12 where the winner, and possible loser, of the
Red River shootout gets in. The BIG and PAC definitely wants to end that system and they have the backing of college football fans as shown by the terrible ratings for championship game last year. Both sides have made snarky comments, but the SEC coaches have actually mentioned the BIG by name, making them sound more unprofessional. They also know they are in the minority of what most conferences want and what the fans want.
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Here are the top 50 enrollments:
1. Arizona State University 68k
2. Ohio state University, 55k
3. Central Florida, 53k
4. Minnesota, 52k
5. Texas 51k
6. Florida 51k
7. Texas A&M 48k
8. Michigan State 47k
9. Liberty University 46k
10. Washington 46k
11. Penn State 45k
12. Illinois 44k
13. NYU 43k
14. Indiana 42k
15. Micigan 42k
16. Wisconsin 42k
17. Purdue 41k
18. South Florida 40k
19. Florida State 40k
20. Florida International 40k
21. Arizona 39k
22. UCLA 39k
23. Rutgers 37k
24. Maryland 37k
25. Houston 37k
26. Temple 37k
27. CSU Fullerton 36k
28. UC Berkeley 36k
29. Long Beach State 36k
30. CSU Northridge 35k
31. North Texas 35k
32. Georgia 35k
33. Southern Cal 34k
34. Missouri 34k
35. BYU 34k
36. NC State 34k
37. Colorado 33k
38. San Deigo State 33k
39. Virginia Commonwealth 32k
40. George Mason 32k
41. Boston U 32k
42. Wayne State 32k
43. San Jose State 31k
44. UC Davis 31k
45. Cincinatti 31k
46. Virginia Tech 31k
47. Texas State San Marcos 31k
48. San Francisco State 30k
49. Georgia State 30k
50. Wisconsin-Milwaukee 30k
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I tried to take out all the online universities but I missed Liberty University. Scratch them too.
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Isn’t that a relatively big recent jump in attendance for Missouri? I thought they were down in the 20s.
Ohio St. was the biggest university for years, but deliberately shrunk to under 50k around 1980 and Texas became the largest university for a couple of decades. Wonder why Ohio St. has decided to increase again.
Minnesota has been a pretty big jump. I remember a few years ago, It was the Texas schools and Arizona schools and Ohio St. at the top with A&M in the low 40s in #5.
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Delany never mentioned AL. If “self-absorbed people” take it to mean AL, maybe they are also insecure and recognize that they didn’t deserve a shot last year and didn’t really win the NC. At best they earned a share of the SEC West title.
Lots of non-champs would have gotten in under a top 4 system, including a Stanford team last year that got crushed by #5 OR. How come no Stanford or P12 fans were up in arms after Delany’s statement?
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USC now officially owns the Coliseum.
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This has been on again/off again in various formats for several years. I think this is just a lease deal, which was the last I read. USC basically runs it for X years (a long period-50 years?) and puts money into it. This is a very good thing for the coliseum. They actually were going to buy it outright at one time.
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Well, I guess they can try to sell the naming rights. Then, you know, not embezzle money. That usually helps. $100 million in renovations doesn’t sound too bad – USC probably has some rich alums/boosters, so throw in some public funding, and that shouldn’t be too hard to scrape together. TCU raised $130 million for our new stadium, all from private donors. Of course, if that new NFL stadium gets built, that’s going to make things tougher for them.
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Not a lot of college football stadiums with corporate names, but Texas Tech got $25 million from SBC (now AT&T) to pay for improvements back in 2000. Minnesota got $35 million over 25 years. USC could at least double that, I reckon.
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By the way, I haven’t seen it discussed here yet, but I found the comments from Big 12 officials about the ACC yesterday very interesting, to say the least.
Here’s a series of Tweets:
So, you have Chuck Neinas openly saying the the five power conferences (including the ACC and excluding the Big East) meet with each other and the Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC and Big 12 commissioners are helping the ACC to find a top tier bowl game.
I’m at bit of a loss of how the Big 12 has gone out of its way to say that the ACC is part of the power group and the fact that the other power conferences are helping the ACC out bowl-wise is quite a piece of news to me in terms of how openly and explicitly the “big five” are working with each other to the exclusion of everyone else. (I think that we all knew this would be the case in practicality, but it’s something else when one of the commissioners doesn’t even try to hide that fact.)
What’s the purpose of all of these Big 12 statements? Pumping up the perception of a conference that you might raid doesn’t help you from a litigation mitigation standpoint – if anything, it can backfire badly as you’re on the record publicly that the raidee was a strong unit and such raidee can prove damages much more easily. Lots of weird stuff here.
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Short answer is that in order to keep control of the FBS and its postseason, the Big Boys need (at least) 61 votes, which they can’t reach without the ACC. Unless the SEC, Big 10 and Big XII are planning to simultaneously attack the ACC within the next month or so, they have to play nice or the ACC could side with the have nots.
Right now the ACC is feeling isolated, threatened and mistreated by fans and the media. Having the other conferences prop them in the media is probably reassuring.
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@frug – That’s a good point. As someone that doesn’t believe that 4 16-team superconferences are coming at any point soon (it’s fun to talk about there and sounds clean in theory but way too messy to have in reality), including the ACC means that the power group still has a majority of FBS schools.
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Yeah, I have always suspected that the real reason the power conferences have insisted that the TV contracts for whatever postseason system is put in place be significantly longer than the 8 year BCS contracts is because it would protect them if they have ever fell into the minority. When the new postseason system goes into effect in 2015 there will be (at least) 125 schools at the FBS level of which only 62 will be in the power conferences.
If the power conferences don’t lock up a long term deal this summer they will have to either expand or begin treating the have-nots as equals.
(Of course once the ink is dry they can go buck wild)
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Of course, given the rampant speculation about another 1-A split being likely in the relatively near future, I doubt that the power schools are in the minority for long if at all.
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Here’s a full article from Tallahassee.com (they sent their FSU beat writer to the Big 12 meetings) with various quotes from Chuck Neinas and the Oklahoma State president about the ACC:
http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20120601/FSU03/120601019/Despite-money-gap-Big-12-says-ACC-still-football-power?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|frontpage&nclick_check=1
Once again, I still find it unusual for Neinas to keep talking about the ACC directly. He certainly didn’t do that for the Big East prior to taking West Virginia and TCU (and flirting with Louisville) and the Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC all avoided talking about the Big 12 before raiding them. It has always been the standard “we haven’t been contacted and we haven’t contacted anyone” denials from all of those parties without further detail.
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Frank, no one there actually believes the ACC is part of the power group, but put on the facade and everyone feels all right — ACC members and the media that follow them, for continuing the absurd belief that the conference will have an equal seat at the table with the big boys despite relatively lackluster football on the field, at the ticket booth and in pure college football passion (read just about any Virginia or North Carolina newspaper for this self-delusion); as well as the four lead conferences, confident such comments will prevent lawsuits when the ACC is effectively shut out of taking part in a playoff. They can pretend they will treat the ACC like Notre Dame, when they know that unless it’s a team with some appeal — a Florida State, a Miami, maybe a North Carolina — it would never receive the same consideration as ND for a playoff berth, just as an Okie State had to go undefeated to play for the BCS title since it doesn’t have a “brand name.” In short, it’s posturing, hoping the ACC will either go away to Big East/C-USA levels or meekly accept its #5 also-ran status, inanely believing, “It’s OK — we have basketball!”.
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@vp19 – I think that’s overstating it a lot. Even without FSU and Clemson (I’m not buying that the ACC is just going to unravel completely as much as a lot of people want to see a car wreck), the ACC will still have collection of major flagship and flagship equivalent schools on the Eastern seaboard. More importantly, the ACC would still be made up 100% of schools that were there at the formation of the BCS system (unlike the current Big East). The ACC schools are all architects of the BCS cartel (and pretty important ones, at that), so I think many people are going waaaaaaaay overboard with thinking the ACC isn’t going to have a seat at the power table.
I firmly believe that if the ACC and Pac-12 TV contracts had been negotiated in the open market at the same time, the ACC would have received more than the Pac-12. The historical TV ratings for both football and basketball would have supported that in every way, so it shows that the fundamental value of the ACC is vastly underrated by the fans that just look at the conference’s BCS bowl record. The ACC had unfortunate timing that it signed a TV contract a year before a massive bull/bubble market in college sports TV rights. That’s it. This has nothing to do with whether the conference was “football-centric” enough – the entire purpose of the 2003 expansion with Miami was football, football and more football.
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But doing a four-team playoff takes the ACC out of consideration 7 years out of 10, at the minimum. In addition, its relatively poor postseason attendance has largely diminished its appeal to bowl committees. It simply doesn’t fit into the current landscape of college football, and the silly idea of having a bowl game against Notre Dame won’t save it (nor would I believe ND would want to be hamstrung into that agreement). Isolate it, let it die its own revenue-induced death and let the remaining conferences pick and choose the bones from the carcass.
I will say this, though: You can blame Pac presidents for the ACC’s current predicament. Had they allowed Okie State to enter their hallowed confines — and they had not one, but two chances to do it — the Big 12 would no longer exist and the ACC would be secure, probably with a western bloc of Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri. (Had those schools been left isolated, they probably would have preferred the ACC to the clumsy, less well-off Big East.)
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You also need to blame the ACC for a bad expansion play that kept the XII at 10. If the ACC had not taken Pittsburg when it called, the XII would probably be at 12 today (with Pittsburg and Louisville) and not looking to expand.
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Why would the ACC take Kansas State or Iowa State? Or really even Kansas outside of the basketball side of things. Missouri would be interesting, but geographically isolated. Would seem to make more sense to grab Rutgers and UConn if expansion has to happen.
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In this hypothetical scenario, if Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and Missouri had been left stranded by the Big 12 imploding, they have to go somewhere; unlike Baylor, which would have been in the same predicament, or what might be left of a similar ACC implosion (Boston College, Syracuse, Wake Forest, possibly Miami or Duke), these are large state universities with larger football fan bases than most ACC programs (and far longer big-time histories than Rutgers or Connecticut). Leaving any of them — even Iowa State, everyone’s favorite whipping boy — out of what was then the BCS loop would have led to considerable political scrutiny on Capitol Hill. And at the time, they probably would have wanted to remain as a bloc.
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I know I’ve gone back and forth a lot, but I’m back in the camp of thinking the raid isn’t really the preference of either Florida State leadership or Big 12 leadership (although if the boosters force the hand, Florida State will ask and the Big 12 might reluctantly accept knowing its probably a once in a lifetime chance).
The bowl is the more interesting part. If the other conferences are trying to help, I could see something like ACC #1 vs. Big Ten #2/SEC #2/Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl (where the bowl could choose the best available).
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ACC less FSU and Clemson is still well ahead of the rest of the pack in every way. I really don’t think the SEC and Big 10 have any interest in expanding right now. And even some of the pro-expansion bloggers are saying the Big 12 won’t go to 14 w/o Notre Dame. There is clearly a reluctance in the Big 12 to go beyond 12. So that leaves the ACC at 12.
There’s also the interpersonal aspect of litigation. People are less likely to sue their buddies.
As for the 4 conferences, the ACC could be viewed the way the Big East was. You wouldn’t want to leave out the northeast and mid-Atlantic. The other conferences weren’t interested in leaving out the BE until the ACC displaced it in the northeast. Now the BE only has 1 of its continuing original members-Rutgers. Everyone else is new to AQ since 2005 (or back after an absence in the case of Temple).
For Chuck Neinas, he has a headhunter business and doesn’t want to tick anyone off (except maybe Missouri).
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The other conferences weren’t interested in leaving out the BE until the ACC displaced it in the northeast.
Disagree. They would have gladly left out the Big East but they needed the Big East’s votes in order to keep control of the BCS. It had nothing to do with not wanting to lock out the northeast.
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I wouldn’t make too much of Neinas’ comments. He’s the outgoing interim commissioner. I think he just wants to wash his hands of any potential FSU/Clemson raiding. That will be the new commissioner’s legacy. Neinas just wants to depart peacefully on 6/15 by calming down any expansion rumors. As another poster said, I believe he’s a big part of a consulting firm that assists with head coach hiring so maintaining good relationships is very important to him. Aside from that there’s still a lot that has to happen to determine if the Big 12 will proceed with expansion
1) Bob Bowlsby taking the reigns full time as commissioner
2) The BCS playoff format being finalized
3) Vetting process with TV partners to see if expansion is worth it
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I just don’t think the votes actually matter all that much. These are more consensus decisions than anything and the ones who must always be convinced first are those bringing the most money to the table.
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Here’s an interesting Q&A with a Notre Dame blogger/mod. He dispels the notion that owing Tier 3 rights is a huge advantage for the Big 12 in possibly getting Notre Dame, and seems to imply that Notre Dame would go to the Pac before they’d go B1G or Big 12…
http://www.hornsports.com/a-notre-dame-perspective-on-the-realignment-discussion
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Just so everyone knows, this guy is from NDNation not an actual insider or journalist. I tried giving him the benefit of the doubt until I read this gem:
The plethora of land-grant institutions in the Big 10 makes it a poor fit for the Fighting Irish — chances are they’d end up on the wrong end of a lot of everyone-to-two votes, since Northwestern is the only school in the group even close to resembling what ND is.
Because we all know that the public schools are always ganging up on Northwestern…
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To clarify, I’m not saying that Notre Dame would be a perfect cultural fit but the idea that the big bad landgrants are going to pick on them and force them to open a medical school and perform stem cell research on electively aborted fetuses is just goofy*.
*I would have used an actual hypothetical situation but I honestly couldn’t think of one. That is how ridiculous his implication is.
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It may be ridiculous to you, but it was very real to Ara. Granted, that was 50 years ago, but Ara’s firsthand take on the situation still matters greatly to those who remember him as coach.
Mike Coffey is a leading guy on NDNation.com, so he’s not a journalist, but he does speak what many alumni (particularly the hard-core) think.
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Keep in mind a couple things. One, Ara had a major falling out with Northwestern AD so he isn’t exactly the impartial source. I’m not saying he was necessarily misrepresenting things but what he said needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
Second, and more importantly, Coffey says that they would see a lot of everyone to 2 votes, but that isn’t happening now. Since Delany took over in the late ’80s the only major decision that seemed to have anything less than truly unanimous support was Minnesota’s supposed reluctance to joining the Big Ten’s hockey conference. Northwestern hasn’t been isolated at all. (I mean isolated in the way that Nebraska was in the Big XII losing a bunch of 11-1 votes).
I say its rediculous because the fear is unreasonable. I honestly can’t think of one single issue that Notre Dame and Northwestern would at serious odds with the public schools.
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At least they are *publicly* united. None of us are privy to what goes on behind the scenes. I also don’t think that ND would necessarily appreciate having to run their school or athletics at the whims of any other school.
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I also don’t think that ND would necessarily appreciate having to run their school or athletics at the whims of any other school.
I’ll give you that, but that is going to be an issue in any conference, not just the Big 10.
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FLP_NDRox,
“At least they are *publicly* united. None of us are privy to what goes on behind the scenes. I also don’t think that ND would necessarily appreciate having to run their school or athletics at the whims of any other school.”
Can you point out any situation in which a B10 member was told how to run its school by the conference? Even the ADs have free rein as long as they follow the basic rules of the conference.
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ND going to the PAC is laughable. Women’s volleyball is going to play their games two times zones away on the West Coast. ND will stay independent until 2015. That is the key year when their contract is up and coincidently the BIG’s is too. The BIG’s payout will be enormous as currently constructed, saying nothing if they expand. If the BIG goes to NBC, which I think is a very real possibility, they could muscle out ND from that station. Will another Network pay to broadcast only ND?
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Yup, at least in 2015. Even if the ratings aren’t great, you’re still only paying one school, not 10/12-14/16 which is cheaper. The demographics aren’t great, but they beat most of the non-superconferences. Besides, what else are you going to run on Saturday afternoons in the fall other than infomercials if you don’t have a contract with a superconf?
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Unless Kelly turns them around, I think Notre Dame may have more trouble than you think. I’m sure they can find a contract, the question is what sacrifices will have to make. The ratings dropped 20% last year the second straight year that ratings dropped sharply. And for all the talk about Saturday infomercials, NBC has still decided to start moving Irish games onto NBC Sports Network.
Unless Notre Dame is willing to start playing Thursdays, Fridays and lots of night games I can see them having trouble getting a deal that keeps them up with the PAC/B1G/SEC/Big XII. Network heads are going to be very gun shy after what happened to Dick Ebersol.
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Maybe we’ve not given enough credit to how brilliantly ND has played the field. They’ve basically paralyzed (or at least capped) the process by making the B1G, ACC, Big XII and now the PAC (“…ND would go to the Pac before they’d go B1G or Big XII?” WTF? LMAO!) believe that there are reasons why ND would join each of their conferences preferentially, all along knowing that they intend on maintaining their independence. They’ve maintained their prominence and desirability despite a level of performance on the field that wouldn’t justify it; hell, they’ve kept a seat at the big table as a single, small midwestern university. This flirtation has been as good from a marketing/PR perspective as their national scheduling.
Well done…
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Don’t fool yourself….I really think Notre Dame as an institution is worried about its future as an independent and its almost joining of the Big Ten in the late 90’s was the first indication of that fact.
It has a good deal going with NBC, and in fairness that isn’t going anywhere soon, but its ratings are dropping (especially once that first loss comes) and with the explosion of college attendance & college football popularity, its ability to attract “non-associated” football fans becomes much diminished. And even though it has undergone several decades of institutional expansion, it is still a small, private institution (which is a very legitimate thing at the college level), but that has impacted its ability to maintain the “generational” fan (i,e.: “my mom/dad rooted for ND so I went to ND because I grew up a fan and its a great school”), especially given the aforementioned accessibility of college and their own football programs.
I really think ND is in the middle of a transformation of the school into something more like USC…another private school that has built a national reputation with top notch academics (both undergraduate and graduate) where they have nearly 3.5 times the student enrollment (50% more undergrad, 550% graduate)…and football prowess. If they could achieve this accomplishment I think sustained independence is an achievable goal.
The problem they’ve run into is while ND is a top notch institution it is church affiliated (a negative to a large population set) and located in the middle of Indiana…unlike SoCal, its location itself isn’t itself a draw. When you add those to the stringent academic requirements for admission you see the institution has a very tough slope to climb and its relatively new desire to expand its graduate level offerings (when its undergrad enrollment levels are far below the USC “baseline”) an acknowledgement of that fact.
In the next couple decades, I believe ND could attain a Northwesten level of enrollment (current ND undergrad levels and tripling its graduate enrollment), but the question is, is that level sufficient to sustain national marketability (both academic and athletic) in the marketplace 20…50…100 years from now?
In the end, notice I never once mentioned money. Notre Dame has more than enough of that and will (likely) continue to have it. The problem comes in exposure & marketability. Both of which Notre Dame desperately needs (as a small, religiously affiliated school) to maintain its “cache” and distinguish it from the literally thousands of other schools like it across the nation. If in 2015 (VERY unlikely) or after its next tv contract (much more likely) ND sees itself losing out in national exposure to other schools THAT is when you see the administration finally over-rule the alumni. And at that point the alumni won’t have any room to argue.
PS – I still maintain Notre Dame will look to join the Big Ten first. Large populations of Catholics in its footprint, institutional desire to be excellent at, and expand in, both undergraduate and graduate level academics, and an institutional conservatism with enough long term foresight to take calculated risks that pay off big. All other talk (ND to the Big12, ACC, Pac, Big East, etc) is simply that IMHO.
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Respectfully, I must disagree with your analysis of ND’s strategic plan. ND has pursued the same strategy for three decades – to attract higher and higher profile undergraduates and selectively develop grad programs. If there was a single metric that motivates the leaders at ND it is the 25-75 ACT (or SAT) split for the incoming freshman class. This year it is 32-34 — a remarkable achievement for a non-Ivy. Once you reach that number, you cannot grow undergraduate enrollments much at all — there are simply only so many domestic applicants with 33 or higher composite ACTs. The international pool poses its own challenges that slow the pace of growth. We will not grow much at all at the undergraduate level. The only play at the graduate level is to spend a couple of billion to buy a med-health complex — and the mix of public policy and religious doctrine causes so many problems for the administration in today’s environment that this move might be taken off the front burner.
Does this plan align itself with the Big 10? I don’t think so. The ACC for full membership is our best play if we must join — or stay as independent. Personally, after reading this board over the past two years, I have changed my mind — I think ND should simply ride it out. Making ourselves more attractive to ESPN is not our future and our interests are not aligned with the Super 4 conferences.
Once a school has lifted itself from the pack academically, the benefits of being “great” vs “good” in cfb are not obvious. In the past two decades, Stanford, Northwestern, ND, Rice and Duke have had different patterns of performance in cfb — and the quality of the profile of undergraduates has not been affected — in fact, the profile has consistently improved during the past 20 year whether the team wins or loses on the field — so the Big 10 should find another “asset’ in its battle against the SEC for Tier 3 football ratings.
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You say you disagree with my analysis, but restate the same facts I used as yours, and fail to offer counter argument on why exactly ND has been doing what it has been doing for the past 3 decades. Even better, you then jump right into why the ACC is a better conference for Notre Dame. Again, ignoring any context on why Notre Dame would join one conference over any other.
I maintain Notre Dame, as an independent (in all senses of the word) institution, recognized decades ago what it needed to do to maintain its independence and has methodically undertaken endeavors to achieve those things necessary for independence. These include (in historical order as far as I can tell) national football prominence, undergraduate academic excellence, and graduate program & research excellence. Also, you say the only play is a medical center / “can of worms research”…but Notre Dame itself obviously disagrees with you, else why the current focus on expanding its graduate / research related offerings (which by the way is figured prominently on Notre Dame’s main website)?
If that is not the case….Why then did they do it?
As for the ACC, admittedly it has a great many things that would attract a school like Notre Dame to its ranks, but IMHO, of all the conferences, the Big Ten is the only conference that offers that which Notre Dame will probably be most interested in (in the unlikely event it ever joins a conference)…upon admittance, true equality and a firm cohesion born of the idea that all decisions must be beneficial to all schools and non-deleterious to any one school.
In the end, I could care less if Notre Dame joins a conference, let alone the Big Ten. Both Notre Dame and the Big Ten have proven they can get along just fine before and I’m sure for some time after. At the same time though, I really believe there is core of Notre Dame fan who immediately becomes rabid at the mere thought the Big Ten might actually just be the other side of Notre Dame’s own coin.
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While the Big 10 was long the logical choice, I’m beginning to think they may have slipped to #3 in the Irish list. They are composed of enormous state universities, so they are very different from Notre Dame. ND keeps talking about its national image. The Big 10 is a much more confined area than the ACC or an expanded Big 12. Notre Dame doesn’t seem particularly tied to its Big 10 rivalries. Michigan is big simply because it is Michigan, but it is a relatively new rivalry and both have talked about discontinuing it temporarily.
I don’t believe ND is in any hurry to end independence, but should the BE further disentegrate, I think they would choose not to stay with the Catholic schools and would join another conference. I don’t think a #5 in the big boy group would necessarily be a detriment. The ACC just fits them best. It would fit them even better without FSU and Clemson. Deloss Dodds keeps saying he is talking to Swarbrick, so the Big 12 in some form does seem to be a realistic option as well.
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Notre Dame doesn’t associate with larger state universities when it is arguably the face of 20+% of America…some 86.5 MILLION Catholics?
The Big Ten is more confined when it still encompasses a majority of the US population (and where a large portion of Notre Dame’s Catholic base is located), sends its large alumni base literally everywhere in the United States, and is the only conference to currently have a national network (snide comments about the SEC or ACC and ESPN not withstanding)?
Again, there are very legitimate reasons why Notre Dame would (or should) go elsewhere, but if there’s a joke in this situation, its on any conference that honestly thinks Notre Dame is going to join it anytime soon. Even without the Big East, Notre Dame is more than capable of maintaining its independence for the foreseeable future.
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Notre Dame can’t be independent in sports other than football. The A10 would not be acceptable. A Catholic only Big East or a Big East less UConn, UL and Rutgers would probably not be considered competitive enough in non-rev sports. So if the BE is no longer an acceptable option for them, there really are only 3 choices-ACC, B12, B10.
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I freely admit to not knowing the inner workings of Notre Dame’s athletic department, but my understanding of their view on them seems to have been mis-founded as I just saw Notre Dame is very high in the Director’s Cup. In fairness though, I believe this has been a relatively new endeavor (10 years?). In any case, I can see why they’d want to have their non-football sports in another top conference.
IMO though, the choice in this topic is almost immaterial. So long as the Big East stays as a viable money producing entity (and by definition an “adequate” home for Notre Dame’s non-football sports) it can easily “have its cake and eat it too”.
Well, unless NBC doesn’t re-up its national football tv contract (I think Notre Dame would even be acceptable to taking much less in per year payment than Indiana, etc so long as it maintains its national exposure), but that being said NBCy did just pay a bunch for Notre Dame’s hockey program so I have to believe that (loss of national tv contract) is unlikely to happen.
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I agree that they will be financially secure. ND going into a conference will be based on:
a) access to the playoff/bowl structure for football;
b) competitiveness and scheduling as an independent in football; and
c) competitvely adequate and academically acceptable non-rev sports conference.
They are getting squeezed on a), but probably not significantly. IMO they are really being hurt on b), but I’m not sure they recognize it. I think it will, ironically, be c), the non-revs that drives them to abandon football independence. But the BE is still adequate for them now.
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Point of fact: ND is literally barely in Indiana, and is dang near in Michigan.
I have also heard that the Med school is controversial, more for the expense of building one ex nihilo than from any potential controversy. What the administration will likely do (pure guess on my part) is to build the graduate business programs (a school where we’ve had great success at the undergrad level) for the $$$ and the graduate liberal arts and hard science for the prestige. How many numbers you can get from that is something I don’t know.
The football team has always been an ad for the university. Right now, TPTB’s concern is approaching Ivy/Stanford levels of prestige on the aspirational side and keeping ahead of the Georgetowns and Fordhams (for examples) of the Catholic education world. The ultimate goal is a prestige level approximating the University of Paris c. 1300 or something. Yeah, I know, but that’s the NDPTB for you. The football team and the subway alumni are what keep us ahead of the rest of the Catholic colleges.
Money, not enrollment, are the means, not the end, since towards the end of Fr. Hesburgh’s tenure. I doubt ND will ever grow larger than Northwestern, again to protect the 25-75 undergrad board scores. Any football conference tie will be primarily to improve prestige, and only secondary $$$. And on the east coast, Virginia undergrad is, last I heard, slightly more prestigious than Michigan undergrad.
*
I also don’t see how the BXII helps ND at all in the minor sports. It seems to me that the truly minor sports will be less well served in the BXII than in the A-10, and ND would have to do more searching to find homes for it’s harder to place sports. From a minor sport standpoint, I still don’t see how the BXII is anything other than leverage. The ACC on the other hand would have as many homes for the Irish minor sports as the B1G.
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If it ever came to the point where the power conferences (for matters of this discussion, we’ll include the ACC) told the Notre Dame administration, “We’ve had it with your game-playing. You have 48 hours to choose a conference for all sports, by its rules. If you don’t, you are barred from taking part in a four-team postseason playoff for at least the next 10 years. We don’t care what your alumni say; we don’t care what the networks and advertising agencies say; we don’t care what the New York press says — no one in that market really gives a damn about college football to begin with. We’ve had enough. Make up your mind, and now.”
Would ND:
* Join the Big Ten for sheer proximity;
* Join the Big 12 for third-tier rights;
* Join the ACC (even if Clemson and Florida State had already left) for academic “private school” fit, although that conference, even with ND’s inclusion, probably wouldn’t be strong enough to regularly make a 4-team playoff; or
* Stay independent and eschew any chance of a national title or football relevancy?
An intriguing hypothetical quandary facing the folks in South Bend.
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My guess? “We’ll see you in court. BTW, BYU says hello.” :-p
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If they did it like vp19 suggested, then yeah they would probably get sued. If however, they simply passed a rule that required participants in the playoffs to be a conference champ then the Irish wouldn’t have any grounds, especially since Notre Dame has gone out of its way to publicly and repeatedly that they are an independent by choice not circumstance.
As for BYU, well all the power conferences would have to note is that BYU turned down the chance to be the Big XII’s 10th team twice in less than 6 months.
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They wouldn’t do that though. There’s no real reason to pressure ND. Maintaining a detente around ND is more profitable to everyone than pushing them somewhere.
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Interesting discussion…
I still think my points stand, and I haven’t heard anything to move me off the dime.
1) ND is going to retain its independence.
2) ND is playing the field, which is suckered into ND’s allure and becoming delusional about its chances of obtaining ND’s football program in any conference. This is a means to an end for ND, which is first and foremost hellbent maintaining its independence. ND appears to be a master of the old political adage “If you can fake sincerity (in this case in discussions/negotiations), you’ve got it made.”
It would seem to me that a more realistic/interesting discussion would center on the pros and cons (from ND’s and various conferences’ standpoints) of where ND will park its Olympic sports if and when it leaves the Big East.
I’ve commented on this elsewhere, but I’ll add that now’s a great time to leave the Big East. ND’s work is done there. It’s just been marketing. ND has established its fan base in that corridor. Time to move elsewhere. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe (if not ridiculous) to believe they will haul non-revenue sports teams across the country like this. The B1G probably feels that way too, which is why it hasn’t told ND to take a hike.
BTW, don’t you wonder what Delaney knows about ND’s aspirations that the rest of us don’t?
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As to the OP, if I read this right, he did not say that Tier 3 would not be a big deal to ND. What he said was that it would not be the most important issue between ND and the Big Ten.
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I love the laughably outdated mantra that the domers spout about the ‘regional’ B1G being too confining. The conference with the most alumni spread from coast to coast and around the world. The only conference with a successful nationwide network. The simple fact is the B1G is on the ascendancy and ND is an oldies act that draws eyeballs for nostalgic reasons only. UofM is already hinting that the ND/Michigan game may not be continued past its current three year agreement.
I don’t see ND joining any conference in football (yaawn) In the near future (yaaaawn). I just wish we had scooped up Oklahoma along with Nebraska.
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ND has the ability to join any conference they wish, any time they wish. If they don’t desire to, they can choose to remain independent…
Despite nearly 20 years of being ‘mediocre’, they are still relevant nationally and bring in top recruiting classes. Until they stop being relevant nationally or get shut out of a NT playoff, I cant see ND joining a conference.
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Actually, I would really question how nationally relevant Notre Dame is at the moment. Their schedule is hit-and-miss with few really relevant games after September (with the exception of USC), their television ratings on NBC drop like a stone after two losses and as you point out, they really have been largely mediocre on the field after Holtz’s departure.
I also don’t think Notre Dame can join any conference they want to because the powers that be in South Bend would be constrained in doing so. ND to the SEC? I wouldn’t say that’s a very likely scenario. Pac 12? That’s a hell of a way to go to play alternating seasons of four or five football games each year (not to mention the other sports at Notre Dame. If ND were to leave the Big East, the only realistic choices they’d have are the ACC and Big Ten. I suppose ND might take a flyer at the Big XII, but they’d have all sorts of problems in a conference that seems to be run in the interests of Texas and Oklahoma.
I won’t deny that ND has great eye and market appeal in college football. That said, that’s perhaps the only thing that makes them relevant at this point because it hasn’t been anything we’ve seen on the field lately.
I do agree with your final premise, i.e., that Notre Dame won’t join a conference due to money. It’ll be for the reasons you state–the first growing more and more like reality and the second being essentially a non-issue because ND hasn’t been good for very long.
I also wouldn’t tie Notre Dame’s success into recruiting rankings either. Take a look at the NFL drafts and see how many players ND puts into the pros and when they are drafted. It will give you an entirely different picture of the talent level and development taking place in South Bend.
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They’re relevant in terms of potential as you basically state.
If Notre Dame wins 8-9 games in a row, all of a sudden, it’ll be like it’s the ’80s all over again. They’ll get an inordinate amount of coverage everywhere, and the ratings will skyrocket.
That’s why Notre Dame is still so powerful. The potential that they have is basically second to none. If they get on a roll, it sucks up all the oxygen…
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The problem here is that the 1980s aren’t coming back.
Notre Dame is facing the same problems that all the other power schools have dealt with since the early 1990s–the decrease in scholarships to 85 and the increase in the number of college football games being broadcast across numerous media outlets (including the internet). While ND might be getting its share of players, there are a lot more competitive programs out there with the facilities and resources in place to put a quality team on the field.
If you want to see an illustration of this, consider the fact that ND DE Aaron Lynch–who is a physical specimen and probably NFL prospect–is transferring to the University of South Florida after one year in South Bend. Now I realize the reasons were personal, but instead of going to FSU or Miami or Florida, he headed to USF instead. That wouldn’t have been a viable alternative for him in 1994, but it does make sense in 2012.
I’m not saying that Notre Dame doesn’t have the “potential” you speak about, but that the environment has changed markedly in the last two decades when Holtz left South Bend. Yes, ND does have wonderful recruiting rankings, but it hasn’t translated on the field (#33 in win percentage from 1994 to 2011) or in the NFL draft. You can point fingers at the school’s administration and its goals/support for the football program or all the coaches who succeeded Holtz (Davie, Willingham, Weis, and now Kelly) for a reason or you could look at some other factors–including the problems with being an independent in an increasingly conference dominated world of college football.
It’s no surprise that Notre Dame is agreeing with the SEC and Big XII on having the playoff be the best four teams available. Having three conference champions if they’re in the top six of the ratings plus one at large team just strengthens the idea that ND should join a conference in order to have a better shot at the national championship.
So if Notre Dame does join a conference, it’ll be one where they think they’ll be able to win that conference championship in football and give them a shot at the NC. Above everything else that goes into ND’s computations regarding the conferences, the best opportunity for them on this measure is the ACC, especially if it’s lost FSU and Clemson to the Big XII.
If ND and Connecticut were made part of a 14-team ACC (after the departures of Clemson and Florida State), then here’s what the new ACC would look like:
Boston College
Syracuse
Connecticut
Notre Dame
Pittsburgh
Maryland
Virginia
Virginia Tech
North Carolina
Duke
NC State
Wake Forest
Georgia Tech
Miami
Just like Texas envisions its position in the Big XII and its access to the national championship in the post season, Notre Dame could see itself in the same situation vis-a-vis the ACC.
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I wanted Oklahoma too, but it was my impression that they had to bring OSU with them and that was a nonstarter.
As for Notre Dame, they’re not so much about independence so much as they are anti-Big Ten and anti-Midwest. I know they profess otherwise, but their words betray their true feelings. The ego of the Domer is so wrapped up in martyrdom, the idea that the Big Ten and specifically Fielding Yost tried to kill them that they’ll commit metaphorical suicide before they ever join the Big Ten.
Notre Dame doesn’t want to be “regional”, so therefore the Pac-12 and Big XII make sense. Notre Dame enjoys tougher scheduling, so the ACC makes sense. Notre Dame wants to put their students first, so obviously joining the Pac-12 or the ACC makes sense.
I’m not trying to be snide, this is a psychological problem. This is old “Pepsi Challenge” all over again; their sense of self will physically rework their brains to prefer anything but the Big Ten.
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@metatron – I would say that the ND commitment to independence is real above anything else. However, I agree that there’s a lot of post-hoc rationalization by some of the Domers in opposing the Big Ten compared to the Big 12, Pac-12 and ACC. That Q&A with the guy from NDNation was like a SuperPAC ad against the Big Ten, where kernels of truth are stretched into massive overarching generalizations. For instance, ND supposedly wouldn’t want to be outvoted 12-1 in the Big Ten because of all of the big land grant schools, yet the Big 12 would be OK with its own land grant schools? The fact that there are 2 private schools in the Pac-12 makes a massive difference compared to 1 private school in the Big Ten? Is just the fact that schools are private mean that they are more likely to vote in alignment with ND? (I don’t know what they’re smoking if they think that Stanford and Duke would be more hospitable to ND’s views toward, say, stem cell research compared to Michigan.) ND considers academics (along with “mission”) to be critical, yet it would then disregard the conference that has more of a direct tie to academics than any of the others at the BCS level? The only argument that I halfway buy is the “not wanting to be a regional school” aspect at least compared to what ND could have in the ACC, but even then, the Big Ten actually has the most similar alumni movement patterns with ND since they’re dispersed the most across the country (which is why the Big Ten can get top bowl tie-ins from California to Arizona to Texas to Florida) not to mention the best TV deals that give the league the most national exposure out of anyone.
Anyway, I find that argument that ND would prefer the ACC compared to the Big Ten to be plausible. The ACC actually does have a critical mass of private schools along with having exposure in the East Coast areas that are critical to the Irish for recruiting and reaching their non-Midwest fans. The “reasons” why ND would prefer the Big 12 or even Pac-12 over the Big Ten, are pretty much all bogus. Those arguments are rooted in being against the Big Ten just because it’s the Big Ten.
To be clear, ND is perfectly within its rights to be against the Big Ten just because it’s the Big Ten and I’m someone that will always be quick to defend ND’s place in the power structure and that they are still extremely relevant no matter how poorly they’ve played on the field lately. However, it would be a lot more credible if they use their standard line that “independence is the goal in and of itself” and leave it that as opposed to going through arguments against the Big Ten that really make little sense when you step back and think about them (especially when every other conference presents the same issues).
(*Note that I still firmly believe that ND would take a non-football membership in the Big 12 over a football membership anywhere else. I’m just talking about the prospects of ND joining the Big 12 or any other conference for football above.)
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I’m not talking about the institution though, merely their fans. Though I still maintain that the ACC would be the nail in the coffin for Notre Dame football.
They’re the ultimate bandwagon team, and to be a bandwagon team, you have to win. Not once, but repeatedly in recent memory. Most people are tied to the past, but we live in a very different world (at least in terms of media exposure and fan access) than we did when Notre Dame was relevant.
I’m sure they still have pull, but they have an increasingly small window before they’re forced to join the ACC, because all of their fans will have retired to Florida.
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Having all their fans in Florida makes the ACC a good fit with FSU and Miami, right?
If only USF could get to the point of academic mediocrity, the ACC could add in the Tampa market too.
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I don’t know if anyone has posted this yet
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8000546/sec-lenient-discipline-marijuana-investigation-says
I have to ask because I do not know the rules regarding this.
I don’t know exactly what could come of this or what the NCAA rules are on this but if the Universities are supposed to suspend their players for one year if caught testing positive, wouldn’t that mean these schools were playing ineligible players? What would the repercussions be?
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And no, I’m not being a SEC hater, I really want to know.
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From what I understand the NCAA has a “substance” program, but cannot monitor so it leaves the implementation / penalties to the schools. Like so many other aspects of NCAA purview, it only becomes an issue if it becomes too big of a problem to ignore on its own or it is a secondary issue related to some other more visible problem.
Personally, I could care less about marijauna usage at the collegiate ranks because, lets be honest pot is not a performance enhancer and (scientifically) of much less long term impact to the human body than even nicotine or alcohol (wide available legal drugs at the college level). Though it could be considered a competitive advantage along the lines of good academics or school location (i.e.: Why would an 18 year kid want to play football in the middle of the sticks? Because they won’t cut you for getting high. Oh, well then sign me up!)
I think legitimate concerns for the potential lack of institutional control in this area are better focused on what usage of these substances introduces to the student (illegal drugs are usually obtained from less than savory persons / subcultures) and how interaction with these sub-cultures could realistically facilitate access to actual performance enhancing substances (speed, steroids, designer or other, etc) and all without the over-sight of the school (thus my aforementioned reference to “loss of institutional control”).
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You should note that unlike cigarettes, marijuana is almost universally smoked unfiltered and thus is much worse for the lungs.
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Or through a water “filtration” device which tends to remove more THC than carcinogen compounds, thus tending to cause the user to smoke more for a similar effect as “raw”. You’re point however is very valid.
Though I’ve never heard of tobacco brownies so pot always has that going for it.
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No, the 1 year ban is for getting caught by an NCAA drug test. Schools don’t have to test at all, and if they do they can set any policy they want unless their conference has a standard they must follow.
Now, there have been some reports of players testing positive and schools violating their own policies by not suspending them (or not for long enough), but that’s a whole different issue.
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What about steroid testing? Who administers those tests? Hopefully the NCAA as there would be a lot of opportunity for cheating.
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The NCAA does, in fact, focus on performance enhancing drugs. The schools are more likely to catch recreational drugs.
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http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/20/fanhouse-report-bcs-football-program-drug-policies-revealed/
This looks to be much bigger than the SEC, why are all the reports targeting them?
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As the SEC is want to say in very public forums…they have won the past 6 College National Football Championships.
Part of “being on top” is having a very large microscope detailing every facet of your ascent and stay while there. Personally, I don’t like this aspect of the media (where were they in the beginning when “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”?), but I’m sure it has a healthier bottom line to tear down something from the top as opposed when its just starting out (and I’d be a fool to think the past was any different).
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I suspect this idea was triggered by an Atlanta Journal Constitution article a month or so ago. Spurrier made a comment about Georgia having so many players suspended, which they have had several recently, and that led to the AJC article. UGA, along with UK has the toughest policies in the SEC, so they get more and longer suspensions.
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Pingback: College Football Analysis: Conference Expansion, Big Ten Network and Notre Dame – Horseshoe Insider – Ohio State Buckeyes
An update from the NCAA baseball tournament: Texas A&M is bounced 10-2 by TCU, the school that is taking their spot in the Big 12. Go Frogs. Now we just have to beat Ole Miss twice in a row. Gotta love the “S-E-C” chants from the Aggie fans, though.
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Yah, gotta love nearly 100 years of tradition (going back to the old SWC days) being band-wagoned by today’s “flavor of the week” (nothing against the SEC, just pointing out that TAMU had zero to do with its success yet they are so willing to take up its mantle and drape it around the school so easily).
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Yeah, I hate seeing old rivalries break up. In this case I can’t complain – A&M doesn’t leave the Big 12, TCU doesn’t get in. And for A&M, getting some “brand separation” may help their athletic programs in the long run. They now have something to offer recruits that UT and OU don’t – a place in the toughest conference in the land.
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The reason the SEC expanded is the Big Ten Network. The SEC went with a model of maximizing national TV exposure with huge tier 1 and 2 deals with CBS and ESPN. It worked well for them and they were out in front on revenue. But then the Big Ten created the BTN and passed the SEC by as far as revenue. The success behind the BTN was the fact that Big Ten schools were popular in large population states and they had a lot of big markets. Even though the SEC had equally passionate fan support (or maybe even more passionate fan support) and even more success on the field than the Big Ten, they were losing as far as revenue. The SEC had a lot of really good football teams from small, rural states, without all that many big market cities.
So they expanded to get some more markets and some more popuation. They picked up the Houston and St. Louis markets, plus portions of the Dallas, San Antonio, and Kansas City markets. Now the SEC’s population footprint and market lineup rivals the Big Ten, and an SEC network can rival the BTN. That was the goal.
A secondary goal was to add some reputable schools to the SEC. Before they only had 2 schools with $1B+ endowments (and AAU members). Now they have 4. It moves them from being the conference that’s probably the worst academically, to now being about average.
Notice what this wasn’t about? Adding good football teams. They already have good football teams. They didn’t really need more of them. Importantly, neither Missour nor Texas A&M are terrible football programs. They’ve both had their share of success over the years. They’re adequate middling-type programs rather than doormats, and that’s good enough.
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“It worked well for them and they were out in front on revenue.”
The SEC has never been #1 in conference payouts.
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http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/stewart_mandel/07/24/sec-espn/index.html
The SEC was briefly in the lead after signing their 2009 deal with ESPN, but the BTN and Pac 12 networks ended up surpassing the SEC’s deal shortly after that. But with an SEC network, the SEC would once again take the lead.
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The national perception by the media writers was that the SEC was in the lead. But in no single year did the SEC payout more than the B10.
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Well ok then. I guess 2014 will be the first.
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Andy-
How do you know 2014 will be the first year? In conference distributions (which includes television revenue, net bowl revenue, NCAA men’s basketball tournament revenue and other sources), the Big Ten is roughly $5M per school ahead of the SEC right now. Is the SEC going to make up that $5M with a new conference network and a renegotiation of its current deal as long as it keeps an eight-team conference schedule?
Keep in mind that the ABC/ESPN contract with the Big Ten does have an escalator clause in it which goes up around $300K per school per year. By 2014, that’s approximately another $1M per year that the SEC would need to make up over the current baseline. Add in the Big Ten Network, which actually paid less this past fiscal year (around $7.2M) than last year, but still saw an overall increase in conference distributions to the BTN schools (and imagine what that number would be if somewhere down the line Notre Dame were to join the conference).
Don’t be surprised by FY 2014 (ends 30 June 2014) that the Big Ten Conference distributions are approximately $27M. Obviously, all the conferences are going to benefit by the playoff, but we may see a further jump for the B10 in terms of revenue distributions for the following fiscal year to around $30M.
With the new contracts for television coming on line in 2016, we’ll probably start seeing the revenue hike for that in FY 2017. At that point, we may be seeing B10 schools looking at distributions in the mid-$30M range (all without adding a single school, including ND) by that fiscal year.
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Interestingly, there were times in the 90s when the ACC was the leader in the early 90s. I think the Big 10 has probably been ahead of the SEC since the 1984 lawsuit ending NCAA control over TV.
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Everything I’m hearing is that after the SEC renegotiates they’re going to be in the mid $20Ms just from tier 1 and 2. The SEC network should add several million more.
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Academically, the SEC is a very, very distant 4th behind the B10, ACC & Pac 12.
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That is an understatement. You don’t see too many players getting a 6, which is barely able to read, on the wonderlic from those conferences.
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Big 10: 11 AAU schools
Pac 12: 8 AAU schools
ACC: 6 AAU schools
SEC: 4 AAU schools, with Georgia on the cusp of getting membership.
I’d say the SEC is well behind the top 2, but not so far back from the ACC.
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The tax filings show a different story Andy.
B1G
Year beg 7.1.08 and end 6.30.09
Revenue: $219, 364, 415
Per School Distribution: approximately $19, 204, 698 (There are slight variations in each schools distribution according to the IRS Form 990 filed with a high of $19, 267, 047 by MSU and low of $19, 165, 047 by NU)
Year beg 7.1.09 and end 6.30.10
Revenue: $231, 513, 257
Per School Distribution: approximately $20, 032, 504 (There are slight variations in each schools distribution according to the IRS Form 990 filed with a high of $20, 141, 838 by MSU and low of $20, 032, 504 by NU and Iowa)
SEC
Year beg 9.1.08 and end 8.31.09
Revenue: $147, 857, 056
Per School Distribution: approximately $13, 120, 047 (There are variations in each schools distribution according to the IRS Form 990 filed with a high of $14, 021, 093 by Mississippi State and low of $12, 569, 939 by Mississippi)
Year beg 9.1.09 and end 8.31.10
Revenue: $244, 420, 278
Per School Distribution: approximately $18, 202, 519 (There are variations in each schools distribution according to the IRS Form 990 filed with a high of $18, 418, 769 by Mississippi State and low of $18, 202, 519 by Arkansas and LSU)
But you can also review this article that discusses the revenue distribution gaps between the B1G and SEC. I could post other conferences and years also.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/eye-on-college-football/19227678/sec-distributes-201-million-per-team-falls-further-behind-big-ten-in-money-race
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In fairness, the SEC #s don’t include Tier 3 media rights which the schools control themselves. One thing on the B1G numbers I’m not clear about is whether that $7.2 BTN is all BTN revenues or only profits. The BTN pays $112 million a year on average (2007 to 2031-2) in rights fees + the Big 10’s share of profit. If you factor in a straight 3% escalation factor, $7.0 million would be the rights fees paid out in year 4 (s/b 2011-12) and $7.2 million for year 5.
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@bullet – The Big Ten #’s don’t include their Tier 3 rights either. Even without any televised football games to offer, Ohio State is still getting $11M/yr for their media rights:
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/1867/ohio-state-signs-record-media-rights-deal
Florida is earning $10M/yr for their media rights:
http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2008/07/14/daily4.html?page=all
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“In fairness, the SEC #s don’t include Tier 3 media rights which the schools control themselves.”
Bullet that same thing applies across the board in that it depends on how we are defining “3rd tier” rights and exactly what does it include. Everyone conference has a different definition – John Swofford made that clear in an article I read. Iowa earns an additional 5.8 million off of multi-media rights through it’s partnership with Learfield Communications. Other schools have similar deals with Learfield or IMG. It seems every institution monetizes other media rights be it coaches shows, sponsorship deals, digital media, 1 football game, etc.
http://thegazette.com/2011/09/02/iowas-contract-with-learfield-nets-athletics-department-more-than-5-8-million/
I’m also am unclear if the $7.2 is all BTN revenue or simply profit. The B1G doesn’t provide a break down on revenue and disbursements on their 990. I would imagine that BTN, LLC has a breakdown of that. My guess is it is profit based on this report that says that BTN had a profit of $79.2 million for 2011.
http://www.illinoisloyalty.com/GoIllini/20120522_big_ten_network_revenue_grows_again
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Jake – Geaux Frogs! And go to Hell Ole Miss!
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I’m about to go to Alex Box Stadium along with 10,000 other LSU fans, but here’s a few more baseball regional updates:
B1G representatives Sparty and Purdue are out.
Appy State is in the catbird’s seat in the UVA regional at 2-0. Congrats Michael.
#1 Regional seeds Rice, A&M, Miami, and Purdue are out. Sorry Loki and Aggie fans.
Northern teams Stony Brook, St. John’s, Creighton and Kent State are still alive. Kent State and St. John’s are undefeated in their respective regionals. If Stony Brook wins the Miami regional, they will play the winner of the Baton Rouge regional.
Oregon is the first team to qualify for Super Regional play.
6 of the eight SEC teams are still undefeated. Miss State is the only SEC that has been eliminated.
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And if Baylor can’t come back to win their regional, there won’t be a single Super Regional in the state of Texas. That just ain’t right.
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And the SEC takes another loss. TCU survives one day more!
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Jake – I’m pulling for your Frogs against the hated Rebel Black Bears, but “the SEC takes another loss” is a bit of a stretch. Of the 8 SEC teams in the tournament, 4 have already qualified for Super Regional play (LSU, UF, USCe & Arky) and 2 more are playing in regional finals (Vandy & Ole Miss) today.
Congrats to Northern teams Kent State, St. John’s & Stony Brook for still being alive in the tournament. If Stony Brook beats UCF today, the Sea Wolves from Long Island get rewarded with a trip to Baton Rouge next weekend.
Congrats in defeat to Oregon State. They played an elimination game with ULM yesterday afternoon in 95 degree heat with an un healthy dose of South Louisiana humidity. After a tow houtr break, the pesky Beavers gave LSU all we wanted and more before falling 6-5 in 10 innings last night.
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Thanks Alan! App is having by far their finest season in school history. This season, App State has beaten 4 nationally ranked teams. Between 1982 and 2011, ASU had beaten one, total.
I would love nothing more than to face the fan hood crisis of choosing between the school I’ve pulled for since childhood (FSU) and my Alma mater at the College World Series. (App State would get the nod in that one, of course.)
ASU has two games to beat Oklahoma once.
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Michael – losing a series to your ‘eers back in February doesn’t look so bad now. I’m pulling for y’all to beat the Sooners today. If Appy State does advance to Super Regional play against South Carolina, the ‘eers baseball team will have played the winners of the last 3 CWS titles and in the two best college baseball parks in the same season.
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add2
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baseball, baseball, baseball !
For the weather debate and the B1G. Congratulations to Kent State near Cleveland who resides in the MAC and is farther north than several B1G schools. They upset Purdue (#1) and Kentucky (#2) on their way to a Super regional date with Oregon. The Big East landed Louisville and Saint John’s with the latter advancing to a Super regional date with Arizona. These schools seem to defy the argument that baseball can only be won in the south and west. As the ACC has yet again imploded in the CWS maybe Delany could make a push to get more exposure at the ACC’s expense.
I will say the PAC did the best of all the conferences in baseball based on the teams they got in. 4 out of 5 moving to Super competition is pretty impressive. If the B1G did reciprocal scheduling with the PAC in baseball the way they plan to do for football maybe it would bring up the quality and exposure of B1G teams.
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I think the last Big Ten team to get into the College World Series was Michigan in 1986. Now while you might get an occasional school into a super regional (UM did this a few years ago, if I recall), it certainly doesn’t set aside the argument that the game is currently dominated by the warm weather schools at this point.
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Maine has made it more recently than then. Nebraska has made it several times. The bat is the Louisville slugger, not the Miami slugger. The northern Pac 12 schools have had some success. The MVC schools have had more success than Big 10 schools. It is dominated by the southern schools, but it shouldn’t be so dominate.
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The answer is probably just that the Big Ten schools have ignored the sport to some extent.
Just from my experience, it’s the one sport that Northwestern hasn’t even really tried to make competitive. I don’t know whether they view it as a vestige sport that they just want to keep around, or what, but the baseball program is probably the least successful program at the school.
I would rank it in the bottom 5 out of 19 sports on the list of priorities for Northwestern’s sports. They’ve basically just let Paul Stevens run the show for 25 years, and now his two sons are on the team, but outside of a year out of each decade, the team is mostly irrelevant.
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duff – how about Kent State? They beat Kentucky in the 2nd longest regional game ever, then turn around and beat Purdue the next day. By conventional B1G logic, Kent State should suck and it would be the Cleveland Indians fault, right? St. John’s and Stony Brook shouldn’t even field teams since those schools are located close to the Yankees’ and the Mets’ home parks.
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Speaking of the SEC, Alabama has had a great year. Won MNC in football, won women’s gymnastics, is in the final game of the women’s college world series vs. Cal and lost in the finals in match play in golf to Texas after leading the preliminary round.
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The Bama ladies also won the women’s golf national championship this year. If they can beat OU in the final series of the WCWS, that would be a nice haul of NCs for the Bama ladies this year.
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Bamatab,
Between Alabama and Oklahoma history will be made! This is the first WCWS that does not have a west coast school in the final game!
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Go Sooners!
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Roll Tide Roll!
Although I will admit, that OU pitcher worries me a little.
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Alan – Here’s an article detailing the challenges facing a Big Ten team. Most of the issues the Big Ten faces are self-inflicted. College baseball teams are not competing with major league teams for ticket sales. They are in competition with other inexpensive leisure activities (movies, minor league sports, bowling, recreational activities). Economically speaking, the substitute for a college baseball game isn’t going to be Major League game.
Nebraska had no problem competing at the highest level once it dedicated the resources (i.e. paid a coach a competitive salary, upgraded facilities, etc.) and shouldn’t in the B1G if the conference itself gets out of its own way. However, I still think a February start is too early.
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120602/BIGRED/706029893
The problem is climate, and a mid-February season start date (still too early up north). It’s travel burdens (fiscal and physical). It’s academic concerns (Big Ten squads can miss no more than eight class days). It’s the NCAA tournament selection process and the overvalued RPI. It’s an investment in facilities (the Big Ten’s made recent strides), thus a lack of attendance and interest. It’s oversigning rules that Big Ten schools must abide by that most conferences don’t have; before finalizing annual rosters, the Big Ten allows its teams to commit one extra scholarship to no more than two players.
[snip]
As for [Nebraska’s] Erstad? He says bring it on.
“That makes it even that much more fun to try and do it,” Erstad said. “To change a culture of a conference, to do something that people say is not doable, that stuff fires me up. It makes you want to work even harder.”
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It makes one wonder why the University of Iowa isn’t a baseball power, especially since ISU hasn’t competed in the sport since 2001.
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Let me qualify that and say Iowa as a power within Big Ten baseball.
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Probably a re-hash of some baseball thoughts (re: B1G baseball), but, here goes…
Weather certainly plays a part… In February you could have 60 (degrees) F, or 10 F and snow. In May you could have 85 F or 30 F. Spring weather in the upper midwest is very volatile, tis not too conducive to regular outdoor baseball. I think that even the Twins made a mistake by not putting at least a retractable roof in place—I mean… it can and does snow in Minneapolis in April… Hey, Alan… when’s the last time it snowed in Baton Rouge??? 🙂
Also true is that college baseball will compete with your average everyday stuff… Come spring in the midwest, people are like flowers, wanting to sprout out and do more outdoor activities… Lots of stuff competing…
And, I’m sure that the recruiting issues also come into play with higher level competitiveness.
I know here in Minnesota they’re trying to put more emphasis back on baseball. The last game was played at historic (now run-down) Siebert Field this spring. A privately funded new ballpark with amenities will replace the current ballpark. Supposed to start project soon.
The U of Minn has a pretty good baseball history—but NO B1G team has been a serious threat since the early 80’s… Last CWS appearance was Michigan in ’84.
I’m wishful that baseball in the B1G will become more competitive at a higher level… but, I don’t think I’ll hold my breath…
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Someone on WV Scout did an analysis of the participants by conference under 4 playoff scenarios:
1) top 4; 2) 3 champs + 1 wildcard; 3) 4 champs if in top 6; and 4) 4 champs
From looking at the chart, it seems clear that the 4 champs rules are DOA. The primary beneficiaries over the BCS era would have been the MWC and Big East. The MWC had 2 under formats 1 & 2 and 4 under formarts 3 & 4. The Big East had 5 under 1&2 and 6 under 3&4.
The Big 12 was the big loser in the champs model, with 14 in formats 1&2, 11 in format 3 and only 9 in format 4. SEC was 14 with the top 4 and 12 in the others. Pac 12 9 in top 4 and 11 in others. Big 10 was 8 except for 4 champs when they were 9. ACC was 4 except for 4 champs where they were 5.
Clearly the members of the Big 5 want to keep it in the club. Insisting on champs benefits conferences outside the club because of bad years in one of the Big 5 or ccg upsets. The real battle would seem to be between the SEC wanting a top 4 and the Pac 12 who would prefer a 3/1. Their 4 champs position could just be a negotiating ploy.
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=159&f=4582&t=9030390
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Interesting. The Big 12 was the only conference that had a horribly different number between the two most extreme models (top 4 overall vs. top 4 conference champions). Everyone else was no more than 2 off, and that’s over 14 or so seasons. That’s probably a bit flukish as much as anything, although you’ll notice only two conferences actually increased the number of appearances with a pure top 4 model (the Big 10, PAc -12, ACC and Big East all went down in numbers).
Although part of me likes a conference champ model to give more teams access to the proposed playoff, with only 5 “real” conferences (sorry Big East), there’s a decent chance that two of them have an off year (like last year where the ACC and Big 10 both had ho-hum champs) and stick an inferior team in the tourney. Still, its a fairly objective standard. The question is if that is better than arguing over whether the 2nd Big 12, second SEC, or first Pac-12 should get it as the last team in, which is way more subjective.
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I think if you try to speculate how the future will be different from the past, you will see that the Big 4 won’t like a 4 champs model. SEC and Big 12 don’t like it now. And the SEC is overdue for some ccg upsets. The Big 10 with Nebraska helping for wildcards and a ccg risking a lesser champ, makes the 4 champ models worse for them than now. In fact, Delany seems to be going toward a top 4 model if you have a selection committee. The Pac 12 with 2 more teams and the risk of a ccg also would probably be worse in a 4 champ model than now. Only the ACC, who seems to be in a down cycle and could be hurt by the defection of FSU and Clemson, might still prefer a 4 champ model.
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Only the ACC, who seems to be in a down cycle and could be hurt by the defection of FSU and Clemson, might still prefer a 4 champ model.
But honestly, how often would it be one of the four highest-ranked champs?
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It’s not that far-fetched. They need schools to have good years, but it’s not often that all 4 other conferences have great teams. The Big 10 last year would be an example. It’s not like it would never happen.
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It’s still a beauty contest, though, and if you thought Okie State had problems at 11-1 last year, imagine how remote those chances would be if Wake Forest somehow went 12-1, including the ACC title? Unless there were a whole batch of two-loss teams from other conferences ranked highly, I doubt the Deacs would be included, whereas a 12-1 Miami probably would. Should the playoff ever go to eight, you better give automatics to four or five conference champs (including the ACC), because otherwise some teams simply will never be chosen because of name factor.
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The B1G + PAC Final Solution : the beauty of only 12 conference members
B1G plays 11 game conference schedule – all owned by BTN
PAC plays 11 game conference schedule – all owned by PTN
Notre Dame stays IND to cover non conference games for 2-3 PAC schools
Notre Dame stays IND to cover non conference games for 2-3 B1G schools
Other B1G & PAC schools cross schedule each other based on rotation of success :
B 25% B1G schools play B 25% PAC schools
M 50% B1G schools play M 50% PAC schools
T 25% B1G schools play T 25% PAC schools
where B = bottom, M = middle, and T = top
Rose Bowl becomes half owned by BTN and half owned by PTN with B1G champ meeting PAC champ on New Years Day. With each conference/network owning 1/2 the Rose Bowl both could retain rights to old games for their respective networks.
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A couple of items of interest from the Big Ten. The first is that the conference is distributing $284M to its 12 member institutions. Eleven of the members will get around $24.6M while Nebraska receives around $14M.
See http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/51064/big-ten-to-distribute-284-million-to-teams
The second item is much more significant to the post-season. The Big Ten has said it likes the status quo, but it’s second choice would be a Plus One and the third would be a four-team playoff.
See http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/breaking/chi-big-ten-outlines-postseason-hopes-20120604,0,5852269.story
If the Big Ten (and Pac 12) are really pushing for a Plus One type playoff, then it appears what they’re doing is trying to make the Rose Bowl and the Big XII/SEC Champions Bowl the de facto semi-final championship games.
If this was in place last year, the Rose Bowl game (#5 Pac 12 Champion Oregon and #10 Big Ten Champion Wisconsin) would have been played on the same day as #1 LSU v. #3 Oklahoma State in the Champions Bowl. Of course, that probably leaves #2 Alabama to play #4 Stanford in another game (Sugar Bowl? Orange Bowl?). Based on the results of those games, a committee would decide on which two teams were deserving of the #1 and #2 rankings for the national championship game.
Boy, talk about being a potentially messy post-season. If you thought some of the debate about which teams were #1 and #2 after the division championship games could be pretty wild, just imagine what a Plus One would bring about.
The second thing I’m thinking about is conference realignment. If the Plus One system is enacted and is centered around the Rose Bowl, the Champions Bowl and perhaps a third bowl game, where does this put the ACC? Obviously, if the conference were to produced an undefeated team or one loss team (13-0 or 12-1), then they’d be right there in the conversation and they’d be playing a conference runner up in order to get into the national championship game. But without access to the two major bowls pitting the champions of the Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC, they’re kind of on the outside looking in. FWIW, the same goes for BYU and ND as well.
Would a Plus One place additional incentives on teams to become members of the “Big Four” beyond the financial numbers? if this is the plan that is finally enacted on 26 June, then the next three to four months have the potential to be very interesting beyond the beginning of the college football season.
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Nebraska receiving $14M is a little surprising. I know the agreement was that they’d earn at least as much in the B10 as they would have in the B12, and this figure is probably consistent with that. But the B12 is distributing around $19M per team this year, thanks to the lower number of teams in the conference. So…. Iowa State makes more than Nebraska.
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Greg, the $14M is a net amount. It sounds right that the equity contribution toward an equal share in BTN should be about $10M.
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Nebraska had an escalating % of the average Big 10 share with a floor that was their Big 12 revenues. They didn’t get a full share until year 4 or 5.
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It is actually year 7. Nebraska will become a full-equity member in the 2017 season, which coincides with year 1 of a new television deal.
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That is why it was called a 100 year decision. If it takes 10 years to break even, NE will still be in the money for the other 90 years. Even with the BE buyouts and reduced XII payouts the first 3 years TCU will be in the money by year 3 and WVU by year 5. With full SEC shares and fairly low XII buyouts, MO and A&M should also be in the money by year 3 or 4.
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TCU and WVU are both in the money in year 1 or 2. They each get 50% of distributions which were $19 million this year vs. $1-$2 million for TCU and $3-$5 million for WVU. WVU is getting the Big 12 to pay a significant amount of their exit fee ($5 million up front, $10 million of loan which is 50% forgiven after the 1st $5 million is paid back).
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My calculation was worst case based on some lofty projections for the new BE TV deal. As you say, it might be better, but the TCU/WVU comparison should be based on 2013 and forward revenue with the new BE TV contract ($7M-$11M), not the 2012 distributions which are lower for WVU and much lower for TCU from the MWC.
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@ Nostradamus – If you are still keeping track of these things
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegesports/2012/06/04/pac-12-football-and-basketball-the-conference-revenue-figures/
Also from his twitter (@wilnerhotline)
Pac-12 TV revenue in 2010-11 was $59M, or approx 1/3 of what it will be in first year of new TV deal (2012-13)
Remember: New TV deal has 4% escalator clause. Deal averages $250M over 12 years but Yr 1 payout substantially less
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@ Mike,
Yep. They are looking at about $180 million in television revenue next year from Fox/ESPN so a very significant increase. Plus potential revenue from a Pac-12 network that we have no way of quantifying right now.
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Wow, $10M lower this year, no full share for 7 years? That’s much worse than I had heard. It’s no wonder Missouri balked at that offer.
According to MU curators off the record, Missouri was offered the same deal as Nebraska, but wanted to negotiate for a better deal. Nebraska took the deal as is. Some, including myself, were upset that Missouri didn’t take the deal, but I never realized until now how bad it actually is.
Missouri will make a lot more, a lot sooner in the SEC. The academic benefits won’t be as great, and that’s the tradeoff. But wow, Nebraska’s really paying for it, aren’t they?
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B10 didn’t offer mizzou shit.
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pac 12-to get to an average $250 million over 12 years if they have a constant 4% escalator, the revenue would be $200 million the 1st year.
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@bullet,
In the case of the Pac-12 the $180 million in year 1 has been reported. Obviously that doesn’t jive with a straight 4%, but then again I’ve rarely seen straight percentage increases in analyzing conference revenue distributions.
From Kristi Dosh
A number of these contracts have escalator clauses, including the Pac-12 contract. In the early years of that contract, it will be $180 million per year (or $15 million per school) and in the later years it escalates, according to statements made by Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott via conference call following the contract’s announcement.
I’d disagree with “a number of these contracts”, they all do…
http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/705/college-tv-rights-deals-undergo-makeovers
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@Greg, no they didn’t “offer” Missouri. They made a proposal. Missouri didn’t like the proposal. Rather than negotiating, the Big Ten moved on. Missouri thought it could get the Big Ten to negotiate further, which is why they refused to commit to staying in the Big 12 for several weeks in 2010. But when Nebraska accepted the deal the Big Ten was proposing, they got the spot. Now they’re paying for it, and Missouri has full membership in the SEC from day 1. It looks like Missouri’s athletic department will gain $50M+ compared to Nebraska, but Nebraska gets to be in the more prestigious academic league. Who wins? Before I thought it was Nebraska, but now I’m honestly not sure.
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@mack
Forgot TCU was going to be in the Big East. But the point is that the $3-$5 million would be the amount they would get in 2012, instead of $9-$10 million. So they payout the 1st year. WVU might take more than 2 years depending on the new BE contract.
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Also, Greg, maybe everything I’m saying is bunk, but for that to be true, the following other things have to be true:
1. Different Missouri curators would have had to have conspired together and came up with a fabricated yet consistent story to tell off the record to two Missouri boosters, one coach, and one prominant retired journalist, later told in various places.
2. Missouri’s leadership must have been delusionally optimistic when they refused to commit to the Big 12 in 2010 when all other members were doing so.
3. Missouri’s football, baseball, and basketball coaches must have been caught up in some sort of mass hysteria when they started telling boosters and potential recruits that it looked likely that Missouri was going to the Big Ten.
4. Mass hysteria must have infected Missouri when it became basically common knowledge that the Big Ten was all but inevitable in 2010.
5. Missouri’s leadership must be damned good actors, or capable of collectively convincing themselves of complete fantasies when they all seemed shocked and pissed when Nebraska got into the Big Ten instead of Missouri.
But I doubt any of those are true. I think the story is true. Missouri got a proposal from the Big Ten. That’s why they believed they were likely to go there. Then they saw this junior membership deal with $10M less per year lasting 7 years and they were unhappy. They still wanted into the Big Ten but they were unhappy with the offer. Nebraska took it and the rest is history. Given what I’ve seen in real time and I’ve been told after the fact, I’m 99% sure that’s basically what happened.
Greg, on the other hand, doesn’t know a damned thing about it, and yet he’s even more sure than I am that he’s got it all figured out.
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I think all 5 are true. #2-#5 are easily believable. WVU people were convinced even after that false “welcome to the SEC Missouri” on the SEC website that they were going to the SEC and Missouri wasn’t. Your Tiger board was a swamp of self delusion around that time as well. A lot of Louisville posters firmly believe they told the Big 12 no because they were principled and didn’t want to leave the Big East early, so the Big 12 went to WVU.
Louisville coaches have been telling recruits they were going to the Big 12 for some time. Temple coaches were saying they were going to the Big East long before the 1st batch of invitees (which did not include Temple). Coaches don’t always tell the truth.
Its hardly beyond Missouri’s admin to make up things to make their school look like it wasn’t dangling in the wind in 2010 after their governor’s bluster and their stupid failure to committ. That story is pretty similar to Louisville’s too principled decline of the Big 12. And its interesting how often a story ends up tracing back to 1 source even if it starts getting repeated numerous places (the alleged contract escalators in the big 12 TV contract have been repeated many places but all go back to 1 post by a supposed TV consultant on a UConn board).
Now it is quite possible that there were discussions about what form a Big 10 membership would look like. But that is quite different than an offer. There have clearly been lots of talks between UL and the Big 12, but that doesn’t constitute an offer. WVU was convinced they were going to the SEC, because the lawyers were working on getting out of the BE, the school was working on upgrades to their facilities, supposedly in response to SEC concerns, and they had been in contact with the SEC. As we know, none of that constituted an offer to the SEC for WVU.
And the Big 10 did not offer and get turned down by Missouri. That ranks right up there with WVU having an invite to the SEC and UL turning down the Big 12.
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And with that background of mass hysteria in WVU, you have to take some of the Big 12 expansion rumours, most of which come out of WVU, with skepticism. I’ve been reading it for some time, but didn’t think any of it was better than 50% probable until recently when the contract info leaked out, the Big 12/SEC bowl deal was done and the Clemson board held a meeting on the issue.
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The self-proclaimed “show me” state sure has a lot of gullible people.
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@ Andy, Missouri did not listen to any Big Ten proposal. No right thinking individual would think Nebraska was the Big Ten’s second choice to Missouri. The Big Ten added a football king to boost it’s tier 1 TV money and to add a CCG. If you remember, the Big Ten didn’t want to add Nebraska until 2013 or 2014 so their buy in time would have been shorter. Nebraska wanted in immediately. $14 million was paid for last year 2011-2012. Next years payout will likely be in the $17-20 million range. Very similar to the Big 12 which wont receive that money until 2013. Distributions are always in arrears.
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Again, it’s possible that these are lies. But these lies are coming directly from multiple University of Missouri curators. This isn’t from tigerboard, btw. And some of the people reporting this (behind paywalls) are actual respected journalists.
Again, I never said Missouri had an “offer”. There was a proposal from the Big Ten to Missouri that Missouri took seriously and wasn’t happy with. They didn’t “turn it down”, but they didn’t accept it as is.
As for Nebraska vs Missouri. There are pluses and minuses to both. Clearly Nebraska is stronger in some areas, Missouri is stronger in others.
Nebraska:
State Population: 1.8M
U of Nebraska enrollment: 24k
Endowment Size: $1.1B
Flagship University: Yes
Any other FBS schools in the state: No
amount of state bordering other Big Ten states: 140 miles
Bowl Record: 24-24
NCAA Tournament Record: 0-6
NCAA Baseball Tournament: 14 appearances, 3 World Series appearances
Missouri:
State population: 6.0M
U of Missouri enrollment: 34k
Endowment size: $1.1B
AAU member: Yes
Any other FBS schools in the state: No
amount of state bordering other Big Ten states: 592 miles
Bowl Record: 13-16
NCAA Tournament record: 22-25
NCAA Baseball Tournament: 22 appearances, 6 World Series appearances, 1 national title
So you look at that, and you can see that, yes, Nebraska is spectacularly good at football. But Missouri beats them at pretty much everything else. So is it so crazy to think that Missouri was seen as an equal or greater candidate to Nebraska? Not really.
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I realize I just opened myself up to ridicule by not further specifying what I mean by “actual respected journalists”. I’ll be more clear. This category would mean someone who is a sportswriter for a major newspaper that everyone has heard of and who has a good reputation as on the level but for whatever reason can’t put everything he hears into print.
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Also, bullet, I know you Texas fans don’t think much of Missourians. But really. Missouri is not West Virginia. Not even close. We’ve got biggish cities up here. The St. Louis metro area has 2.8M people. KC metro area has 2.0M. We’re not hillfolk. The U of Missouri is a top 100 academic school, AAU member, $1B+ endowment. Look at our faculty. Lots of folks from Harvard and Stanford and Michigan and Northwestern here. And yeah, we’re the “show me” state. Totally different culture than West Virginia. They’re rumor mongering over there. Most Missourians, myself included, are extremely hesitant to believe any of this. I didn’t believe it for a long time, but the evidence has piled up.
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And one more thing. Why on earth is it so hard for some of you to believe that Missouri was a serious contender for the Big Ten? It defies logic. Missouri has been mentioned as a likely expansion candidate for many, many years. It’s not a bad school, it’s pretty much the perfect fit geographically. And if getting invited as a full member from day one to the SEC isn’t validation of Missouri’s worth, I don’t know what would be. Obviously Missouri’s 6M people, AAU status, and decent sports are worth something in today’s landscape, or they’d be stuck with Iowa State, Kansas, and Texas Christian in the Big 12 right now instead of joining the strongest athletic conference in the country in 25 days.
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I don’t think anyone doubts Missouri was a contender. They were one of the 3 looked at in 2003 (when the B1G decided to stay at 11) along with KU and Rutgers. They were one of the schools mentioned as being studied in 2010. We just don’t believe for a moment Missouri ever received an offer.
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While I’m at it, here are some leaked designs for the $200M stadium expansion at Mizzou. It should put Missouri’s stadium capacity at about where Nebraska’s is now.
That’s where a chunk of the full membership SEC money is going.
And here’s more on Nebraska’s stellar academics:
http://journalstar.com/news/local/education/nu-bristles-at-platte-institute-study/article_ec615398-36ee-5237-b9cf-0de3437924be.html
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It isn’t hard to believe Andy. On any Big Ten to 16 list at the time Missouri was a strong candidate. That said though these decisions have been driven by football and television ratings. If you have a king like Nebraska vs. a program like Missouri who admittedly had some very strong recent years, it isn’t a choice. I still don’t think Missouri ever had an offer. Deaton, Alden, and Jay Nixon wanted Missouri to have a Big Ten offer for sure, but it wasn’t there. Missouri lucked out and landed in the best possible situation so it is all good.
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As I keep saying, they didn’t get an “offer”, they got a proposal. As in, we could take you if you were junior members for 7 years and bought in equity to a network we’re valuing at $750M. I don’t know what else was in the proposal, but there was probably more. If Missouri had responded favorably to this proposal, then the expectation was that an offer would be made. The Missouri curators have said that they did not think that/know of Nebraska being a candidate at this time. So either Nebraska came in later or the Big Ten kept it quiet and misled Missouri officials. They haven’t given every detail. In fact, they’ve given very few. But what they’re saying is that the Big Ten came to Missouri with this proposal, and that Missouri officials didn’t like it and tried to negotiate for something better and it didn’t work out. So either that’s what happened or multiple Missouri curators are going around spreading a bogus story.
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Also, Nostradamus, “lucked out” is a term I use myself, and in a way its appropriate. But in a way it isn’t. It wasn’t entirely or even mostly luck. Apparently, Missouri is a valuable enough piece on the board that they were a finalist for a spot in one of the top two conferences, and they actually got a spot in the other one. The story I heard second hand from a curator is that Missouri didn’t lobby to get into the SEC, the SEC lobbied to get Missouri. Missouri was reluctant to go to the SEC because of the SEC’s academic reputation. Mike Slive and others sold Missouri on the idea, promised for academic improvement in the league, and offered full revenue share and voting rights from day 1. Eventually Missouri decided to go for it rather than continue to wait on the Big Ten.
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Andy says:
June 4, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Wow, $10M lower this year, no full share for 7 years? That’s much worse than I had heard. It’s no wonder Missouri balked at that offer.
According to MU curators off the record, Missouri was offered the same deal as Nebraska, but wanted to negotiate for a better deal. Nebraska took the deal as is. Some, including myself, were upset that Missouri didn’t take the deal, but I never realized until now how bad it actually is.
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Yeah, ok, I was imprecise with my original language. Strictly speaking, an “offer” would be an official thing. Where as a “proposal” would be an unofficial thing. So it was a “proposal” rather than an “offer”. I apologize for the imprecise language and I’ve tried in about 5 posts now since then to correct it.
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The reason Nebraska agreed to this deal may have been because they were on probation from the AAU and were likely to get their membership revoked at the time. They possibly feared that after losing membership they would no longer be a viable candidate for the Big Ten. They were also probably hoping that Big Ten members might vote in their favor when their membership was put to a vote the next year. That didn’t end up happening. Big Ten members helped vote them out of the AAU anyway. But it’s possible to see what they were thinking, and how desperate they may have been at the time to get the deal done fast.
Missouri on the other hand is notoriously slow at making any decisions. The slow grind of countless meetings and talks leading up to the switch to the SEC was driving a lot of people around the country crazy. It went on for months. Nebraska agreed to join the Big Ten within just a few days.
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I can agree Missouri is notoriously slow at making decisions!!!!
Nebraska’s deal was good and reasonable at the time. It wasn’t known that ESPN would renegotiate 4 years early with the Big 12 or that Fox would increase their deal 450%.
Its not a “junior” membership. Its a buy-in to the equity of the conference.
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@Andy – I think most of us know that Missouri was a serious contender to be added to the Big Ten. I can even acknowledge that the Big Ten had discussions with Mizzou at some level. However, we’ll just have to agree to disagree about what ultimately happened. I don’t think for a moment that the Big Ten made only its 2nd membership addition over the past 60 years based upon concessions that one school was willing to make on the percentage of revenue that it would have received for the next 4 years while the other candidate didn’t offer it initially. That is the complete antithesis of the culture of Big Ten leadership that has been willing to wait, wait, wait and wait some more in order to get *exactly* what it wants on all issues. If the Big Ten really wanted Mizzou over Nebraska, they wouldn’t have just stopped negotiating with them. I find it hard to believe that the Big Ten waited 2 decades after the Penn State addition to expand and then make its decision on such a short-term issue.
Plus, even if what you’re saying about the Missouri curators is true, if they really didn’t think that Nebraska was at the very least heavily in the running to join the Big Ten (if not the most likely addition out of anyone, as most of us here settled upon months before it was actually announced), then they had their heads in the sand.
Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge now. Mizzou is in a stronger home, so it worked out.
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7 years of lesser membership has the potential to hurt Nebraska quite a bit. Penn State had to endure several years of lesser or junior membership when they joined, and some contend that it was pretty harmful to them. When they came into the Big Ten they were definitely a “king”. Now I’m not so sure they are. Maybe their junior membership was a factor in that, or maybe it wasn’t. Nebraska’s revenue is pretty strong so maybe they can handle losing $50M or so from the move. But it can’t help.
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Frank, I don’t doubt that the Curators may have either misread the issue as it was happening, or they may be giving us some “spin” at this point about how it actually happened.
What I don’t doubt whatsoever is that Missouri’s leaders were in serious talks with the Big Ten and truly believed that a move to the Big Ten was not only possible, but actually likely.
Where I think where you are wrong is your thought that Nebraska joining the Big Ten was some sort of moment of destiny long in the making. I think the Big Ten had multiple candidates, at least three of which were Notre Dame, Missouri, and Nebraska. Rutgers may or may not have been a fourth candidate. They sent out a proposal of 7 years of junior membership to at least Missouri and Nebraska. I have zero doubt of that.
When you look at Rutgers, Missouri, and Nebraska, they all have their pluses and minuses. With Rutgers you have a strong academic school in a very large market, with a marginal geographic fit and mediocre sports. With Missouri yo have a good academic school with a large market, a good geographic fit, and good sports. With Nebraska you have an okay academic school with a small market, a pretty good geographic fit, and outstanding football (and pathetic basketball). So like I said, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. None is a slam dunk like Penn State or Notre Dame. All are viable options. So then, perhaps, among three viable options, something like money could come into play.
To give Missouri full membership from day 1, the eleven other members of the Big Ten would have had to have taken a pay cut. And they may not have liked Missouri getting access to the BTN without buying in. Penn State may have been bitter after having endured junior membership only to see Missouri get in with full membership from day one. What I’m saying is that this maybe wasn’t such a small thing that could be looked over if the Big Ten really wanted Missouri. Maybe they wanted Missouri, but they didn’t *really* want them, like they wanted Notre Dame. So Missouri’s slow moving, skeptical administration balking at junior membership may actually have made a major difference in the way things turned out. Couple this with Nebraska’s willingness to hurriedly take junior membership without any real negotiations, and the fact that Nebraska does have a very good football program, and it makes sense that they could have come in and taken the spot.
So the Big Ten lost out on growing their population base for the BTN. They lost out on basketball. They lost out on their perfect roster of AAU schools. They lost out on getting any new big cities. But they didn’t have to lower revenue for any current members. And they won big on football prestige. So it was a win for them.
Missouri flirted with disaster by missing out. But it turns out they had enough value to land a good spot elsewhere.
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@Andy – I wouldn’t characterize it as a “junior membership” for not receiving a full revenue share for several years. That’s actually standard operating procedure in conference expansion. The SEC providing Missouri and Texas A&M full revenue shares right when they enter the league is the unusual move.
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Please explain PSU’s junior membership. This is news to me.
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Kevin, sorry, I looked for articles about it and can’t find it. It’s 20 years ago at this point. Kind of predates the internet, or at least the web. I saw a conversation about it and I think it’s true, but feel free to not believe me.
On a separate note, here’s a fun article from 1993. This stuff has been going on for a long time:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1993-12-10/sports/9312100144_1_commissioner-jim-delany-big-southwest-missouri
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Another thing about this is it makes perfect sense for the Big Ten to have two viable candidates that are interested in joining. Then they can play hardball. They can say to Nebraska, you have to take 7 years of junior membership, making as much as $10.7M less per year than your other conference members, or we’ll just take Missouri instead. It looks like the Big Ten really forced Nebraska’s hand on this, and now Nebraska is paying big time.
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Missouri and A&M getting full revenue shares is very unusual. Normally, in addition to a membership fees, there is almost always at least a reduction in revenue to account for the NCAA tourney money being spread over a number of years. That is a sign that the SEC wanted them and considered them valuable additions.
And since no Nebraska fans have come on to defend them, I’ll have to correct the mischaracterization of their athletic program. Nebraska had the 2nd best overall program in the Big 12 and some years the best. While they have no NCAA tourney wins, I wouldn’t consider their basketball pathetic. It was one of the weakest in the Big 12, but they were a competitive team, just not for championships. In terms of all sports conference championships they were easily 2nd overall behind Texas. They are 1 of 3 schools not on the Pacific to win a volleyball championship. They made several trips to Omaha. They were very strong in many sports. Now Missouri was next to last in conference championships. It really is not even a close comparison. Overall athletically Nebraska was much stronger than Missouri.
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Nebraska may indeed come out behind over the next 6 or 7 years where they would have been had they stayed in the Big 12. But that was totally unpredictable at the time. Their deal looked like a big increase in $ over what the Big 12 was expected to do. And I’m sure Pearlman will negotiate on what the intent of them making no less than in the Big 12 was and how much they should pay for the BTN buy-in.
Penn St. certainly had a buy-in. And I’m pretty sure they joined in football later than basketball. That had to do with unraveling their scheduling agreements. It took Houston 5 years to join the SWC for football.
I remembered KU, MU and RU being publically mentioned as potential Big 10 members. I think the last time, in 2003, the Big 10 looked at expanding those 3 were publically mentioned, although it is possible I’m confusing that with 1993 when your article is dated.
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Yes, Nebraska is very strong at women’s sports. Missouri and Nebraska had an even series over the last 8 or so seasons in football, but before that it was very one sided in favor of Nebraka. Missouri is considerably stronger at basketball and baseball, but Nebraska is better at womens sports and a lot of the men’s olympic sports.
The whole “dead last” in championships thing is a little overdone. It’s not that Missouri tended to finish dead last in sports. It’s just that they tended not to finish 1st. Missouri frequently finished 2nd, 3rd or 4th. And they finished first sometimes. Missouri had 3 Big 12 titles on their way out this year: men’s basketbal tournament, baseball, and wrestling. But yes, Nebraska had many more. They spend a lot more money on non-revenue sports than Missouri does.
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Andy – Missouri never received a proposal from the B1G. You are telling me they wanted to negotiate a couple million more on the BTN TV buy-in deal and stall out joining the conference they have been publicly begging to get into for years vs. the huge money they would be getting by being a part of the CIC and B1G conference? Talk about stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. Why they would wait for so long is interesting…or not factual.
Also if the B1G wanted Missouri or if Missouri had a committable offer from the B1G, then UNL entered the fray, wouldn’t the B1G have come back to Missouri allowing them first rights of refusal of the initial “bad offer” as you put it? Of course if they had a committable offer and are considered at least as good of a selection as UNL you would think that the B1G would have offered that to them.
This is simply damage control from the Missouri PR folks now that they have been taken by the SEC. It will also never be proven bc the B1G isn’t going to discuss it. Sounds like a gal who thought a guy liked her but then watched him go out with someone else. You actually should be thanking Nebraska for going to the B1G so that you could get a committable offer to a more stable conference.
Also currently UNL and Missouri are similar in most metrics as Universities expect Nebraska football (recall football drives the bus in this expansion). Nebraska has five national championships and is in the top five for most wins all time. Missouri has zero national titles and is over 150 wins away from catching up to the top programs for all time wins. Take a look at the overall winning percentage of Missouri vs. Nebraska for football. Missouri is 54.5% vs. 70.2% for Nebraska. It was a no brainer for the B1G to select Nebraska over Missouri. The B1G had the chance to grab Missouri before they went to the SEC if they wanted and passed again.
Missouri has a very good basketball program and has had a couple of recent years that have been solid in football however, how many conference championships in football has Missouri won during the Big 12 conference? It is zero… In fact Missouri, in 15 years of Big 12 play in football won THREE division championships during one of the worst times in Nebraska football history. If Nebraska didn’t fall off a cliff during this span it would have likely been 1 or zero. Also the rules for reducing the number of scholarships to 85 has helped Missouri and other programs out tremendously who before where unable to compete on a consistent basis.
Nebraska and Missouri are relatively close together in most metrics (save AAU) however UNL is going to blow Missouri’s doors off over the long-term considering the significant amount of research money they will receive by now being a part of the CIC as well as being a B1G member. UNL has changed drastically since joining the B1G in their aggressiveness to fund raising, pushing for better faculty and upgrading facilities.
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Danimation, everything you’re saying is complete guess work from someone who knows nothing about what actually happened.
Everything I’m saying is coming directly from actual Missouri curators. Could the curators be lying? Sure they could have. But their story is not nearly as crazy as you make it out to be.
Consider the following facts:
1) The state of Missouri is in a major budget crunch right now. The University has had to lay off a lot of people. Money is tight. The University was not in a position to step up and help out the athletic department.
2) Missouri’s athletic department is one of the few in the country that is self-sustaining, meaning they receive almost no funding from the university. This would be difficult to change.
3) Missouri’s athletic department funding is stable but not large. They are not making much of a profit. Barely break even every year. And their budget size is about average for a BCS school, maybe even below average.
4) In 2010 nobody had ever left the Big 12 before. In the contractual language Missouri would be expected to pay 2 years worth of revenue as an exit fee. This would be nearly $30M. There was no way for Missouri leadership to know how far they could negotiate this down. This money would have to come out of Missouri’s athletics budget.
5) The Big Ten was asking fo 7 years of junior membership. Not only did this mean limited voting rights, but it also meant as much as $10M per year less than other Big Ten schools. This is an additional $40-50M lost out of the athletics budget
6) Not only would Missouri be risking financial shortfall, but they would have to further put off desperately needed facility upgrades. Missouri would not be able to compete successfully in the Big Ten without many, many millions of dollars in facility upgrade.
All of this would be enough to give pause to Missouri’s leadrship. Couple that with the fact that Missouri’s leadership is notoriously slow and often divided and makes decisions based on consensus, and you can see how this could have happened.
Not only that, but Missouri leaders believed (it turns out correctly) that they could stay in the Big 12 if needed, and if the Big 12 were to fall apart they would have little trouble finding a new home. The SEC was reaching out to Missouri at this time as well. Missouri also got some interest from the Big East, ACC, and Pac 12 according to various media reports, although the latter two would have required a collapse of the Big 12.
As for the part about the Big Ten not coming back to Missouri and giving them one last chance at the same offer, this is the story that is the most troubling and has the most potential to be perhaps twisted by spin on the curators parts. They may be trying to cover up a screw up here, I don’t know. But their version of it is that Delaney “screwed them” and they were quite upset about it. Again, I don’t know, maybe that part is “damage control” but that’s what they’re saying. Maybe they don’t want to admit that they were the ones that screwed up the deal.
These stories didn’t just come out after Missouri joined the SEC. They were leaked in real time as it happened. Then again about a year later. Now more details are coming out. The story hasn’t really changed at all since it originally came out. It’s just been elaborated on. Which makes me tend to believe there’s some truth to it. Plus there was a lot of circumstantial evidence supporitng it which I listed above.
But then you’ve already got it all figured out in your own head so there’s really no use telling you anything, is there? What’s hilarious is you speak in declarative statements as if you were in the room when it happened and you know exactly how it was. The arrogance of some of you on this site is astounding sometimes.
You’re likely a Nebraska fan by the way you compare the two schools. Missouri has had “a couple good years in football lately”? Try 8 bowls in the last 9 seasons. Try one of only 6 programs nationally to win 8 or more games for 6 years straight. Try 9.5 wins per season averaged over the past 5 seasons. Yeah, sure basketball doesn’t matter that much for realignment. Yeah, Nebraska has a better football tradition. But at this point there’s not much difference between the two programs. Want proof? Look no further than Missouri’s 52-17 win in Lincoln not too long ago. Or the fact that Missouri went to a higher bowl and had a better record than Nebraska in 2010. So Nebraska does have a leg up in football, but it’s not like they are a million times better or anything. Since Tom Osborne stopped coaching their the programs have been fairly close. As far as university metrics, yeah, Missouri and Nebraska are in the same ballpark academically, but Missouri is slightly to significantly ahead in pretty much every category. And Missouri is AAU while Nebraska is not.
As for Nebraska’s aggressive fundraising and facility upgrades, Missouri just compleded a $600M fundraising drive on the academic side, and donations on the athletics side are said to be at record highs with the move to the SEC, including some major contrabutions to be announced this summer. Plans have been drawn up for over $200M in facilities upgrades over the next 3 years, most of which will go toward football. The difference between Missouri paying for those upgrades and Nebraska is that Missouri’s TV dollars will likely be twice as high as Nebraska’s over the next few seasons.
Missouri has a huge population of potential fans. Attendance has been steadily climbing over the last decade. It has long been described as a “sleeping giant”. Missouri was one of the top 5 or 10 winningest programs in the 60s (the only team in America to never lose more than 3 games in a season during that decade), and was typically in the top 25 in the 70s. They slid into a bad place from 84-96 with some truly awful teams, and have been recovering ever since. But at this point they have to be considered a legit football presence. They beat Nebraska 4 out of the last 8 times they played them. They beat Oklahoma when OU was ranked #1, then played them close on the road the next year. They beat Texas 17-5 this past season. They demolished Arkansas by 5 touchdowns a few years back in the Cotton Bowl and finished the season ranked 4th in the country. Missouri is nearly back to where they were during their glory days under Dan Devine.
The “no brainer” comments come from arrogance and ignorance.
But the biggest and most important difference between the Nebrask and Missouri, and the biggest reason to think Missouri was very much a viable option for the Big Ten: Missouri is the sole FBS flagship school of a state of 6M people. Nebraska is the sole FBS flagship school of a state of 1.8M. In expansion that matters. So was it a “no brainer” like you said? I don’t think you can make that assumption at all.
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Andy, Don’t you think the recent success of Missouri’s football progam is more closely predicated to Chase Daniels than the program itself? Take a look at your results since he graduated. Yes, you did upset a #1 rated Oklahoma a couple years ago; but that same team was embarrassed the very next week against the Nebraska team you are trying to discredit; as an outsider who follows college football extremely closely I see Missouri not at all as an emerging power like you are attempting to paint them to be, but just a flash in the pan.
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Consider the following facts:
1) The state of Missouri is in a major budget crunch right now. The University has had to lay off a lot of people. Money is tight. The University was not in a position to step up and help out the athletic department.
2) Missouri’s athletic department is one of the few in the country that is self-sustaining, meaning they receive almost no funding from the university. This would be difficult to change.
@Andy – Missouri isn’t self-sustaining. Somehow your sources get easily verifiable things wrong. I can’t believe you even managed to get a Texas Longhorn fan to defend Nebraska.
Hard numbers From 09-10 Academic year via http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/ncaa-finances.htm
Missouri’s REVENUE
Ticket sales $20,642,471.00 33.81%
Guarantees $217,786.00 0.36%
Contributions $13,454,020.00 22.04%
Direct institutional support $2,687,986.00 4.4%
NCAA/conference distributions including all tournament revenues $10,681,242.00 17.5%
Broadcast, television, radio, and internet rights $4,081,549.00 6.69%
Program sales, concession, novelty sales, and parking $3,232,270.00 5.29%
Royalties, licensing, advertisements and sponsorships $1,329,595.00 2.18%
Sports camp revenues $951,588.00 1.56%
Endowment and investment income $1,791,072.00 2.93%
Other $1,982,724.00 3.25%
Subtotal operating revenue $61,052,303.00
Deaton on 12/6/11 via ESPN’s website (link in next post)
The University of Missouri Board of Curators, which oversees a four-campus system that includes the flagship Columbia site, has pushed for the athletic department to become self-sufficient financially, Deaton said. Given the state funding cuts, the university “simply cannot ask our students and taxpayers to provide the kind of funding needed by a major athletic program,” Deaton said.
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http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7321848/missouri-tigers-budget-cuts-played-role-switch-southeastern-conference
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Nearly every “fact” Andy mentions is either, at worst, a lie or, at best, an exaggeration. When called on it, he denies, then backpedals, then claims it was accidental.
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Mike, apparently you think this is a “gotcha”? The information and article and quote you sited basically supports exactly the point I was making. So thanks for the corraborating evidence.
So for one year the University supported 4% of the athletic department’s budget. OK. That’s not all that much. And I’m pretty sure it has been lower than that. Point is, unlike a lot of schools, Missouri doesn’t give all that much money to its athletic department.
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Greg, nearly everything you’ve posted has been your opinion stated as fact, based on very little to nothing. Or, in the case of your last post, it’s an extreme exaggeration to the point of pure ridiculousness.
Nothing I have posted has been a lie. I’ve been caught oversimpligying a few times, that’s true. This is a tough crowd and I need to be more precise with my language.
I can’t say “basically self-supporting”. I have to say “96% self supporting” otherwise I’m a “liar”.
So yeah, I got caught on 2 or 3 of those, and nothing else. Considering I’ve said about 100 things, that’s not too bad. But feel free to point out 97 other “lies” I told.
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OrderRestored, Chase Daniel was quarterback at Missouri for only 3 seasons. Missouri has gone to bowls 8 out of the last 9 seasons after only reaching only 5 bowls in the previous two decades combined. They’ve won 8 or more games for 6 straight seasons. Missouri has had 11 players drafted in the NFL since Chase Daniel left, including 5 1st rounders. In short, no, I don’t think it can all be attributed to Chase Daniel.
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OrderRestored, as for the future, it remains to be seen how long Missouri can maintian this success. Clearly they’ve had a strong tradition at quarterback, dating back to Brad Smith in the early 2000s, continuing through Chase Daniel and then Blane Gabbert (a top 10 draft pick that led Missouri to 10 wins in 2010). James Franklin’s numbers were as good as any of them last year (outside of Chase Daniel’s ridiculous numbers). He’s being mentioned by many as one of the top 2 or 3 QBs in the SEC. Missouri is bringing in a 1st team parade all-American QB freshman this year. They always seem to sign a 4 or 5 star QB every year. They also signed the #1 recruit in the nation this year in Dorial Green Beckham. Some are comparing him to Randy Moss. He broke every high school national record for recieving. Also, they continue to bring in top level offensive line recruits. So I expect Missouri will continue to have a highly ranked offense, as they have had for most of the past decade. The question is defense. That has been off and on. Missouri was able to win 10 or more games in years when their defense could stop the other team consistently. They’ve dipped into the 7 or 8 range when the defense struggled. For Missouri to take that next step they need to upgrade their defense.
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@Andy – Your stories have trouble standing up to scrutiny. For example, notice how the story about Nebraska accepting “junior membership” before Missouri could don’t stand up to logic or reason. Moreover, if you are indeed hearing from curators, why are they asking Missouri to be self-sufficient while simultaneously telling you Missouri’s AD is self-sufficient? 2.6 Million dollars is a lot of money, almost enough convince a FSU trustee to switch conferences. When the easily verifiable parts of the story you hear are wrong, what does that tell you about what else you are being told?
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Mike, it doesn’t “defy logic and reason” to think that Nebraska was taken as the 12th member while Missouri was trying to negotiate/deliberate. It defies good manners. Am I skeptical that it went down exactly as told? Sure I am. Why? Because they’re not willing to go on the record about this, and thus open themselves up to being disputed. Therefore they could get away with spinning the story to their advantage. I get that. And I don’t know exactly how it happened. But I do doubt that the story was fabricated entirely. At this point it has come from not just one but multiple curators, and they told basically the same story. So while they may be twisting it a bit to their advantage, everything that happened in 2010 would defy logic and reason unless one central point was true: Missouri was in serious talks with the Big Ten and for whatever reason it didn’t work out and Nebraska got the spot.
As for the part about being self sustaining, you’re clinging to that for some reason, I’m not sure why. I originaly said in the post you’re scrutinizing that Missouri’s athletic department recieves “very little money” from the University and there’s resistance to recieving any money. You then brought me numbers that say that Missouri’s athletic department is 96% self sustaining along with a quote from the University chancellor saying that they wanted the athletic department to be more self sustaining and didn’t want to support it because of budget constraints. Isn’t that exactly what I said? Wouldn’t this tend to make my story even more credible? And doesn’t the very title of the article you linked to state that Missouri joined the SEC for financial reasons and wanted to use SEC revenue to shore up budget shortfalls? Wasn’t that exactly what I’ve been saying? Seems to me you provided some excellent evidence that my story is at least mostly true. If budget issues really are that important to Missouri, then they would indeed have trouble stomaching 7 years of junior membership while losing around $50M in revenue.
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Missouri’s athletic department is one of the few in the country that is self-sustaining, meaning they receive almost no funding from the university
2.6 million dollars isn’t “almost no” on any planet. We keep hearing how Florida St can’t compete due to a shortage of 2.9 million dollars.
Moving on…
Missouri was in serious talks with the Big Ten and for whatever reason it didn’t work out and Nebraska got the spot.
Missouri had communication with the Big Ten at some level, I’ll give you that. Did they lose out on the spot because they tried to negotiate? No. Why? 1. Missouri aspires to be a Big Ten school. 2. Missouri had very valid reasons to dislike the Big 12 3. Financials (explained below)
If budget issues really are that important to Missouri, then they would indeed have trouble stomaching 7 years of junior membership while losing around $50M in revenue.
Here’s where your logic falls apart. At the time of “the offer”, the best Big 12 schools took home ~10M dollars in media revenue. The Big Ten took home ~20M. The alleged Big Ten offer of a “junior membership” required reduced payments to account for an ownership stake in the BTN. If the alleged “junior membership” started at 50% payout [note: Nebraska started ~60%], Missouri would be guaranteed (not at the mercy of uneven revenue sharing) to make at least as much as they were in the Big 12 (probably more) in year one AND get an ownership share of a highly profitable network. Remember, this was all before the market exploded for media contracts and the Big 12 contracts were still two (FOX) and six (ABC) years away from being completed. There was no way Missouri could have known what was going to happen, and if they were as budget conscious as you say, the Big Ten deal would look even more appealing because it would start out paying at the best level the Big 12 could provide at the time and go up from there. There is no logical reason Missouri would have turned down or tried to negotiate the alleged “junior membership” offer because it was a net gain to Mizzou across the board.
The “lost” revenue you cite is payment for an asset. I have no doubt that Missouri knew exactly what that asset was worth.
Was Missouri the first choice of the Big Ten? No. Was Nebraska? No. Nebraska simply was the best school available at the time. Just like when the SEC needed a school, Missouri was the best school available.
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Based on this thread I think the only logical conclusion is that Missouri probably missed any chance they did have at an invite to join the B1G because they were really, really annoying.
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If you break down Missouri’s direct institutional support of their athletic deprtment, football gets $0, men’s and women’s basketball gets $0, “other” gets $0. This is likely where the talk of self sufficient is coming from. No sport is getting university money directly. All direct institutional support you are citing goes to something called “non-program specific”. I don’t know what that is. Maybe academic tutoring? Facilities? I have no idea. All universities seem to do their accounting differently so it’s tough to compare two situations. But the fact that the athletic department was in some way drawing on University funds while the University leadership was pressuring them to be self sufficient makes it more likely, not less likely, that budgetary issues were a factor in their dealings with the Big Ten.
Mike, it’s silly for you to ask yourself these questions and then phrase your self-answers in certain terms as if you actually know what happened. You’re clearly just guessing, so why pretend it’s anything other than that?
Missouri had talks with the Big Ten “on some level”, yes. And those talks were of a magnitude that led Missouri leadership to believe that Missouri was likely to join the Big Ten. Did Missouri aspire to join the Big Ten? I’m not sure “aspire” is the right word. Many at Missouri wanted to join, yes. But more than 100 years ago Missouri was a founding member of what would one day become the Big 12 conference. There is a lot of history there. Missouri is not a monolith. No doubt there were some within Missouri eager to take a junior membership in the Big Ten because of the academic benefits. Others wanted to stick with tradition. Others, the budget-minded ones, were concerned about how much it would cost, particularly the potential $30M exit fee which would not be covered by the Big Ten directly or indirectly through increased revenue. I know for a fact Gary Pinkel was against the move. He didn’t want to leave behind Texas recruiting and saw the Big Ten region as less hospitable recruiting territory. So there’s that. And Missouri leadership saw Missouri as a good catch that could find other options if necessary. Which of course turned out to be completely right.
You talk about this like it’s such an easy decision. But Missouri is a diverse place. The St. Louis region might fit right in to the Big Ten. But Kansas City is very much Big 12 country. Many of them fought against joining the SEC, and they likely fought against leaving for the Big Ten as well. The southern half of Missouri is more SEC country and has more in common with Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma than it does with Iowa, Minnesota, or Wisconsin. The trouble is Missouri doesn’t totally fit in anywhere, the Big 12, the Big Ten, or the SEC. Dating back to the civil war Missouri could never seem to decide which side it is on. Missouri isn’t Ohio or Indiana. So far there haven’t been any slave states admitted into the Big Ten. And that’s why it took so long to make any decisions.
Some of you coming from a school or region that fits in perfectly with a larger group might see this as a “no-brainer”. Like, why wouldn’t Missouri eagerly grab up a 7 year junior membership in the Big Ten? It would be such an upgrade, you say. But trust me, that’s not how a huge chunk of Missourians see the Big Ten. The general attitude, sports-wise, is that the Big Ten is weaker at sports, or at the very least no better overall than the Big 12. As for academics, plenty simply don’t see the point. So the thinking would be if we join, why should we take any less than full membership from day 1. We’re just as good as the rest of them. We bring plenty to the table. Why should we pay millions to join *that* league. I followed public opinion at the time, and I’m not even sure if a majority of Missouri fans even wanted to join the Big Ten. Do I think that was foolish? Yes, I do. I’m just trying to give you a reality check on exactly where Missouri was coming from.
The way it’s been explained to me is that Missouri’s leaders wanted to join the Big Ten, but they weren’t falling over themselves to do it. As in, it would be nice, but if not then we’ll find something else, we’ll be fine. Well, at least that’s how some of them were thinking. Like I said, Missouri isn’t a monolith. There was not unity or consensus until recently. So budgetary concerns/revenue issues could have definitely caused problems for building the necessary consensus.
Like you said, neither Missouri nor Nebraska were the Big Ten’s first choice. They asked around, talked to both, and in the end Nebraska ended up joining. I told you the story the curators are telling. I suspect it’s mostly true, but told in a way to make them look the least bad.
You can feel free not to believe it. But none of the “evidence” you’ve presented actually disproves anything. So all that’s left is your opinion vs. their word. And considering how little you know about any of this, your opinion isn’t worth all that much.
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ChicagoMac, no, what’s annoying is people with zero connection to the situation who know basically nothing about any of this speaking in definitive terms as if they know exactly how it went down, and assuring me that everything I’m saying is wrong, even though I actually watched this happen from not too far of a distance and have been tracking it for years by regularly talking to people who talk to people who were directly involved in the decision making.
I mean who was even talking about Nebraska joining the Big Ten more than a few days before it happened? If you remember, it basically came out of nowhere. And now some of you are re-writing history as if Nebraska was the obvious choice all along? Please. And somehow Missouri joining the Big Ten was a no-brainer and if they had any kind of proposal, no matter how bad the terms were, they would have taken it no sweat without negotiations? Riight. Anybody saying that knows zero about how things are done at the University of Missouri.
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@Andy – I wrote this on April 19, 2010 (2 months before the Big Ten added Nebraska):
https://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/the-value-of-expansion-candidates-to-the-big-ten-network/
I’m not sure who was actually surprised about the addition of Nebraska when it happened, but it certainly wasn’t the case here.
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Frank, this article you wrote is from two and a half weeks before Nebraska actually joined the Big Ten. You say yourself in that quote that you were moving them from a “maybe” category to a “lock” category at that point. Up to that point they weren’t at all considered a lock. Delaney announced expansion 5 months prior to your article that you linked to. In most media reports during those first few months, Nebraska wasn’t even mentioned as a candidate. They started to get more buzz later on but like you said it was a “maybe instead of Missouri” thing for the most part. You were actually suggesting that putting Nebraska as a “lock” at that point, 5 months into the process, was a new and interesting topic to write about. So again, an attempted “gotcha” post really only serves to confirm exactly what I was saying.
I’m not saying Nebraska wasn’t a valid candidate or that nobody thought it was a potential theoretical fit. I’m saying nobody was actually saying it was some inevitable thing until shortly before it happened.
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Alright, I got the dates wrong. It was 2 months. So you have a point. There was a significant amount of time there where at least someone (you and probably others) were talking about Nebraska as likely to join the Big Ten.
However, the fact remains that for 5 out of those 7 months while the Big Ten was looking at expansion but hadn’t added anyone yet, Nebraska was not being mentioned by anyone as a top candidate. You would think by the way some of you are describing the situation, Nebraska would have been the obvious choice from day one. This is simply not the case.
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Where the details are scarce on how it played out behind the scenes are how the timing worked. At some point the focus of the Big Ten shifted from Missouri to Nebraska. Supposedly this shift came when Missouri tried to negotiate for better terms. Did this happen in April? May? June? I don’t have those details. And what else happened? I’m guessing there are reasons Missouri won’t reveal the details publicly.
I’ll try to be as clear and precise as I can about what has been said about this: When Delaney announced that the Big Ten would be expanding in December of 2009, they then had talks with Missouri some time after that. They gave Missouri a proposal that was basically the same as the offer that Nebraska accepted. What they gave Missouri was not an official offer, but rather an unofficial proposal to begin a dialogue. Missouri’s leaders looked at it and weren’t happy with it. They tried to enter negotiations with the Big Ten to improve the terms of the proposal. Then at some point in the spring the Big Ten decided to go with Nebraska, and Nebraska accepted the deal as is. How this happened specifically I don’t know. Some are mad at Delaney about this. Some are mad at Missouri’s leaders. I honestly don’t know who to believe or what specifically happened with that.
I don’t see anything incredible or impossible to believe about that story. It’s perfectly in keeping with all publicly available facts, fits all characters involved, and explains the publicly observable behavior on the Missouri side during the spring of 2010.
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@Andy
This last description is believable. Its the interpretation that is far fetched. That description doesn’t mean the Big 10 ever decided to invite Missouri or that they dropped Missouri because they were haggling over terms.. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had the same discussion with Rutgers. I would be surprised if they didn’t have that discussion with Notre Dame.
I’m pretty sure the Big 12 has had those discussions with Louisville and BYU. BYU is almost certainly not going to be invited (and may actually have a real case that they negotiated themselves out of an invite). Louisville is not likely to be invited, except just maybe as a #14.
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@ Andy,
Nebraska and the B1G have been in a mating dance for around 100 years or so. Granted Notre Dame always gets the press, but it has been a love triangle for quite some time.
Nebraska wanted the B1G
B1G wanted Notre Dame
Notre Dame just wants to date
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Duffman, the Big Ten has had the same dance with Missouri, but I don’t know for how many years. I do know it came somewhat close to happening in 1993, and again in 2010. How close? Few can answer that question.
bullet, I think that’s as fair assessment. Missouri was apparently a finalist for the Big Ten having serious discussions much like Louisville was a finalist for the Big 12 having serious discussions. Few know what actually happened behind the scenes during those discussions, but in the end neither team ended up in those conferences.
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@ Andy. The reason that the Nebraska to the B1G prognostications changed was primarily due to Nebraska not being in negotiations with the B1G until after the Big 12 gave them an ultimatum. Things progressed very rapidly from there. Whereas Missouri had been publicly and privately pushing to get into the B1G for a long time. That would leave most to believe that Nebraska was wanted where Missouri was merely under consideration for B1G membership. In other words Missouri was in discussions with the B1G along with probably another handful of schools vs. actually recieving an offer. Yes I understand your rumor so no need to restate it…
Also that is great that Missouri has raised $600 million for their school. Nebraska currently has $1.2 billion raised for the University with two years left to go on their campaign. Link below.
http://campaignfornebraska.org/
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@ Andy – Junior membership? How many times do we have to explain that Nebraska is a full member and that they’re buying shares of the Big Ten Network with deferred income?
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Damination, when you say “Missouri had been publicly and privately pushing for membership, you are making an assumption that has no actual evidence to support it. The only Missouri official to ever make a public statement in support of joining the Big Ten was Governor Nixon, and he doesn’t work for the university. There is zero proof that Missouri was publicly and privately campaigning for it and failing. You know what I’ve heard, that the Big Ten approached Missouri and Missouri wasn’t happy with the numbers. They may or may not have campaigned for more favorable terms.
As for Nebraska’s $1.2B raised, good for Nebraska. The $600M I mentioned was just one specific campaign that I happen to have heard about. I don’t follow all of their fundraising. Missouri has grown faster than any other university in America, growing from around 22k to 34k students over the last 8 years. Nebraska is still at 22k I see. There has been massive construction all over Missouri’s campus. Lots of new buildings, classrooms, dorms, etc. Missouri and Nebraska’s endowments are practically identical. Missouri’s total research budget is about 20% higher. And Missouri is still a proud member of the AAU.
metatron, junior membership is what a lot of people call it. Call it whatever you want. For whatever reason, Nebraska has to buy into the Big Ten. One wonders if Notre Dame or Texas would have had the same requirements.
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Sheesh.
Andy. What part of buying equity in the BTN don’t you understand? Are you saying that Mizzu deserved to join the B1G and kick in to help pay for the BTN like all the other members? I have no idea of exact numbers but I’d bet the 11 schools had to come up with boatload to get it going. If the SEC had a conference network do you think they would say “come join in the profits that the rest of us paid to create”? Or wouldn’t they likely ask to have someone share that cost in order to earn the benefit?
Did UT bring Andy here to make themselves look more reasonable? I bet Missouri manure doesn’t stink as much as Nebraska’s.
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FtT, could I donate to help get an edit feature?
…join and NOT kick in…
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I fear Andy has gone Costanza on us and is actually believing the stories he’s spinning.
Here is what the Newspaper in Columbia said about Missouri, the Big Ten, etc.
In reconstructing the time line, the date Sept. 2, referred to as “the defining moment for our chancellor” by football Coach Gary Pinkel, was the point Missouri actively sought a new home. Deaton said he knew from talking to colleagues in the Big Ten, which had spurned MU the year before, that it had no interest in expanding. So Deaton’s focus was on the SEC,
One simple paragraph states the following:
1. The Big Ten spurned Missouri. Spurned, which means “to reject with disdain or contempt”, sounds a helluva lot different than Nebraska stole Missouri’s slot in the Big Ten because Missouri was trying to negotiate and Nebraska went ahead and signed a bad deal.
2. It clearly states Deaton was in contact with Big Ten presidents about the possibility that the Big Ten would be interested in expanding with Missouri.
This didn’t come from some anonymous source or some random blog, it came from the Columbia Tribune, here is the link: http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/dec/14/deaton-alden-discus-mus-move-sec/
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ccrider, I’m not sure I buy the idea that this whole “buy in” concept is anything more than an excuse to give Nebraska a lesser share to protect the shares of existing members for a fwe years while the Big Ten gets going. Nebraska wasn’t buying into a fungible asset they could resell later. They were joining a club. The Big Ten withholds the money because they can and because Nebraska agreed to it. Feel free to disagree. I admit it’s only my (and many other people’s) opinion.
ChicagoMac, I’m not spinning any tales at all. I’m retelling what I’m being told by others. I’m retelling them faithfully and without embelishment. And I’ve said repeatedly that I’m not sure if they’re 100% true or just partly true.
As for the article you cited. I didn’t see Deaton say the word “spurned”. That seems to be the author’s word choice. And even based on the story I was told, “spurned” isn’t too far off. As in Missouri wanted to negotiate but the Big Ten wasn’t interested in negotiating. Thus they were “spurned” in their efforts to negotiate. Again, this is what some curators are saying off the record. Maybe they’re spinning the story somewhat. We have no way of knowing at this point.
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One final try.
Would IBM send you dividends if you didn’t purchase stock?
BTN is a corp started, owned, and operated by Fox and 11 schools. Nebraska is purchasing an ownership share.
With the egalitarian nature at the core of the B1G I’m sure they would require the same of any prospective member.
Until now I thought that only UT would possibly, but not probably, have the temerity to expect preferential treatment. Couldn’t get it from the PAC or we’d already have at least one and probably several 16 team conferences.
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No, I understand the concept. But there are a lot of people who question how valid it is for the Big Ten to value their network at $750M and require Nebraska to buy in for 7 years. How much did existing Big Ten members have to pay up front to set up the network? I honestly don’t know but I would think it was much less than that. And what have Purdue or Northwestern done that make them more of an asset to the BTN than Nebraska?
Yes, there’s a logic behind it, no doubt. But is the logic solid? I’m not so sure about that. But good for the Big Ten for getting Nebraska to agree to it. That’s more money in their pockets.
Although I’m not sure why they would want to obtain a football “king” and then weaken that king with harsh financial limitations for the better part of a decade. Seems counterproductive to me. Shouldn’t the Big Ten want Nebraska to do as well as possible?
FWIW the SEC is doing their best to help Missouri and A&M succeed. Arkansas, Florida, and Georgia have all offered to host Missouri on retreats to share best practices. And of course they both have full voting rights and full revenue share from day one. The thinking is strong members make a strong conference.
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@Andy – I’m still not quite sure where you’re coming from. As we’ve established, every single conference expansion in the modern era *except* for the SEC adding Texas A&M and Missouri had the new additions take a lower revenue share for several years. It’s not a junior membership or anything of the sort. Mizzou got a great deal getting a full revenue amount immediately. That’s wonderful. However, that’s simply not the norm (which is another reason why I find it hard to believe that the Mizzou curators were insisting on that from the Big Ten, but I know that’s the story you’ve heard, so it is what it is).
Plus, as others have stated, the Big Ten Network is a big-time legitimate asset that Nebraska (or any other school) would need to buy equity into. You’re asking what Purdue and Northwestern did? It’s simple. What Purdue and Northwestern did was risk a whole lot of guaranteed money that they could have just pocketed from ESPN in 2006 and instead approved a startup network that a whole lot of people were skeptical of (including the vaunted SEC, which signed a traditional TV rights deal with ESPN thereafter and are now trying to go back and get what the Big Ten has now). It’s easy in 20/20 hindsight to see how much of a moneymaker that the BTN has become, but when there were carriage issues the first year, you saw people from other conferences squawking about how it was going to fail. Purdue, Northwestern and the other legacy Big Ten members put their asses on the line (both financially and TV exposure-wise) in a way that no other schools in the country had done up to that point in an uncharted fashion, so they deservedly reap the reward of massive equity for taking the risk from the beginning (just like the founders of a successful company get outsized equity compared to those who join several years later). It can’t be understated how much of a risk that the Big Ten schools took in approving the BTN.
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CO also got a full share from the PAC (UT did not), but PAC money was no better than B12 money before the new contract.
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So you do understand Neb is buying into something the SEC doesn’t have, but is rumored to want to start? Unless ESPN decides to do it gratas, it is going to cost. And it will probably be a cooperative venture with ESPN along the lines of the BTN. Perhaps they will decide to do it like the PAC and the conference will have to bear the full startup cost. Any way you look at it Neb is buying into an existing entity that is already very profitable. I’m sure the SEC’s will be also. But the schools, including Mizzu and aTm, will still have to pony up at least half+, unless they want to follow the LHN example and become a wholy owned subsidiary of ESPN.
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My understanding (from what people posted on this board a couple years back) is that Fox did the initial investments, but the big 10 schools have not been getting their share of profits while Fox recoups its investments. So the Big 10 schools have been putting money into the network. Its just that Fox “loaned” it and until recently was getting paid back out of the Big 10’s share.
So if Fox put in $100 million startup costs and BTN made $200 million since inception, the Big 10 would have only gotten $51 million of that $200 million for their 51% share. The 1st $51 million would have been held out for the initial capital investment. That’s $51 million that any new member needs to pay their share of (even without any higher valuation).
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Frank, I might be wrong, but I think Miami, Boston College, Virginia Tech, Pitt, and Syracuse all got full revenue share coming into the ACC. Yes, WVU and TCU have partial revenue share for 4 years in the Big 12, but don’t you think they kind of deserve it? Those are some weak additions.
You said it yourself, Nebraska is a football “king”. So why the brutal 7 year buy-in? I don’t get it.
I think what it amounts to is a conference is going to do what it can get away with. If a school like TCU or Nebraska is desperate to get into a particular conference, they’ll agree to unfavorable terms. If a school could take it or leave it but the conference really wants them, like Missouri or Miami, then they get to set the terms.
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News flash to LSU, Fla, Ala and Slive: you got owned by Mizzu et al. Desperation is a bitch…
Adam: I…don’t know what to say, so I’ll stop.
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@ Andy
It seems you are being completely disingenuous in your to attempt to characterize Nebraska’s membership in the B1G as some how desperate while Missouri’s upcoming membership in the SEC is some how the result of Missouri’s desirability. Nebraska doesn’t have junior membership in the B1G no matter how many times you write it and say that there are a lot of people who are saying that. Who are these people? Where is it written? Who are those saying Nebraska should not have to buy their way into the BTN? It has substantial monetary value and is owned by the conference schools. Why do you think that the B1G should simply give that way for free and because they won’t, this has somehow unduly burdened Nebraska with a terrible deal?
According to the IRS B1G IRS 990 filings the B1G shows ownership in a company called Big Ten Network Holdings LLC that owns a company called Big Ten Network, LLC of which they own 49%. On this filing the member B1G Universities are listed as the members of the B1G who own this network probably at a little over 4.4% per institution pre-Nebraska. No matter how they came into ownership of this asset, Nebraska or any institution can not also gain equity in this investment after the fact until they put up something based on the FMV of this asset. If the B1G were to sell their interest in this asset next year, and thus the revenue from this asset is in turn distributed to the institutions, why should Nebraska receive a full share of the money generated from the sale when they had no interest in the asset to begin with? With that in mind, wouldn’t they need to obtain their interest in the asset somehow? If the ownership is 49% pre-Nebraska, and the other institutions dilute their share because now there is a 12th member how can the institutions be made whole again for their share dilution? Nebraska has to buy in just as any other institution would. Let’s say that I provided you with a million dollars to start a business and in return you provided sweat equity in return for a 49% interest in the business. You in turn work hard for 4 years to make the increase the value of the business. In year 5 you want to bring in a new partner who is putting up nothing but sweat equity and in return he wants half of your interest in the business. Would you give him half from day one, or allow him to earn his stake in your business over time say – 7 years at 3.5% gain in equity per year? I wouldn’t characterize that as desperate or a burden especially since business is commonly conducted in this manner.
You are misinterpreting the terms of the agreement which is that Nebraska will be as whole as they were as if they were in the big12. They will receive no less distribution as if they were still in the Big12. I believe that the $14.5 million is exactly what Nebraska would have received in the Big12 and it may be what Missouri is forfeiting on their way out the door (not sure of what Missouri had to give up of their Big12 distribution to go to the SEC). It would stand that next year Nebraska will receive more than this year at a rate equivalent to their buy in. So it would seem that Missouri will not significantly outgain Nebraska in income if at all when Missouri receives their distribution in 2013. When you average out the fact Missouri had to pay exit penalties into the equation (Nebraska received approximately 9 million less in distributions when they exited I believe) the monetary difference may be even smaller. I acknowledge I haven’t looked at the exact numbers to confirm this. With that in combination to the fact that the Big12 would have distributed more money in future years, Nebraska’s revenue distribution from the B1G will escalate until they become a full owner of BTN. How much, I am not sure but I do know that it will be no less and can be more, than what they would have received if they stayed in the Big12. You assume that the 14.5 million of revenue they received this year is static when that is not the case. They will receive more each year until they are a full financial owner of the BTN. That would lead me to believe that with the payouts, which are usually in arrears, will likely be fairly similar between Nebraska and Missouri. And, Nebraska won’t be losing 40-50 million per year as you indicate. They won’t be getting 10 million less than the other schools each year. It is likely 10 million, and than goes down from there until the B1G renegotiates their media rights deals in 2017 which coincides with Nebraska’s full partner ownership in the BTN. At that time, if not sooner, Nebraska’s income is likely to surpass Missouri’s in conference distributions. As an aside, a few million less than the other schools won’t hurt a school like Nebraska with a large athletic budget, donors and rabid fan base. It will not hamper them as you try and portray.
You seem to insinuate that Nebraska was desperate and Missouri was able to dictate terms by a conference that wanted them but there were published reports that the SEC was not sold on Missouri for a variety of reasons and that they did not have the votes to enter the conference initially. It’s obvious that in order for the SEC to keep up with the Big10 revenue wise they needed more members and population – thus the reason for Missouri’s membership although some of their leadership wanted to wait and look east.
Not sure why you keep referencing the 1 year grace period to becoming a full voting member of the conference. What’s your point? Sure Nebraska gained full voting rights 1 year after official membership. That was likely done by the B1G to assimilate Nebraska into the conference and give it an opportunity to learn the lay of the land. No one is buying that Missouri had a take it or leave it attitude and set their own terms when it was reported that Missouri didn’t even have the necessary votes initially to enter the SEC. Missouri likely got to negotiate some terms because the SEC needed markets to keep up with the B1G financially. But your revisionist version of events that portrays the SEC as desperately wanting Missouri and thus allowing Missouri to dictate terms is patently false. And I am no fan of Nebraska.
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Prophetstruth, I’m not being disingenuous at all. I’m not even sure why you would say or think that. Obviously I believe what I’m saying. These are opinions I genuinely hold. Who are the people that are saying this? People in Missouri, people in Texas, people in the SEC. There are no shortage of people I’ve heard say this. But they’re just people with opinions. This is really just something a person can have an opinion about. It’s a judgement call, nothing more.
As for the numbers:
Missouri’s exit fees are $14M, Nebraska’s exit fees were $9M, so Missouri will pay $5M more in exit fees.
Here’s a conservative estimate of Missouri’s TV revenue over the next 7 seasons: Year 1 no SEC network with renegotiated SEC deal: $24M, year 2 SEC network begins: $28M, year 3 SEC Network grows: $30M, conservatively, SEC network stays flat from then on. Total: $212M – $14M exit fee = $198M. Of course it could end up being quite a bit more than that if the SEC Network is at all successful.
Nebraska supposedly ramps up by 15% per year over 7 years, so $14M, $16.1M, $18.5M, $12.3M, $24.5M, $28.2M, $32,4M, so total $156M – $9M exit fee – $147M, or $52M less than Missouri, and I think that’s a conservative estimate. And that’s also assuming that Nebraska gets the full 15% bump every year. I don’t really know how that works, I’m just going by what someone said on here.
So what do you think? Is $52M a lot of money? I would tend to think so. Maybe you don’t?
As for your predictions about how conference TV negotiations will go in 2017 or your predictions about how the SEC network won’t perform as well as the BTN, you’re free to them, but it’s kind of pointless at this point given how little we know. I think at this point it’s just as likely that the SEC will make more as the Big Ten. Time will tell.
As far as the 4.4% per institution, yeah, I get that, but there are two problems with that logic. #1: You have to calculate what Nebraska is paying based on what’s being witheld from their potential earnings in the Big Ten, not against their 2010 Big 12 payment. They compete in the Big Ten now, that’s their conference, that’s the money they are earning. Any money withheld is supposedly going to a buy in. SO if Nebraska makes $156M, and the rest of the conference averages $28M over 7 years (again, very conservative), then Nebraska is giving up $40M. if Nebraska is buying 4.4% of the BTN at a price of $40M, that puts the value of the BTN at around $900M. That seems a little excessive, doesn’t it? Maybe I’m way off base, but I would think it would be worth well under half of that. #2: Doesn’t Nebraska bring any value just by joining? They’re a football “king”. And they made the Big Ten championship game possible by joining. And they’re supposedly raising the value and ratings of Big Ten football considerably with their national fanbase. So what’s that worth to the Big Ten? It’s got to be more than zero. I would think some of the buy in should be forgiven just because they agreed to bring their value to the league. Certainly that’s the way some other leagues see it.
I never said Missouri got to dictate terms with the SEC. I just said that the SEC wasn’t able to get any concessions out of Missouri as far as voting rights or revenue. And that’s clearly the case. As for whatever reports you heard about Missouri not having votes, I’m guessing it was random twitter nonsense. Missouri’s acceptance into the SEC was never in doubt. In fact, the SEC came to Missouri, not vice versa. This started in 2010, and the SEC continued to sell themselves to Missouri for the next year until Missouri tried to join. Why? Well, Missouri brings what the SEC lacked. The SEC is heavy on smallish rural schools in small markets with so-so academics who are great at football and mediocre at basketball. Missouri is good academic school with a good sized market and some big cities with okay football and good basketball. Compare that to West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Clemson, etc, those schools would have been more of the same. They’d add very little. With Missouri, the SEC gets to increase their population substantially, improve their academics, improve their basketball, and get a football program that won’t be a doormat and can go to mid-tier bowls regularly. It’s pretty much exactly what they wanted and they were happy to get it. So why piss us off on our way in the door, or weaken us by draining our funding? They want us to be wealthy and prosperous. If Missouri really takes off in the SEC, then all of a sudden they’ve got a metro-area of 2.8M people in St. Louis that are going to have SEC fever. That’s what they want. They’re trilled about the $200M football upgrades we’re starting next year:
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FtT, this Nebraska v. Missouri tangent is why I follow your blog. Detailed data, opinions, and humor. Almost always civil. I love it. Thanks.
Andy, I appreciate your passion for all things Mizzou. I’m a Nebraska fan, and I can tell you that I will miss the Missouri game. It was just getting interesting. If the B1G ever expands to 16, I hope Missouri is in the mix. (Not saying Missouri is interested in joining the B1G, or “Big Rusty” as they now call it on tigerboard.) But I have to ask, if the decision between Missouri and Nebraska was so close, please provide links to the many commentators, sports columnist, and blogs which opined that the Big Ten Conference made a bad decision in picking Nebraska over Missouri. Or, just one.
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Denogginizer, most were positive about Nebraska to the Big Ten because of football. Nebraska’s academic issues weren’t well known at the time. Nebraska was on probation with the AAU and on the verge of losing membership, which they did shortly after. If that fact were more well known at the time it almost certainly would have been talked about.
The only criticism I saw Nebraska get at that time when compared to Missouri was population. Some thought Missouri was the stronger choice because Missouri has 6M people and only one FBS program, and Nebraska has 1.8M. That’s a pretty big difference, and it matters as far as BTN revenue. That’s why Rutgers was considered a candidate as well. Rutgers certainly doesn’t bring much in football terms, but they were considered a frontrunner by many just because of their 7.5M people.
But the football pretty much makes up for it. I’m not saying Missouri was a better choice, just that they were basically about the same if you weigh all factors, so the Big Ten could have gone either way.
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“, just that they were basically about the same if you weigh all factors, so the Big Ten could have gone either way” I’m not even a Nebraska fan and even I realize this statement is ludacris. Missouri’s 7 Million people don’t really matter if they never turn on Missouri athletics (which most do not, check the ratings) Nebraska may only have 2 Million people in their state, but that state completely shuts down when the Cornhuskers are playing. The same can’t even remotely be said of Missouri. Nebraska also has an enormous rabid national following. I live in Oklahoma and Nebraska fan presence is felt even this far south. For example, the Oklahoma State game in Stillwater in 2010; Nebraska fans wanted a central location for their fans to tailgate so they rented out Stillwater High School’s facilities. All of them. I laughed until I drove by and saw they filled those facilities with fans. All the facilites; the parking lot was over crowded. Our local news anchor said that they estimated 20,000 Nebraska fans came to Stillwater that day. Comparing Missouri to Nebraska in relevance as far as fans and how that translates to TV ratings is laughable. I suspect the Big Ten found the same true in their research.
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Andy, the AAU issue is also interesting. You and I may not have known Nebraska’s membership was under review, but I can assure you that the Big Ten Presidents and Chancellors knew. They were okay with it. Whether or not Nebraska would have been accepted without AAU status is unknown, but I would guess not. But AAU membership is just one indicator of the quality of a university. The people on this blog know well the reasons Nebraska was removed, primarily because agriculture research is not given the same weight in the AAU’s calculations and Nebraska’s university system has a separate medical school, not under the flagship university. Looking ahead academically, I like UNL’s outlook. We were already on an improved trajectory. Over the last ten years, research dollars have increased dramatically and our move to the Big Ten and CIC will only help.
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OrderRestored, the crucial point you’re missing is that ratings aren’t really all that relevent when it comes to the BTN. If the BTN gets on basic cable in Missouri vs basic cable in Nebraska at the “Big Ten footprint” rate, then the BTN makes tripple in Missouri vs Nebraska regardless of ratings.
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But you have to consider the cable companies resisting. I read that even in Nebraska there was a bit of resistance; there sure would have been in Missouri. Ratings do matter to networks by the way, don’t kind yourself, ask any major advertiser.
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Missoui’s tv ratings aren’t bad by any menas. They’re just not as strong as Nebraska’s. But factor in the fact that Missouri has more than 3 times as many households as Nebraska and you could see how they might be in the same ballpark overall as far as TV revenue.
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You are falsly assuming that every cable provider and satelite carrier in Missouri would jump right on the BTN band wagon though, that is a pretty large step. See the LHN in Texas as an example; just because you add Missouri to the content doesn’t mean the entire state will automatically subscribe. Another good example; the YES network and New York. Cable companies wouldn’t just bow down and I’m not sure the pressure from all those rabid Missouri fans would make them (tongue in cheeck).
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@OrderRestored…not only that but future carriage rates are dependent upon ratings, the % of unique households within MSOs footprint who actually watch the network, the demographics, etc.
BTN is no longer a startup network, it has a track record and it can now use its viewership to go out and command competitive carriage rates.
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Andy – Nebraska actually has over 50k students when you count their other two campuses within the University’s system – Kearney and Omaha. UNL is looking to increase its enrollment to over 30k by 2017 and is on pace to beat that. Enrollment numbers were not a big focus of Nebraska until joining the B1G. It is now a push to get the enrollment up.
http://nebraska.edu/media-resource-center/news-releases/1738-university-of-nebraska-enrollment-hits-18-year-high.html
You seem deeply confused about Nebraska’s buy-in to the BTN. You do realize that the BTN is not 100% owned by ESPN or ABC or some other affiliate. If the B1G was setup for TV like the SEC currently is then Nebraska would have come into the conference getting their full allotment of the TV revenues…however the BTN deal makes it a completely different deal. Again this is something UNIQUE to the B1G. No other conference has something like this up and running. The Pac is putting one in place and so is the SEC however it is not up and running like BTN.
It is Interesting that you are doubting that the BTN is worth $750mm when it has been an obvious wild success that has not been done before in CFB…notice the SEC is copying it…? It is picking up steam and will continue to be an advantage for the B1G for years to come.
Further, the BTN was created from the ground up, which took money from the conference members. Nebraska is not hurt by this, aside from not being able to give back some millions of dollars to the University for educational purposes that they did not earn before in the Big 12 either. Boosters can easily step up during this 5 year buy-in from 2012-2016 (UNL become 100% vested into the BTN for the calendar year 2017).
It will be interesting to see what each SEC school has to commit in money to get the SEC Network up and running because it has to come from somewhere.
Good luck to Missouri. I am going to take a guess now and say that the football program goes 0-10 over the next decade in trying to win their division let alone a full outright SEC conference championship. Enjoy that.
A couple of fun facts for you that MAY have played in to the B1G’s decision to accept Nebraska into the conference. Feel free to object with facts instead of random opinions that are not based in homer-esq opinion.
Nebraska enjoys a 65-36-3 record over Missouri in football.
Further comparisons of the football programs (which again drive the bus for expansion) and noting that these are similar academic institutions:
Bowl Games
UNL: 48 – Missouri: 29
UNL went to 25 straight bowl games from 71-96. Since 62 there has been three years, with no back to back years of UNL missing a bowl game.
All time victories
UNL: 856, ranked #3 – Missouri: 632, ranked #34
UNL is currently ranked #3 behind Michigan #1 (895) and Texas #2 (858).
All time winning percentage
UNL: 70.35%, ranked #8 – Missouri: 54.56%, #62.
National Titles
UNL: 5 – Missouri: 0
Nebraska also has 5 undefeated seasons and did not win the national title.
Conference Titles
UNL: 43 – Missouri: 15
Of the three division titles for Missouri (Big 12), all three were co-divisional titles.
Breakdown of conference Missouri was apart during titles:
* 3 were with the Western Interstate University Football Association (1893-1895)
* 11 were with the MVIAA
* 1 was a Big 8 title in 1969 which was a co-conference title.
So as far as quality outright conference titles Missouri has zero. Quite a rich history there…
Heisman Trophy Winners
UNL: 3 – Missouri: 0
All-Americans (Football – Athletic Award)
UNL: 53 – Missouri: 11
Academic All-Americans (All Sports)
UNL: 294, ranked #1 ahead of #2 Notre Dame – Missouri: Not sure, not highlighted anywhere that I saw.
Walter Camp Award Winners
UNL: 3 – Missouri: 1
Maxwell Award
AP Player of the Year Award
Dave O’Brien Award
Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award
Dave Rimington Trophy
Dick Butkus Award
Bronko Nagurski Trophy
Chuck Bednarik Award
UNL has 1 of each totaling 8 awards – Missouri: 0
Lombardi Award Winners
UNL: 5 – Missouri: 0
Outland Trophy Winners
UNL: 8 – Missouri: 0
Members in the College Football Hall of Fame
UNL: 21 – Missouri: 12
Number of players currently in the NFL per: http://espn.go.com/nfl/college
UNL: 40 – Missouri: 25
How many make an opening day roster who knows at this point.
Number of players sent to the NFL all-time
UNL: 305 – Missouri: 150
I got this from the website listed below. It seems to be out of date (maybe up to 2010?) as Suh isn’t listed but it gives us all an idea. http://www.databasefootball.com/players/playerbycollege.htm
Stadium Capacity
UNL: ~86k – Missouri: ~71k
UNL is set to go over 90k with an expansion that will be completed for the 2013 season.
The increase in stadium capacity will put Nebraska into at least the Top 9. With future expansions the expectation is to get to #6 for average attendance.
Football Average Attendance
UNL: 2011 – 85,267. Missouri: 2011 – 62,095.
Sellouts
UNL: 318 consecutive, on-going, started on 11/3/1962 – Missouri: Not sure. Missouri alumni that I know say that it is usually a couple of games per year max.
Fan Base
UNL: Known to travel really well to away games, sells out all home games, and travels very well to bowl games. Missouri: Sells out home stadium a couple times per year with over 14k less capacity, does not travel well, has been relegated to lower bowl (Kansas went to Orange one year over them) due to poor bowl attendance from fans.
Also one of the main reasons that UNL was removed from the AAU was due to the University of Nebraska’s Medical Center not counting as a part of the UNL system because there is a separate chancellor who is over the UNMC whereas the AAU needed UNMC to report directly to the UNL Chancellor. How incredibly stupid is that?
If you go back and look at the timing of the AAU removal (which was headed up by the U. of TX) it was after UNL broke away from the Big 12. It was retribution. Iowa State University is still a part of the AAU. Do you think that they are significantly better/different than UNL? They aren’t…it was payback for leaving the Big 12. If only Michigan and Wisconsin would not have been talked into voting to remove Nebraska they would still be in. Thanks guys & gals! Lol Oh well the impact is nada aside from the mild embarrassment during the removal.
One other recently changed factor that was a key reason for removing UNL from the AAU was a reduced emphasis (like none) being given to Agriculture research which UNL is very strong at.
There are a couple of proud Missouri grads here in my office, one of which is relatively good booster to the AD there. I asked them about your B1G rumor, etc. They had never heard that. They asked around and none of their contacts back in MO had heard this. Their guess was that it was damage control for the egg on their face for not getting in. They are happy with being in a stable conference however they do realize that they have no chance of winning on a consistent level except for in basketball.
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Andy, while Missouri has more households in MO they do not have the rabid fan base that Nebraska has. Nebraska is also a national brand. Missouri sells out it 14k smaller stadium a couple of times a year in football while Nebraska has sold out for over 300 games.
The MO marketplace is split up amongst KSU, KU & MO. There is also a B1G presence there as well. Why you dispute that, aside from being an unabashed homer is beyond me.
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OrderRestored, ChicagoMac, and Danimation, answer me this: if Missouri’s tv earnings potential is so laughably crappy, then why was the SEC so eager to add Missouri?
I think we all know the answer to that question: Misosuri’s tv earnings potential is not laughably crappy. It’s actually quite good. And the SEC is going to make a bundle by adding Missouri. The Big Ten would have as well. This isn’t a theoretical. You’ll see the hard numbers soon enough when the SEC’s TV contracts are negotiated, and then again when the SEC network comes to Missouri.
Basically the three of you are basing your argument on the idea that the SEC is full of idiots who don’t know what they’re doing and made a horrible mistake by adding Missouri and will likely lose money. Oh, and I’m an extreme homer and a fool for not agreeing with you. Anything else?
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The SEC added Missouri as a traveling partner with Texas A&M. Texas A&M was the market and football brand that the SEC wanted; but they didn’t want to stay at 13 (scheduling is a nightmare, see the MAC conference). The SEC’s options at that point were West Virginia and Missouri. Mike Slive came out and said he wanted to improve the academic standing of the SEC so Missouri got the nod. Don’t kid yourself (don’t beat yourself up over it either) Missouri didn’t get in for its marketablity; they got in because the SEC needed a 14th team. When/if the SEC Network is announced; and its profitablity is shared with the public, it will do little to show your arguement either way. To me, the Missouri fan base taking credit of any kind for the success of something like the SEC network would be like a C average kid bragging because the rest of his class got A’s. I’m not on either side of the arguement (SEC or B1G) but you have to call a spade a spade.
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OrderRestored, everything you said in that last post was based on nothing but your own opinion. Missouri does very well in the St. Louis market, a market that has 2.8M people (50% more people than the entire state of Nebraska). They do fairly well in Kansas City (who’s metro area population is rougly equal to the entire population of the state of Nebraska). Missouri’s TV numbers aren’t weak at all. They’re above average. All of your assertions to the contrary are completely bogus. But you’re right about one thing, we’ll know the truth very shortly when the actual numbers come out.
Example, let’s say Nebraska’s fan enthusiasm is triple Missouri’s per population (it isn’t. Not even close. Missouri averages around 63k fans per game, Nebraska averages around 83k. Certainly there’s a lot of enthusiasm for football in Nebraska but not 3 times as much, there are a lot of Mizzou fans in Missouri. Missouri is among the winningest programs of the last decade, with several top 25 finishes in the last few years, and attendance figures that are trending up, plus successful basketball). But even if it were three times, and even if they could monetize that at triple prices subscriber fees compared to Missouri’s subscriber fees, Missour would still make more money than Nebraska in the BTN because Missouri has more than 3 times as many households.
The truth is the SEC is very excited about adding Missouri. They expact to earn a lot of money there. You can say it isn’t so as much as you want but it is.
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Missour doesn’t do nearly as well in St. Louis and Kansas City as you say; those are both pro-sports towns. You always accuse everyone on here of their ‘opinions’ but where are your ‘facts’ that missouri controls the St. Louis and Kansas City markets? They don’t. Not even remotely; and once again you are assuming all 7 Million people in Missouri will be watching Missouri athletics. You are lucky if you get a third of that number. To say contrary implies that you are smarter than the Big Ten (and nearly the SEC as West Virginia was closer than you think to getting your spot in the SEC) expansion commitees. Don’t flatter yourself. I understand you are passionate about your alma mater, maybe if Missouri had more fans like you these issues would be different, but they don’t. They simply don’t.
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I haven’t seen any overarching study comparing ratings between teams. No doubt Nebraska’s are higher htan Missouri’s, but not tremendously so.
All I have are individual datapoints. Last season the Missouri/Arizona State game grabbed a 2.0 rating nationally, or 2.54M viewers. That’s higher than games on the same day like Wisconisn/Orgegon State, Texas/BYU, Arizona/Oklahoma State, Tennessee/Cincinatti, and Arkansas/New Mexico.
Last year’s Missouri/Oklahoma game had over 1.8M viewers nationally. Missouri/Oklahoma State drew 1.5M viewers. (those two games were on the cable network FX). The game against Texas did well but it was only a regional ABC broadcast.
So the numbers this year weren’t great but they were certainly above average. And that’s pretty good considering it was Missouri’s worst season since 2006.
Missouri’s bowl game in 2010 against Iowa broke records for attendance and tv ratings for the Insight Bowl.
The game against Oklahoma in 2010 had 6.27M viewers, and Missouri fans had the largest crowd ever for ESPN Gameday, a record that still stands. The Missouri/Kansas game in 2007 had 10.2M viewersw, which was the highest rated game in the country that year.
Feel free to look up all of Missouri’s games one by one on Google. They usually do fairly well, sometimes about average, sometimes really good. I’m not even sure how you can say that Missouri has terrible ratings. I guess it used to be true if you go back 8-10 years, but it certianly isn’t true now and hasn’t been for the last few years.
As for how they do in St. Louis, I don’t know where to find this information, but I’ve certainly heard that Missouri does very well in St. Louis. It’s definitley true in basketball. Here’s an article from just this year about how remarkably well Missouri does on tv in St. Louis for basketball. There are a ton of Missouri fans in St. Louis That’s where more than half of Missouri’s alums live.
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/dan-caesar/mizzou-soars-in-tv-ratings/article_f4e44c95-8e1c-5031-ac82-033d7397bc09.html
So basically, OrderRestored, you’re making things up, just like I said. Either that or you’re judging Missouri based on how bad they were in the 80s and 90s. If that’s the case you need to get with the times. Missouri has been to 8 bowls in 9 years. They’ve averaged 9.5 wins per season for the past 5 seasons. The times they are a changing. Missouri is back, and they are popular. And yes, people watch them on TV.
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Andy, I was barely alive in the 80’s. I am the times. Northwestern has been to 6 bowls in the last 9 years. That used to mean something when there were only 25 bowls or so; but now there are nearly 40. If you don’t make a bowl, you didn’t have a winning record….that’s not much to crow about. As for their 9.5 wins, hows that wins vs time curve been looking lately? Trending down a little? Listen. I could care less about Missouri, Nebraska, SEC, B1G; but the way you manipulate your delusions on here is sickening. If you have an unsupported statement, we should take it as fact; but if we make a statement, its unproven opinion. That’s ok; you are proving every post that the B1G was better off chosing Nebraska.
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“Missouri’s bowl game in 2010 against Iowa broke records for attendance and tv ratings for the Insight Bowl.”
There were many more Iowa fans in the stands than Missouri fans. Iowa-Oklahoma re-broke the record last year.
The 2010 game was the first one not on the NFL Network, so you can’t really compare the ratings to prior seasons.
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Greg, how would you even be able to tell? Both schools’ fans wear black and gold. From what I understand Missouri sent a ton of fans to the Insight Bowl. They also quickly sold out the Cotton Bowl a couple years before that. As for ratings, whether it was the first year on another network or not, TV ratings for that game were very solid. Good job ignoring all the rest of the evidence I provided. Your nitpick doesn’t change the fact that Missouri obviously gets good ratings.
Looking more closely at the St. Louis Post Dispatch article, I got some actual numbers for you.
Missouri basketball averages a 5.1 rating in St. Louis. Missouri football averaged 8.7 from 2006-2001. It was at 9.6 but 2011 was a down year. The St. Louis Blues’ highest rated game of 2011 was a 5.6. Missouri football’s highest rated game in St. Louis got a 26. Their highest rated basketball game got a 9.1.
So there you go. There are some numbers. I’m no media expert but those look decent. Maybe not spectacular, but not “laughably weak” as some of you are saying.
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Should read “Missouri football averaged 8.7 from 2006-2011”, not “2001”. I make too many typos and there’s no edit option here.
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Andy – did you report my post from 1:31pm? lol…
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OrderRestored:
The trend:
7-8-12-10-8-10-8-?
Looks like a steady trend to me. Missouri had some tough losses this year. A couple of losses b/c of missed FGs and another one because of a fumble in a rain storm. But yeah, last year was a down year. Only 8 wins. The year before that was a 10 win season and a top 25 finish (and a last minute bowl loss b/c of an interception that would have pushed it to 11 wins), so I’m not sure how you can spin that as bad, but I’m sure you’ll try.
Recruiting has been better than ever (currently ranked #14 nationally on rivals.com). $200M in stadium/facilities upgrades are on the way. The future looks bright. The only place Missouri is trending down is in your imaginiation.
I have provided a mountain of evidence, actual numbers, that prove my poin that Missouri was a perfectly viable candidate. The SEC agrees with me. According to my sources, the Big Ten strongly considered Missouri as well. You’re just some kid in his early 20s who is of the opinion that “Mizzou sucks” just because. OK. Thanks for your input. Keep waiting for “order to be restored”. Maybe some day Missouri will be a doormat again and Nebraska will go undefeated. But don’t hold your breath.
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Oh Andy, wrong again. I’m not even a Nebraska fan so i could care less if they go undefeated or not. I graduated from Notre Dame. I’m only giving you the national perspective of your Tigers, a break from you miopic point of view.
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Danimation, I don’t know how to report a post or what that even means.
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Andy, I am awaiting your point by point response to my post at 1:28pm. TIA
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Ah, I see. The format of this boar sucks. It’s very difficult to follow a long conversation between several people and reply to them individually.
Yes, Nebraska averages a little under 20k more fans per game in football. I never disputed that. In fact, I’m pretty sure I mentioned it myself more than once. And I readily admit that on the football issue alone, Nebraska is better than Missouri. Missouri makes up for it in other areas. What I’ve said over and over again is that Missouri is “good enough” in football, so it’s not a negative. And then they have other positives that Nebraska lacks.
Over the years I’ve seen reports on other school’s popularity in the state of Missouri. Missouri’s popularity in St. Louis is approximately 5 times higher than Illinois, and no other school comes close.
In KC there are 3 major schools: Missouri, KSU, and Kansas. Kansas is the most popular in basketball (obviously), and Missouri is the most popular of the three in football. But if we’re going to bring basketball into this, then of course Missouri has a massive advantage over Nebraska.
So as I’ve said repeatedly, Missouri’s hold on St. Louis is quite strong, and it’s decently good in Kansas City.
So no, I haven’t disputed or avoided these issues at all. Nice try though.
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Andy, we are on the same page then. I agree that Missouri was a good enough University for the SEC to add. However, I disagree that they where in a cat-bird position to dictate terms all by their lonesome.
The reality is that they where a good add on/travel partner to Texas A&M who was the SEC’s target. The Texas marketplace is a big deal for the SEC.
I would still be fascinated to hear a point-by-point discussion from you on my post from 1:28pm though.
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Dainimation, I did a “find” on the page for 1:28 pm and didn’t find any posts by you, so I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Yes, the SEC would need to take two schools, so Missouri couldn’t join alone, this is true.
I never said Missouri could “dictate terms”. I said that for whatever reason they weren’t happy with the proposal sent by the Big Ten, and in the end they went elsewhere. Now what happened specifically between those two points I don’t really know. I’ve heard a stories, I’m somewhat skeptical of all of them. But the consistent element is that Missouri got a proposal from the Big Ten and weren’t happy with it but the Big Ten refused to negotiate and Nebraska took those terms in their deal.
Nebraska and Missouri are both perfectly vialbe additions to the Big Ten. Nebraska is clearly stronger in football. Missouri is stronger in other areas (market size, academics, basketball).
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Andy, I will repost below the response that you say you cannot find below this comment. One would think that those facts show that Nebraska has a significantly better football program than Missouri.
I completely disagree with you that Missouri is better than Nebraska in academics. They are very similar Universities in quality right now.
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Repost for you Andy.
“Andy – Nebraska actually has over 50k students when you count their other two campuses within the University’s system – Kearney and Omaha. UNL is looking to increase its enrollment to over 30k by 2017 and is on pace to beat that. Enrollment numbers were not a big focus of Nebraska until joining the B1G. It is now a push to get the enrollment up.
http://nebraska.edu/media-resource-center/news-releases/1738-university-of-nebraska-enrollment-hits-18-year-high.html
You seem deeply confused about Nebraska’s buy-in to the BTN. You do realize that the BTN is not 100% owned by ESPN or ABC or some other affiliate. If the B1G was setup for TV like the SEC currently is then Nebraska would have come into the conference getting their full allotment of the TV revenues…however the BTN deal makes it a completely different deal. Again this is something UNIQUE to the B1G. No other conference has something like this up and running. The Pac is putting one in place and so is the SEC however it is not up and running like BTN.
It is Interesting that you are doubting that the BTN is worth $750mm when it has been an obvious wild success that has not been done before in CFB…notice the SEC is copying it…? It is picking up steam and will continue to be an advantage for the B1G for years to come.
Further, the BTN was created from the ground up, which took money from the conference members. Nebraska is not hurt by this, aside from not being able to give back some millions of dollars to the University for educational purposes that they did not earn before in the Big 12 either. Boosters can easily step up during this 5 year buy-in from 2012-2016 (UNL become 100% vested into the BTN for the calendar year 2017).
It will be interesting to see what each SEC school has to commit in money to get the SEC Network up and running because it has to come from somewhere.
Good luck to Missouri. I am going to take a guess now and say that the football program goes 0-10 over the next decade in trying to win their division let alone a full outright SEC conference championship. Enjoy that.
A couple of fun facts for you that MAY have played in to the B1G’s decision to accept Nebraska into the conference. Feel free to object with facts instead of random opinions that are not based in homer-esq opinion.
Nebraska enjoys a 65-36-3 record over Missouri in football.
Further comparisons of the football programs (which again drive the bus for expansion) and noting that these are similar academic institutions:
Bowl Games
UNL: 48 – Missouri: 29
UNL went to 25 straight bowl games from 71-96. Since 62 there has been three years, with no back to back years of UNL missing a bowl game.
All time victories
UNL: 856, ranked #3 – Missouri: 632, ranked #34
UNL is currently ranked #3 behind Michigan #1 (895) and Texas #2 (858).
All time winning percentage
UNL: 70.35%, ranked #8 – Missouri: 54.56%, #62.
National Titles
UNL: 5 – Missouri: 0
Nebraska also has 5 undefeated seasons and did not win the national title.
Conference Titles
UNL: 43 – Missouri: 15
Of the three division titles for Missouri (Big 12), all three were co-divisional titles.
Breakdown of conference Missouri was apart during titles:
* 3 were with the Western Interstate University Football Association (1893-1895)
* 11 were with the MVIAA
* 1 was a Big 8 title in 1969 which was a co-conference title.
So as far as quality outright conference titles Missouri has zero. Quite a rich history there…
Heisman Trophy Winners
UNL: 3 – Missouri: 0
All-Americans (Football – Athletic Award)
UNL: 53 – Missouri: 11
Academic All-Americans (All Sports)
UNL: 294, ranked #1 ahead of #2 Notre Dame – Missouri: Not sure, not highlighted anywhere that I saw.
Walter Camp Award Winners
UNL: 3 – Missouri: 1
Maxwell Award
AP Player of the Year Award
Dave O’Brien Award
Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award
Dave Rimington Trophy
Dick Butkus Award
Bronko Nagurski Trophy
Chuck Bednarik Award
UNL has 1 of each totaling 8 awards – Missouri: 0
Lombardi Award Winners
UNL: 5 – Missouri: 0
Outland Trophy Winners
UNL: 8 – Missouri: 0
Members in the Pro Football Hall of Fame
UNL: 3 – Missouri: 2
Members in the College Football Hall of Fame
UNL: 21 – Missouri: 12
Number of players currently in the NFL per: http://espn.go.com/nfl/college
UNL: 40 – Missouri: 25
How many make an opening day roster who knows at this point.
Number of players sent to the NFL all-time
UNL: 305 – Missouri: 150
I got this from the website listed below. It seems to be out of date (maybe up to 2010?) as Suh isn’t listed but it gives us all an idea. http://www.databasefootball.com/players/playerbycollege.htm
Stadium Capacity
UNL: ~86k – Missouri: ~71k
UNL is set to go over 90k with an expansion that will be completed for the 2013 season.
The increase in stadium capacity will put Nebraska into at least the Top 9. With future expansions the expectation is to get to #6 for average attendance.
Football Average Attendance
UNL: 2011 – 85,267. Missouri: 2011 – 62,095.
Sellouts
UNL: 318 consecutive, on-going, started on 11/3/1962 – Missouri: Not sure. Missouri alumni that I know say that it is usually a couple of games per year max.
Fan Base
UNL: Known to travel really well to away games, sells out all home games, and travels very well to bowl games. Missouri: Sells out home stadium a couple times per year with over 14k less capacity, does not travel well, has been relegated to lower bowl (Kansas went to Orange one year over them) due to poor bowl attendance from fans.
Also one of the main reasons that UNL was removed from the AAU was due to the University of Nebraska’s Medical Center not counting as a part of the UNL system because there is a separate chancellor who is over the University of Nebraska Medical Center whereas the AAU needed UNMC to report directly to the UNL Chancellor. How incredibly stupid is that?
If you go back and look at the timing of the AAU removal (which was headed up by the U. of TX) it was after UNL broke away from the Big 12. It was retribution. Iowa State University is still a part of the AAU. Do you think that they are significantly better/different than UNL? They aren’t…it was payback for leaving the Big 12. If only Michigan and Wisconsin would not have been talked into voting to remove Nebraska they would still be in. Thanks guys & gals! Lol Oh well the impact is nada aside from the mild embarrassment during the removal.
One other recently changed factor that was a key reason for removing UNL from the AAU was a reduced emphasis (like none) being given to Agriculture research which UNL is very strong at.
There are a couple of proud Missouri grads here in my office, one of which is relatively good booster to the AD there. I asked them about your B1G rumor, etc. They had never heard that. They asked around and none of their contacts back in MO had heard this. Their guess was that it was damage control for the egg on their face for not getting in. They are happy with being in a stable conference however they do realize that they have no chance of winning on a consistent level except for in basketball.”
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Damimation, OK, I found your 1:28 post. For some reason it didn’t appear on my screen until now. It was probably pending moderator approval because of the links or something. You want point by point, here it is.
You say Nebraska has 50k students total and a goal of 30k by 2017 in Lincoln.
Missouri already had 60k students total and 34k in Columbia and growing. It has hit consecutive record highs year after year for most of the last decade and is the fastest growing AAU university in the nation.
I’m not deeply confused by the concept of a buy in. I just think the price is probably too high, and I also think Nebraska should get some automatic credit just for joining and adding value to the league.
Yeah, I don’t know what will happen as far as revenue withheld from the SEC network to build it up. I guess we’ll see.
You predict Missour won’t win in football? Good for you. Not surprising. You don’t like Missouri and you’re making a random guess, so the odds are pretty much 100% that you’re going to predict Missouri will lose a lot of games.
Yes, Nebraska has a better history at football, is this news?
Missouri had an awful stretch from 1984-1996. They averaged just 3 wins per season during that stretch. There were major issues at Missouri during that period. If you bring that stretch up to the average for the rest of Missouri’s history and you’d have a different story. Missouri would have around 665 wins (good for #24 overall), around 35 bowl games, and a .580 win %. Consider that in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 00s, and now 10s Missouri football was regularly quite good. But the 80s and 90s were so bad it tanked Missouri’s all time average, big time. It also tanked Missouri’s all time record vs Nebraska. Nebraska won every game between the two schools from 1979 through 2002. Take out those games and the series record is basically even at 40-36-3.
So yes, without that awful stretch, Missouri football isn’t all that far behind Nebraska. But you can’t take that stretch out. It is what it is. It tanks our all time record. And because of that, our record will look bad. It’s like if you had a grade card with 3 As, 2 Bs, and an F, your GPA would be a 3.0, or a straight B average. The one F cancels out the 3 As. That’s basically what happened to Missouri’s all time record. Do they deserve it? Of course they deserve it. They were terrible back then. It was hard to watch. But the pure totals don’t tell the whole story.
Missouri had tons of success in the past. In the 60s and 70s Missouri regularly beat teams ranked in the top 10, often on the road. Teams like Michigan, USC, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Colorado, Alabama, Florida, Auburn. There’s a long list of wins from that era vs top teams by the tigers. In one season alone Missouri won on the road against top 5 ranked teams in Notre Dame, USC, and Nebraska. Missouri even has an undefeated season where they did finish #1 in one of the lesser polls, so you could call that a national title, but most don’t.
What you have with Missouri is a unique case where there’s basically a top 25 level program historically that had a stretch where they went from being on par with, say, a Wisconsin or at least a Michigan State in football, to more on par with a Vanderbilt or an Iowa State. It was a massively damaging turn of events for Missouri, and it took a long time to dig out of. But they’ve done it. For the better part of a decade they’ve had tons of success. They’ve gone 4-4 vs Nebraska during that period (just as they went nearly .500 vs Nebraska before that period).
And if you look at Missouri’s numbers right now, they’re really not bad. 25 players in teh NFL isn’t bad at all.
Looking down your list, you say Nebraska’s stadium capacity will increase to 90k soon. Well, Missouri’s got $200M in expansion and renovation on the way, it’ll be up to 83.5k in 3 years or so. As for average attendance, in the past we typically sold out games vs teams like Nebraska, Oklahoma, any team that’s ranked kind of high, or any interesting non-conference opponent like Ohio State or Notre Dame. We typically didn’t sell out for games against the likes of Iowa State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State or Texas Tech. For one thing those teams don’t travel all that well, and for another they’re not good draws. But those are just excuses really. Nebraska does a great job of selling tickets. Missouri is still recovering from their down period. During the 40s through 70s Missouri frequently sold out their stadium. We’re getting there again. They expect season tickets to nearly sell out this year so Missouri’s average attendance should be up to around 70k after this season.
The Missouri not traveling to bowl games thing is a myth. Truly it is. Missouri doesn’t travel well to crappy bowl games, this is true. But it’s also true of Nebraska. When they’ve been invited to crappy bowls their attendance hasn’t been stellar. So yeah, Missouri has struggled to fill bowls with unfavorable opponents like Navy and Northwestern. But give them a decen bowl game and they sell the thing out. When they played Iowa and Arkansas, Missouri’s bowl attendance was as strong as anyone. Maybe hordes of Nebraska fans would flock to see the huskers play Navy right after Christmas, but I doubt it. As for the Orange Bowl thing, that was just ridiculous. It was really a crime. Kansas somehow bought that bowl. They certainly don’t travel well. The idea that kansas fans travel better for football is beyond absurd. They definitely didn’t travel well to that Orange Bowl. Kansas lost millions in unused guaranteed tickets. Meanwhile Missouri sent well over 30k people to the Cotton Bowl that same year. But hey, Kansas got their BCS bowl (even though they were ranked lower and lost head to head), so they’ll always have that to brag about.
Moving on, so you’re saying UNL should get to count a medical school from a seperate university in a seperate city with a seperate chancellor? How incredibly stupid is that?
The University of Missouri-Columbia has it all in one place under one chancellor. Medical school, law school, business school, vetirinary school, research nuclear reactor, engineering school, etc etc. Because of that there’s more research dollars, more students, more faculty, more awards etc counting toward the University of Missouri. Seems fair to me.
Beyond that, Missouri’s ACT scores are higher. Their faculty gets paid more. Their USNews ranking is higher. Better student-to-faculty ratio. More spending per student. More applicants. Higher growth rate. Endowements are about even. Really not sure how you’re going to spin Nebraska being a better school. Sorry.
Keep telling yourself that there was no impact of leaving the AAU. Wow, and you call me someone with delusional homerism. Losing AAU is a big deal and you know it.
Yeah, the world is out to get Nebraska, everybody hates Nebraska. They voted them out because of sport. Riiight. I thought I was supposed to be the one with unbelievable conspiracy theories?
As for your Missouri friends, I’m not surprised that they haven’t heard about this. It’s not widespread. It’s something that’s talked about among a few insiders who know some curators, and spreads to curious people like me who are interested in this sort of thing. It’s a hot topic on premium boards behind paywalls and among some on the faculty. It’s not common knowledge among all Missouri fans.
So there you go, I went through your post and responded point by point.
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It is the University of Nebraska Medical Center…in Omaha, NE however it is one in the same. Who should it belong to…Iowa? If they changed the structure to have the UNMC report directly to the UNL Chancellor, UNL would likely still be in the AAU…seems silly to me. They should have built it in Lincoln…oh well.
In looking at ratings Missouri and Nebraska are ranked very close together so I completely disagree that Missouri is significantly better at this point. They are very comparable. This website lists Missouri at #39 and UNL at #46…again pretty comparable to me.
Research dollars for the schools FY11:
UNL: 108mm – Missouri: $116mm
Academically UNL has raised $1.2 billion so far with two years left on their fund raising efforts. campaignfornebraska.org/
UNL is also in the process of building an innovation campus that will help bolster research dollars further. This in conjunction with the CIC should drastically increase UNL’s research funding levels. http://innovate.unl.edu/ Penn State has drastically increased their research dollars since joining the B1G and of course the CIC to over $800mm during FY11. That is pretty darn impressive to me. PSU was not an academic powerhouse when it join the B1G however now it absolutely is. UNL will move up similarly however it will take a lot of time. Missouri will mos def be a big fish academically in the small pond of the SEC. You are going to pull up the SEC’s profile however they cannot help you like B1G membership would have.
It will be interesting to see where everything is at once UNL is 100% bought into the BTN and see where Missouri is at. In case you missed it check out this article. May put things in perspective for you a bit. http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2012/06/11655/b1ggie-pac
Here is an article on Michigan and Wisconsin going against UNL on the AAU vote. UNL fell three votes short of remaining a member. http://journalstar.com/news/local/education/article_19188dda-afe7-57c8-aa2c-c1939ec5acb4.html
Nebraska just built a $40mm basketball practice facility http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=205315979 , is building a $180mm basketball arena http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=205380933 , and will be complete with their $75mm (I believe it is $75…might be $50+) football stadium expansion http://huskersgameday.com/2011/04/13/east-stadium-expansion-renderings/.
The stadium expansion is coming on the heels of an expansion a couple of years ago. Missouri’s stadium and athletic facilities are way behind Nebraska’s right now and will fall behind in Basketball once the arena is complete for the 2013 season.
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Andy, the University of Colorado’s medical campus is in Aurora, CO which is on the eastern plains whereas the main campus is in Boulder which is over 40 miles away. The reporting structure there is likely back to the Boulder campus (main campus) chancellor. Is that illegitimate like UNL’s?
http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/medicalschool/Pages/somWelcome.aspx
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Alabama-Tuscaloosa doesn’t get to count the Alabama Medical Center in UA-Birmingham. California-Berkeley doesn’t get to count the medical center at UC-San Francisco. The University of Maryland doesn’t get to count their medical school at UM-Baltimore. There is nothing unique about Nebraska not being able to count their medical center at UL-Omaha. The rules are the same for everyone. You may not like them but that’s the way it works.
Nebraska is in no position to get massive amounts of money from the CIC. The CIC doesn’t just give money away. It facilitates collaboration between Big Ten institutions. It means you don’t have to do as much legwork to find partners to get research going and pool resources. Nebraska will need to invest a ton of money up front to catch up to other Big Ten institutions enough to get significant research money. Right now they trail even the bottom dwellers of the Big Ten by a significant margin.
http://journalstar.com/news/local/education/nu-bristles-at-platte-institute-study/article_ec615398-36ee-5237-b9cf-0de3437924be.html
I’m not saying it can’t be done eventually but it will be a while.
The SEC recently set up the SEC Academic Consortium. The goal, eventually, is for it to be the CIC of the South. This will take some time to set up but it’s good that they’re doing it. A good chunk of the SEC won’t have as much to offer unless/until they make major upgrades, but schools like Vanderbilt, Florida, Texas A&M, Georgia, Alabama and Missouri should be able to work well together. Kentucky has a somewhat impressive research budget as well. I’m not saying it will bring in as much as the CIC, but it will likely be worth something.
Athletics facilities are an arms race and Missouri has been steadily catching up over the last 10 years. Missouri doesn’t need a new basketball stadium. We just built a new $90M stadium 8 years ago and it’s one of the nicest in the country. After the $200M improvements to football facilities and stadium over the next 3 years, Missouri’s football facilities will be of similar quality to Nebraska’s. With SEC tv money plus record level donations and ticket sales, Missouri should be in good shape in that department for some time to come.
But the point was never that Missouri was better than Nebraska. Just that overall there wasn’t enough of a difference, weighing all factors, to make Nebraska the obviously correct choice. Both schools have their strengths and weaknesses. Missouri’s strengths were strong enough that they were a serious candidate for the Big Ten, and were taken happily by the SEC.
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Also, your elevenwarriors article is kind of dumb. It’s over-the-top biased and unapologetically so, and can only be taken as entertainment. He dismisses the creation of an SEC network because the Mountain West network failed? Huh? And he brags about the Big Ten’s population while ridiculing the SEC’s? He does realize the SEC population footprint is now bigger than the Big Ten’s, doesn’t he? He also ridicules the new SEC/Big 12 bowl matchup. Why? Because it’s “copying” the Rose bowl. OK, sure, but who here doesn’t think it will be a popular bowl game? And the line about there being a billion “middle class kids” in China waiting to go to Pac 12 schools? Yeah, that’s kind of dumb.
Then he goes on to claim that the Big Ten has permanently won and the SEC will fail forever because idontknowihatethemorsomething. Yeah, really enlightening, thanks for the link.
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Sorry to have hurt your feelings with that article Andy. What is interesting is that the AAU has allowed the University of Colorado to count their medical center in Aurora, CO. Aurora is an eastern and southern suburb of Denver. The main campus is in Boulder which is not connected to Denver. Like I said before UNL should have just built the medical campus in Lincoln. They evidently where not thinking about appeasing the AAU when they built it. Now that a $350mm expansion is in the works they can’t really ditch it and rebuild in Lincoln. Oh well…
Again we will see how this all plays out. I look forward to watching the Tigers in the SEC this fall.
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By the way Andy, those double digit win seasons (all 3 of them) that you are proud of in the past few years came while playing in the Big 12 north where Nebraska was going through its worst stretch since the 1960’s. You think its coincidence that when they had to play everyone in the Big 12 their win total took a dip? What do you expect in the SEC? It’s definitely not the Big 12 north. You’ll be the new Kentucky; but that will all play itself out soon enough. That apparel isn’t just for football either (note Kansas is ranked 22nd).
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Danimation, the University of Missouri doesn’t get to count it’s Medical school and Medical Center at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Certainly that’s a major drain on the UM System budget that could otherwise be going to the Mizzou campus in Columbia. But that’s the way the rules work. Luckily Missouri also has another Medical school in Columbia where they do a lot of research, as well as a major cancer center. The AAU rates individual schools, not statewide systems. My point is several schools have the exact same complaint as Nebraska. Alabama would likely be AAU if they could combine their numbers with their medical school in Birmingham, for instance. It is what it is. UNL is not an AAU school. They likely won’t be again for many years, if ever.
OrderRestored, it’s funny that you would make fun of Missouri being in the Big 12 North division, considering Nebraska was in the EXACT SAME DIVISION. Missouri has 48 wins over the last 5 years. 24 of those wins are against teams that went to bowl games. That’s 50% of Missouri’s wins. Missouri also went 3-2 in bowl games and beat every single member of the Big 12 at least once during that period. Nebraska won 43 games over that same period so it’s not like Missouri was beating some terrible team. The times Misouri beat Nebraska recently, Nebraska went 10-3, 8-4, 5-7, and 9-4. Not great, but not “wort ever” territory either.
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This article that was posted earlier is pretty interesting. This section is particullary worrying for the Missouri faithful.
“Deaton said the state’s financial pressures have increased the importance of private fundraising for the university. Ideally, he said, donations would help to “create a margin of excellence” for the university provide scholarships and keep up with other top-ranked research institutions around the nation, he said.
But “we’re worried, clearly, that if the funding picture doesn’t change at the state and national level, that it’s going to take all that private fundraising effort just to sort of stay abreast of the very significant needs educationally that are there,” Deaton said”
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7321848/missouri-tigers-budget-cuts-played-role-switch-southeastern-conference
I did not realize that Missouri is projected to be #11 out of the 14 SEC athletic departments…yikes. Add in that $12.4mm exit fee that they will pay out and this year going to be a bad year for the AD there.
Another interesting point is the average football game attendance differences between UNL and Missouri.
Football Average Attendance
UNL: 2011 – 85,267. Missouri: 2011 – 62,095.
At 23k average difference if you do the math on what that means for income it adds up quick. Let’s say the average for home game tickets to UNL is $55 (it is likely more bc there is significant donation requirements involved with purchasing season tickets that is not included in the ticket price) and say there are seven home games per year for UNL and Missouri. At $55 a ticket and 23k per game difference over 7 games that would total over $8.8mm per year IN JUST TICKET SALES. This is something that Missouri has a long way to go in to try to catch up to UNL’s AD…on top of the merchandise sales etc. Missouri will see a bump this year due to increased interest in the new conference however that could wear off quickly and go back to the norm of 60-65k average attendance if they are not able to win at a high level (which I believe is highly likely). Compare that with UNL’s expansion to over 91k that will be ready after this season for the 2013 season (all tickets are sold out already). That will put Missouri another 6k+ behind UNL in ticket sales every year…that could end up being +/-$100mm in revenues over the next decade.
Another thing to think about is that UNL’s expansion projects are all 100% funded by private donation (except for the arena which is bonds paid for by tax payers as it will be split use for concerts etc). I am uncertain of Missouri’s expansion funding although I would guess that it is leveraged and will be paid via future projections of revenues vs. being fully paid down right away or being an item that is not on the AD’s balance sheet. UNL can move forward immediately onto new AD projects if they want bc there is little to no debt associated with the projects that will wrap up in the next year whereas Missouri may be paying on that $200mm stadium expansion for a decade or so. Based on the AD’s financials things could turn ugly.
The past decade has been one of the worst runs in UNL’s football history…which is shown by two head coaches being fired during that time and the missing out on going to a bowl game one year (unthinkable and not acceptable by UNL’s standards). Missouri on the other hand has had a high water mark during the past decade and has had a tremendous run which culminated with their team from a couple of years ago with Chase Daniels et al. During this major down cycle for UNL the record of the series for the past decade was 6-4 in UNL’s favor…although there where a couple of blowouts that we would like to forget for sure. Nebraska also won the last two meetings in convincing fashion and is now a somewhat stable program.
Missouri’s rise in football is directly related to the reduction in scholarships which has spread talent out to a number of mediocre programs throughout the US along with TV deals providing student-athletes the opportunity to stay closer to home, or home, and still be on TV a couple of times a year vs. going to Oklahoma or Nebraska for example. Nebraska also being terrible has helped them out however that has changed.
Again I am sticking with my prediction for Missouri to go 0-10 for football division titles in the SEC starting this fall. That would be a bit of a down turn from their 3 co-division title wins in football during their 15 year run in the Big 12, at least one of which they lost head to head vs. UNL however where still given the co-trophy.
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@greg,
Nebraska expected to get about $14 million this year. From what is believed to be happening, Nebraska’s share will grow each year to meet the rest of the conference in 2017. So if you grow the $27.4 million for the 11 schools at say 4% through 2017, Nebraska’s share will be growing at something like 15%.
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After reading this, I’m blown away by the false premises used by Andy in so many of his arguments. One of these is that Mizzou has some huge market share in Missouri’s 2 major urban cores. Andy would be the first Missourian I’ve met that truly believes this. Most people seem to believe that KU and KSU have a huge share of the Kansas City and Western Missouri market and that the Illini actually have a good portion of the St. Louis and Eastern Missouri market. When you then consider professional sports in both markets, then Mizzou has a prevalent minority share of the sports market at best. If there are numbers that say otherwise, I’d be happy to see them – games against Iowa don’t count because Iowa also has a portion of the Missouri market. UNL brings a solely owned market in Omaha, Lincoln, and the entire state of Nebraska, who are avid UNL sports fans, to the B1G.
Nebraska brings a storied football team to the B1G, one that any college football fan in the nation is aware. Nebraska is on par with teams like Michigan, Texas, Notre Dame, Alabama, USC, Florida State, and, one other “recent” B1G expansion team, Penn State. Mizzou can hardly argue the same storied football history.
Mizzou is a good addition to any conference but is no way in the position, on its own, to determine what conference of which it is a part. Mizzou was not solely lucky to be in the SEC, but it was not based solely on Mizzou’s bargaining power either. Without Texas A&M, Mizzou would still be a Big XIIer. No one could honestly argue that Mizzou would be in the SEC by itself. Mizzou was added because the SEC wanted a portion of the Houston market with the addition of Texas A&M, which is shares, to a large extent, with Texas, and that an academically strong school and a portion of the Missouri market was a good partner for that expansion. One could hardly argue that the SEC would have taken Mizzou alone or a Mizzou/West Virginia combo.
Mizzou is a great school with great fans and an academic background, but it is not a big mover or shaker in conference realignment.
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Progress is incremental, my friend…
With respect to your last question, I suggest the answer is a resounding “Yes!”. However, I respectfully suggest that the more relevant question is “If the cartel is successful in creating a Plus One, what’s the incentive for the Big Four to invite anyone else in?”. If I’m a commish, and the pot is a predetermined size, I’m wanting to divide it among as few mouths as possible.
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But if they don’t let anyone else in, the ACC might very well turn away from the “big four” and side with the smaller conferences, in which case the four power conferences wouldn’t have enough votes for approval from the NCAA. The money from a potential playoff is such — with a substantial increase per member — that it might behoove the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac and SEC to assimilate the ACC into the four larger conferences, with a specific out for Notre Dame (non-members get the #4 spot if they are unbeaten and ranked in the top four) rather than risk having the ACC knock everything down.
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Yeah, they need the ACC for its 14 votes.
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And I should also add for its dominance of the Mid-Atlantic and the schools that it has in the Northeast.
You really don’t want to leave large swaths of the East Coast out of a potential playoff system because that could get politically thorny, and there’s no reason to have that occur when it can be avoided by bringing in the ACC and its voting power.
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The big four conferences (currently with 48 members) don’t need the ACC’s 14 votes if Division 1-A’s membership is reduced in number from the approximately 125 we’ll see soon (with Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA apparently next to make the jump) to 80 programs.
While we may not see that soon, there have certainly been rumblings about it. The most recent voting regarding stipends for scholarship athletes is symbolic of not only the haves and have nots in terms of funding, etc., but also shows there’s a divergence of opinion on how to go forward on this and on other matters.
I can see and understand the outreach the Big XII is apparently having with the ACC because of those 14 votes. But even with them plus BYU and Notre Dame, those five conferences plus the two major independents have 64 in place. That puts them at a slight majority in a 125 Division 1-A organization, but not by much. Promote another five more programs from the FCS to FBS like Appalachian State, Delaware, etc., and then those 64 programs are in the minority again.
We’ll see what happens, but what is promising to be really contentious is how the new playoff money is going to be split up between the conferences. This’ll be another battle between the haves and have nots that will illustrate where all the stakeholders in collegiate sports stands.
There’s two ways to grow the amount of money individual college programs take in from college football–grow the revenue side and/or reduce the number of programs getting a share of the money being paid.
According to the article attached below, the Bowl Championship Series gave 82.3% ($142M) to the six BCS conferences–ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac 12, SEC. The non-BCS conferences received $24.7M and the other college football conferences received a stipend from the pool of money.
http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2012-06-04/big-ten-jim-delany-playoffs-conference-payouts
The new playoff system will at least double and perhaps even treble the amount of money coming out of the playoffs (a combination of the playoff games plus the non-playoff bowls). If you’re in one of the conferences that are most likely to have a team in the playoffs, there has to be an analysis of why 17.7% of the post-season revenue is going to programs barely likely to be in a four-team playoff. Let’s face it–most of these conference leaders have also pretty much written off the Big East as a major player, so are the BE teams going to be sent into the have not column? Will that 82.3% now go to five conferences instead of six?
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Cutter
That money was going to 66 schools in 6 conferences +ND. The big 5 + ND now have 63 schools. Not that long ago, the number was 63, before the ACC raided the BE. Only Temple and Rutgers were members of the club in 2004 and not in the big 5 + ND now. TCU and Utah have been added.
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So… if your part of the cartel, would you rather invite the ACC to the party or bastardize your conferences by incorporating the former ACC into your conferences?
If your answer is the former, they’ll probably get ND; if it’s the latter, someone will need to grab BYU, and someone will likely pick up ND…
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I would think the latter would be preferred by ACC members, since they would almost certainly gain more revenue with its members incorporated into various other conferences than by remaining apart in a conference with comparatively little football appeal. The one exception might be UNC, as it (perhaps erroneously) views itself as an alpha dog, but in this scenario, if the other ACC teams voted to dissolve the conference and be assimilated into other leagues, there’s really little Chapel Hill could do.
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http://www.statesman.com/sports/collegefootball/big-12-to-share-the-wealth-of-revenues-2387207.html
Data on Big 12 distributions, TV contract ($20 million bonus in 1st 3 years $2.56 billion or more), timing of championship game (marketing people say 1st Monday after NFL playoffs start), Big 12 position on playoffs and on expansion (“When its right, we’ll know its right….and in the meantime there’s not a thing wrong with the 10 we have.”)
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So is Delany backtracking now and saying that the top 4 is the best setup for the playoff? I’ve got to admit, Delany has stumped me on this lastest. Throwing in Perlman’s comments, I’m starting to wonder if the B1G even knows how it wants the playoff to be setup, or if they even want a playoff.
http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/04/jim-delany-does-a-playoff-180-supports-four-best-teams/
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I’m not really sure it’s like that at all.
No one’s saying pure “top 4” except the SEC.
The others are looking for ways to find the “best 4” whether by selection committee or by another formula or whatever. I’m not really sure he even changed his position in anything other than terminology. He opposes polls/computers (and presumably the Big Ten presidents do as well) and would rather have a committee select the teams.
Then it becomes an issue of what the committee weighs, whether that includes sos or conference championships or whatever. I think it’d be a mistake to equate “top 4” to “best 4” though. There’s a reason he didn’t say “top”, he’s a lawyer…
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If I had to guess, the Big Ten’s true final position is going to be a committee that selects 4 teams to play.
The hoopla over 3 conference champs + 1 wild card, or 4 conference champs in top 6, or whatever is all misdirections to keep the issues muddied.
Delany knows exactly what he’s doing in my opinion. Most people have no real clue what the situation is going to turn into, and that makes it much more likely that it ends up closer to the Big Ten’s muddied position than the SEC’s “top 4” position.
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I absolutely despise the idea of a selection committee. The committee will foster constant claims of corruption and politicking and conspiracy, which is half the reason people hate the BCS.
3 Champs model at least lets 75% of the entrants prove they are worthy on the field. As a fan of a playoff, that’s what I want most – the champion to prove they are the champion by their play on the field.
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Agree. A selection committee is a terrible decision that will create ton of controversy.
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Just like for the NCAA Tournaments in basically every other sport?
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Every other sport qualification begins with conf champs and then adds at large. The number of at large selections depends on the size of bracket to fill.
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Or regional qualifier for schools that have teams in sports where a conference championship is not sponsored.
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ccrider55 – in the case of the basketball tournament, it seems the size of the bracket depends on the number of at-large teams.
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Those sports are only that way because the brackets expanded to accomodate that kind of system.
A lot of sports only had 8 team fields for a while, it wasn’t until they hit 16 and beyond that you got the concept of most conference champions being involved in some way.
Football is starting with just 4 so the concept of AQ wouldn’t apply (like the early iterations of other sports brackets).
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The Division 3 and Division 2 football tournaments both started with a handful of teams and a lot of conferences. Being unbeaten didn’t guarantee you a spot. This next year will be the 1st year FCS has included all the conference champs.
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They are only taking 4 teams. The level criticism the committee will get in football for leaving out a popular team will be much, much more than leaving out a bubble team in basketball and the complaints will be about the whole system, not just the one decision. Other sports don’t have the popularity for it to be a big deal. It works fine elsewhere, but won’t here.
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Jake:
Yes, BB will soon find it easier to name those not included.
Eric:
So we are discussing the nature of a popularity contest, not a championship?
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I have zero problem with just two teams in the championship now. The reason for going to four is largely “BCS fatigue.” They want to lessen the level of criticism against the system (it will never go away). If you set up a system where a team that most people think is the #2 team in the country (which also means they are likely ranked that way) and the committee says they are #5, people will get outraged and the complaints will be just as large. If you set is up with a more set formula (even if it’s only conference champs or 3 champs/1 wildcard), then the criticism at the system itself will be less. At least there, people won’t be blindsided at the end.
For better or worse, the polls do generally reflect the public attitude on the worthiness of teams and I’d rather have it that a committee which can be just as flawed.
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Controversy isn’t bad. Outrage is bad. The BCS created a ton of controversy and also a ton of interest in the sport. “Death to the BCS” and the rise of mid-major powers and the 2011 rematch created the outrage.
There hasn’t been a ton of “outrage” over the actual pairings of the top 2 teams. OkSt fans had a mild gripe last year…Texas and TTech were more outraged at the Big12’s selection system in 2008…the undefeated mid-majors didn’t create a huge outcry (because of their status as mid-majors).
This change is more about changing the whole system. I don’t think there will be a lot of outrage over team 4/5 debate. Especially if they end up with a committee that essentially chooses a 3/1 field. 2008 is generally considered the only year in recent history that has been an aberration for ANY championship system (outside of 8 teams).
Controversy yes. Outrage no.
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OkSt fans had a mild gripe last year…Texas and TTech were more outraged at the Big12′s selection system in 2008
If you think Okie St. fans weren’t outraged last year you are out of your mind. They were certainly more steamed than Texas in ’08.
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But don’t you have to select which 3? There is going to be some selection method.
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Yes, but at least the field of potential participants is limited to those who won their conference.
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The nice thing about this idea (although I’m not sold on it) is that it can include any and every criteria the “committee” wants. They can unofficially use the AP poll, the Coaches poll. the Sagarin, ESPN’s fan surveys, etc…anything they want.
In 2003, they can look at the AP poll and kick out 7-35 loser of the B12 champ game Oklahoma. Even if OU was better than USC in every other way, the public perception would have led them to a USC vs. LSU Sugar Bowl. That’s one “human” choice that would make sense. Last year, #5 Oregon over #4 Stanford is another obvious choice.
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Pretty basic and brilliant debate/negotiating tactic. Cede the opponent’s point while changing the meaning of what was said. Delany’s publicy ceding that the four best will be chosen. What he’s disagreeing about is how the four best will be selected. Is the four best the best four conference champs, the four highest in the polls, or the four best as selected by committee? Stay tuned.
Sounds like a Jedi mind trip waiting to happen. “You don’t really want the four highest ranked teams…”
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Exactly B1G Jeff! You saved me a post.
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Here is a writeup about the actual conference call that Delany, Perlman, & Mark Silverman had after the B1G meetings: http://cfn.scout.com/2/1191938.html
From the way people are reporting the conference call, it sounded like they were unprepared and/or unsure at the direction they want to go. I personally doubt that it is the case though. I think it is as simple as the B1G school presidents want to keep this as close to “status quo” as possible. Perlman has been hinting at that for some time now. I personally think that before the B1G meeting with the presidents, Delany truely wanted to try and push some variation of a conferance champs playoff. But now it seems that he has been given different marking orders by the presidents.
I personally wouldn’t mind a true plus 1 format. I like the idea of the major bowls having meaning and being played on Jan 1. It sets major college football apart from the other sports. But I don’t see the media/public accepting it, nor do I see the lesser conferences likeing it since they are more likely to be left out of the major bowls under the old bowl invite system. It’ll be interesting to see how the playoff meetings go later this month.
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I like the plus 1 format as well but I agree that it’s a difficult sell to the public/media at this point. We’ve crossed the Rubicon so to speak.
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I like the Plus 1 with two caveats.
1. The championship contestants MUST win their bowl games.
2. No re-ranking after the bowls. The highest ranked winners of bowl games should meet in the championship.
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I agree with (1). Only winners should advance.
I disagree with (2). Yes, a team that beats a lower-ranked opponent should should keep its (pre-game) rank. But, in my opinion, a team that beats a higher-ranked opponent should have its rank adjusted upward to the midpoint of the two teams pre-game ranks. Thus if a #6 Ohio State beats a #1 USC in the Rose Bowl, the OSU rank should be adjusted to 3.5.
ROSE: OSU(6) beats USC(1) —–> OSU=3.5
SUGAR: LSU(2) beats Texas(8) –> LSU=2
ORANGE: FSU(4) beats ND(9) —-> FSU=4
FIESTA: Bama(5) beats Boise(3) > Bama=4
NCG: OSU vs LSU
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The author is a clown. The status quo or a Plus 1 makes perfect sense for the BIG and for college football. Stick to your guns BIG 10 presidents.
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That’s not an objective reporting of the conference call, that’s a hackjob.
In any case, the quotes from the conference call make it pretty clear that they realize that the world has changed and that a 4 team playoff is the consensus. Yes, they muddied the water by mentioning a return to the past, but everyone already knows that’s pretty much off the table.
The most important part of this is the “best 4” idea and how to select the best 4. The critical part out of Delany was the part attacking the polls as unobjective.
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems obvious that the Big Ten’s goal here is to drive consensus towards a selection committee that would have criteria to look at like conference championships, strength of schedule, margin of victory, etc.
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I think he is basically saying the BCS rankings are garbage. We need to come up with something better.
A plus 1 is the existing BCS garbage rankings with even more of the biases and an extra game that in many years, could have been played under the existing system. Looking at past results, the only good argument for a +1 over the current system is that it enhances the bowls. To me, enhancing the bowls should not be the primary goal of this. But if you like things the way they used to be, a plus 1 has merit.
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I think any ranking or selection system forced to pick an undisputed top two over the last 14 years would have come off looking pretty bad. If the next system only has to narrow it to four, it should be less controversial, even if it isn’t any better at making picks. Sure, a fifth-ranked team will still argue, but they’ll have a weaker case than a third-ranked team. My suggestion is to just get rid of the computers, average the two human polls, and then come up with some tie-breakers.
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Here is the actual CC link. Listen and decide for yourself.
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I think a Plus One Solution might actually be the one preferred by the Big Ten and Pac 12 for a couple of reasons.
First off, it means that the SEC and Big XII conference champions will play one another in their bowl each year. As the two most successful conferences in the BCS era in terms of championships and NC game appearances, that means one of the two will get knocked out of the competition for a berth in the national championship game. That means the Rose Bowl winner might well have a better shot for the NC game.
The second reason this works for the two conferences is that it makes the Rose Bowl truly a matchup between the Big Ten and Pac 12 conference champions each year. No more taking former non-AQ teams like Texas Christian or even teams from other major conferences (Texas, Nebraska when it was with Big XII). It’s strictly B10 and P12 from here on out, which means all the publicity (which is worldwide) of the tournament/parade and the game plus all the revenue (since the two conferences actually have a stake in the bowl that pays additional monies) goes into their pockets.
Obviously, there will be times where it might not work out for the two conferences. Last season, the Champions Bowl would have had the LSU playing Oklahoma State with the Rose Bowl having Oregon and Wisconsin. A third bowl (possibly the Orange) would have coupled Alabama with Stanford.
Now while the SEC would have an opportunity after this was all over to have the selection committee say LSU and Alabama would meet in the NC game, it also means that both SEC teams had a possibility of being eliminated as well. We probably would have seen a Big XII v. Pac 12 matchup in that case–a much different scenario that what actually transpired.
It would be an interesting chess move by Delany and Scott in this case. They have to know a Plus One isn’t a popular way of settling the playoffs–they’re going to get a lot of criticism from the media and the fans for doing it.
But it also best satisfies their primary objectives (protecting Rose Bowl, keeping bowl season relevant) while making winning conference championships (and thus getting into the Champions and Rose Bowls) fairly important–especially if this is something that has to be evaluated by a committed to pick the two teams in the national championship game.
This move is also another step towards the perception that while there may be five major conferences, the ACC is kind of on the outside looking in at this moment. I realize the Big XII has an active outreach with the ACC and wants to make sure they get a good bowl, but if the post-season is going to revolve around two major bowl games more often than not, then the Big Ten, Big XII, Pac 12 and SEC are going to get the greater share of the publicity and media coverage in most years.
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Everyone wants the 4 best teams. The disagreement lies with what qualities make up the 4 best teams. That’s what Delaney is saying. If you can’t win your conference, are you really one of the 4 best teams in the land? That’s what the B1G will argue.
I think there should be an RPI style ranking system that accounts for winning percentage, strength of schedule, strength of conference and conference standing. If people want being a conference champion to matter then factor it in to the RPI formula but have it take into account whether they win the Big 10 or MWC.
Once the RPI spits out the 4 highest ranked teams, it should be subject to the approval of a committee. The committee is allowed once per season to make an adjustment to the top 4 to substitute a team. This is to provide a checks and balance system to the process when the formulas still defy logic and common sense, as was the case last year with Stanford being ranked ahead of Oregon.
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Frogs down the Rebels and earn a bout with UCLA! Way to come back from the losers bracket!
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And Sooner softball takes Game 1 of the WCWS! Not a bad night, I think, until I check the Rangers game and realize Feldman started.
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The lady Sooners came out to play, especially that pitcher of theirs.
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Yeah, she’s pretty good. I didn’t get to watch much because it was on at the same time as TCU-Ole Miss, but hopefully I can catch all of tonight’s game. That was a pretty okay day for Oklahoma sports in general. OU baseball wins a regional, Thunder take the lead on the Spurs – I guess I could get used to living here.
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The Bama ladies tied it up last night. It should be a good final game 3 tonight.
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Roll Tide Roll!!! The Bama ladies pulled it out. That is the 3rd NCAA championship that our ladies have pulled off this year (softball, gymnastics, women’s golf).
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If I had to bet on anything, I’d bet that the easiest way to get a playoff would be to have Delany and Bowlsby cut a deal on a selection committee that the Pac-12 and ACC could sign onto.
Just looking at the quotes from the Big Ten and Big 12 meetings, both of those sides seem to almost be at a meeting of the minds.
http://www.brushnewstribune.com/ci_20747346/big-12-favors-human-element-college-football-playoff
http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/04/jim-delany-does-a-playoff-180-supports-four-best-teams/ (from Bamatab)
If you ignore Perlman waxing poetic on the virtues of the old system and the current BCS, Delany’s position seems to pretty clearly be that he doesn’t want a polling system like the BCS in charge of playoff selections.
From the comments from Neinas, Bowlsby, and Castiglione, they also seem to take a similar position in wanting a selection process that would add human decision making to the mix instead of relying on a setup like a polling system.
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A selection committee is a horrendous idea if the object is to avoid outrage.
The first time a #1 team loses in its conference championship game or some higher ranked C-USA/MWC/BigEast team is passed over for one of the Big 4 conferences they’ll have a major problem on their hands.
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I don’t understand all this concern about “outrage.”
The only concern here is legitimacy. It’s not like people took up pitchforks in the years that the BCS Busters got passed over, or the year that Oklahoma made it after their CCG debacle.
Over time, as the outcomes largely work as expected, I’d see a selection committee as being less controversial than the current BCS.
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It is a potential problem in that the basketball committee doles out 34 spots. The best the football committee can do is four, and it may be only one. That’s a lot of pressure and almost certain to draw criticism, regardless of the choice.
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Sure, but the nature of people is to work upon their own confirmation biases.
That’s why I think a selection committee would probably end up more accepted than the current BCS because a selection committee tends to play more towards that natural inclination that most people have.
For example, take the past two years.
Last year: LSU, Alabama, and Oklahoma State would have easily been the first 3 in by a committee. Then they’d look at Stanford and Oregon. They’d probably end up taking Oregon because of head-to-head and Oregon winning the division and conference.
Most people would see that as a natural thing to do. I’m not sure how that’d be controversial. And if the committee goes the other way, people would just be like “they thought Stanford was the stronger team with the better overall resume, 1 less loss”.
The year before, 2010. Top 5 in human polls: Auburn, Oregon, TCU, Wisconsin, Stanford. Top 5 in BCS: Auburn, Oregon, TCU, Stanford, Wisconsin. It seems pretty obvious that Auburn, Oregon, and TCU would all be in as undefeated teams. That gets you to the #4 team. Wisconsin is likely to be favored here as a conference champion (yeah it was a 3 way tie, but most people thought Wisconsin was the strongest of the 3 at the time).
I’m not really sure that’s very controversial given that Stanford had already lost to Oregon at that point in time.
You’re right that the committee is basically just looking at the #4 team in most cases. In most cases there’s going to be an obvious 2 or 3 selections and then the dilemma comes to selecting the final one(s).
But again, I don’t see how this creates a backlash. It’s like the NBA draft. There’s a conspiracy theory regardless of the way it goes.
If New Orleans wins the draft (as they did), it’s a giveaway to Benson to get him and his new team all set up in exchange for taking over the team.
If Cleveland wins the draft, it’s the 2nd part to helping Cleveland rebuild in the post-LeBron era.
If New Jersey wins the draft, it’s to help their move to Brooklyn because they trade the pick for Dwight Howard. Both Brooklyn and Orlando benefit.
There’s always a conspiracy theory regardless of what happens with the NBA draft, and there’s always going to be a share of skeptics about the choice of the final team or so in a playoff. But the vast majority of people are going to fall in line because the outcomes will be naturally explainable.
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@zeek – What if Detroit wins? Oh wait, the Pistons can’t catch a break.
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People seem to be operating under the assumption that the controversy between 4/5 will be less than the controversy between 2/3 because more teams will get a shot and I just don’t see it that way at all.
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ChicagoMac – look at it this way. In the NCAA basketball tournament, team #69 still gripes that they’re better than team #68, but no one really cares because there’s no way they’re in the same league as the real contenders and they’re just getting bounced in the first round anyway (until that beautiful, beautiful day when one of them isn’t, and millions of brackets cry out in terror and are suddenly silenced – but that’s another discussion). The further you expand the playoff, the less concern there is with the last team in/first team out. Team #3 in the BCS could have (and in the past, often has had) a legitimate argument for a title shot, but team #5? Much less likely. Sure, there’s still controversy, but it’s just not as compelling. If you had an eight-team playoff, even less so.
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I understand that argument Jake, I just think its specious.
Let’s say the top 3 SEC teams each have 2 losses and each of the other Big 5 conferences has a one loss champion. Who gets left out?
Does a 1 loss BYU get in over a 1 or 2 loss conference champ? What happens if they don’t?
What about an undefeated Louisville team? Do they get in? What if Boise State and Southern Miss are the only undefeated teams, do either or both get in?
What if there are a bunch of 1 and 2 loss teams with no real consensus on #1 or #2 and about 8 teams that have reasonable arguments to be included in a Top 4?
The current BCS uses an algorithm to determine the Top 2 and has a way to accommodate the non-BCS conferences. I think these two things give it some ground cover against all the criticism…”hey MWC Champ we think you had a great season but the rankings show that you finished out of the money, here is a Sugar Bowl as a parting gift”…. Removing these key points makes the whole system is more fragile.
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I agree 100% Jake.
Take that one above for Wisconsin/Stanford in 2010.
That’s a far less compelling debate than whether TCU deserved to be in the NC. Leaving Stanford or Wisconsin out would be a “meh” kind of thing because both had 1 losses (and Stanford had a loss to an Oregon team already in the playoff).
That year the view would be, “well we have 3 undefeateds in and we’re adding one of these 1-loss teams, likely the Big Ten champion”, I’m not sure people would make a big stink either way because it’s far less controversial than leaving an undefeated team out.
And once you go to 8 the debate is essentially the same as the NCAA 68/69. At 8/9, the team(s) left out have no case that they would have been treated unjustly given that they likely have 2 or 3 losses and your main contenders are the undefeateds and 1-loss teams…
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ChicagoMac, aren’t you basically making the argument for a selection committee?
The current system basically rewards preseason polling as well as the current built-in polling biases that have traditionally plagued the BCS.
If you have a committee that takes a holistic approach with status of strength, margin of victory, etc., why wouldn’t that be a better way than using polls that come loaded with biases (preseason position, movement up and down only when win or lose, etc.)?
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Here are links to the final Polls from the 2005-2009 seasons,
http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings/_/year/2009/week/15
http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings/_/year/2008/week/16
http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings/_/year/2007/week/15
http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings/_/year/2006/week/15
http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings/_/year/2005/week/15
There is no clear Top 4 in any of these seasons and in many cases you’d have US Senators demanding hearings on the system.
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@zeek I think a selection committee addresses the problem in a way that actually makes the entire system more fragile.
They need to create an algorithm to address the Top 4 issue so when the controversy hits they give themselves some ground cover. If you try and send a group of old white guys into a room to select the Top 4 teams they are just asking for trouble IMHO.
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ChicagoMac – no one is saying there will be no controversy, just that it will be significantly less intense. I can’t respond to your specific scenarios without more information.
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Remember – the polls already are essentially a “selection committee” (i.e. a group of people coming together to rank how good each team is), only you can track their progress all season long, which builds up their legitimacy. If the polls have been saying that some team is #2 all year long, and then some group of 7 guys steps in and says they don’t make the top 4, there’s going to be controversy.
The computers are also put there to take a “holistic view” of the situation, and are generally better situated to be able to do that rather than a human being who simply cannot digest as much information. Only, when the computers have differed from the polls, they get “dumbed down” to match the poll result. Which is another way of showing that polls are perceived as credible.
Now the polls certainly have their own set of problems, like preseason rankings biasing things or coaches having huge conflicts of interest, but any kind of selection process that deviates from the polls is headed for huge controversy.
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I think the fact that these people will be sitting in a room discussing this will take care of many of the biases of the polls. There will be an exchange of ideas and facts. Its not just some sportswriter saying, Oh! Ohio St. won big last week and Stanford struggled against a weak opponent so I will move Ohio St. up 1 (forgetting that Ohio St. struggled against two weak opponents in preceding weeks).
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zeek,
I don’t understand all this concern about “outrage.”
Outrage was part of the reason last year’s title game got such relatively weak ratings. The TV people are concerned about outrage.
The only concern here is legitimacy. It’s not like people took up pitchforks in the years that the BCS Busters got passed over, or the year that Oklahoma made it after their CCG debacle.
No, it isn’t the only concern. If it was, they’d have a longer season, more teams in the playoff, and make the playoffs be series instead of single games. And don’t tell me AU fans aren’t still mad they didn’t get to play for the title in 2004. The mid major fans may be more resigned to getting screwed in favor of the big boys (2008 Utah, 2009 UC, Boise and TCU, 2010 TCU), but the outrage has been bigger each time and spread to neutral fans.
Over time, as the outcomes largely work as expected, I’d see a selection committee as being less controversial than the current BCS.
I expect to see lots of stories about death threats, and some minor crimes (vandalism, etc). I hope no actual violence occurs, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
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I don’t remember if it was Bowlsby himself or someone else commenting about him, but he is supposedly good friends with Delany. And he is also on good terms with Scott. Of course, Neinas is on good terms with about everyone outside the state of Missouri.
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http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/19230317/in-the-overcomplicated-playoff-world-bowlsby-could-hold-all-the-cards
‘So how do we complete this 500-piece puzzle? Bowlsby actually has feet in three camps (is that possible?). While extricating himself from the Pac-12, he remains good friends with Delany having been Iowa’s AD for 16 years. Listen to the rumor mill and Bowlsby, 60, could have been Delany’s successor. But the idea of a high-paying promotion now rather than later had to be a lure.
“Jim is one of my closest friends in the business,” said Bowlsby.
When asked if he could be a peacemaker in the meeting room, Bowlsby said, “We’ll see.”‘
That’s a pretty close relationship given the timespan it happened for, also, given the position of the SEC and their new partnership with the Big 12, it would seem natural for the Big 12 to be the one that breaks the impasse if they cut a deal with the Big Ten.
From the statements out of the Big 12 meetings, it just seems like a natural outcome. Of course, a million different things can happen over the next month or two, but I’d bet that Delany and Bowlsby have some discussions over a way to compromise.
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But what if Bowlsby wants to do something Texas doesn’t? Aye, there’s the rub.
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Bowlsby representing Stanford recommended the +1. Even though they aren’t letting him into all the meetings at the PAC conference he is maintaining his support for the +1 regarding Stanford.
I keep hearing how close Dodds and Swarbrick are. Bowlsby and Delany are like father and son.
I’m not saying he would buck Deloss and Co. but I don’t think he’ll Kowtow (or in Texas terminology Cowtow) to them either.
In the end it’s going to be the 3/1. Bank on it.
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I haven’t listened to the podcast linked above, but Delany is pretty explicit about his feelings about the current ranking system in this article.
http://www.cleveland.com/osu/index.ssf/2012/06/bigten_gives_a_little_in_footb.html
There was an article quoting Deloss Dodds saying he prefers independent sites for semi-finals (like the Big 12/SEC champions bowl), but expected that they would be linked to bowls.
This all seems to be taking shape.
4 teams
No AQ
Semi-finals after Christmas and no later than New Year’s in existing bowls
Final in neutral bid-out site on a Monday night between and 1 and 2 weeks later
Selection committee
A “best” 4 with “best” still to be defined
Still haven’t heard much about revenue distribution which could easily blow the whole thing up.
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“Still haven’t heard much about revenue distribution which could easily blow the whole thing up.”
As far as I can tell, the entire public argument is about revenue distribution. SEC (and B12) demanding top 4 because they’d theoretically receive more revenue. B10/P12 preferring a “plus one” in order to maintain their equal ranking in the revenue distribution model. Revenue distribution will essentially decide the playoff design.
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How you set it up doesn’t define how you split the money. Only so much will go for participants. And do they average it out? If so, how do they average the 1st 4 years or so where there is no past? Do you perhaps split it based on a group of bowls as Frank suggested a few weeks ago?
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“How you set it up doesn’t define how you split the money.”
It doesn’t have to, but it will.
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My guess is they split it similarly to how it’s being split now. Only around 20-25% will be based on appearances, if I had to guess.
The Big 5 will probably split 70% of the money equally. The other 5 conferences will probably get 14% to share. Then you give Notre Dame 1%.
After that, the remaining 15% gets split by the 4 participant conferences. Maybe ND only gets an extra 1% if they go so as not to imbalance the payouts per school too much, and getting a second team in only gets an extra 1%. Any remainder (because of ND or a 2nd team) goes back to the 10 conferences in a 5:1 ratio to the Big 5:other 5.
That way, not much is dependent on whether you get teams into it. Of course, the SEC (and Big 12) could balk at that and want much more to be dependent on whether their teams get in…, but I think everyone recognizes how cyclical this is, and the ACC is definitely going to want a system more like what I’ve described. I’d imagine the Big Ten and Pac-12 will want something like that as well. ND probably won’t mind either since they have access and get decent pay (1% if they don’t make it, 2% if they do).
If the SEC and Big 12 really want to push though, they might favor something based on appearances over time. I really don’t like that approach for anyone though because it’s not like anyone is guaranteed to go every so often.
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That runs into challenges on the fairness to the other conferences. We get more just because, even if we don’t contribute.
Saw someone on another board claim the BE was saying it would likely be allocated on top 25 appearances over a period of time. That’s a method I hadn’t heard floated before.
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Well, isn’t the understanding that they’re still giving up their bowl slots for the semifinals based on anchoring?
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Michigan AD Brandon expects some 16-school conferences. Apparently he doesn’t understand conferences, TV contracts, and realignment the way our blog’s experts do. Hopefully Frank and our vociferous B1G and ACC friends can educate this poor ignorant man.
https://twitter.com/#!/chengelis
angelique @chengelis
Brandon expects more conference realignment and expansion “I sense another round”
angelique @chengelis
Brandon says re: expansion that large conferences w big tv deals will get bigger. He sees moves to more 16-team conferences
And to head off some of the usual red herrings, he didn’t say 4 conferences of 16. He didn’t say the B1G would go to 16 (and also didn’t say they wouldn’t.) But ‘more’ does suggest he’s thinking there will be more than just 1 conference reach 16. ‘Large conferences with big TV deals will get bigger’ probably isn’t a reference to the Big East, so it appears he is talking about power conferences. FWIW, nothing in that statement explicitly rules out the ACC ending up at 16 when it is all said and done, either.
I would think it reasonable to infer that he thinks there may be something to the FSU/Clemson rumors. It would be quite a stretch to spin this as he’s only referring to the possibility of the ACC going to 16. BTW, how does a power conference realistically get to 16 schools without raiding the ACC? (something our experts say is unfathomable…)
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The Big Ten, Big 12, and/or SEC cannot get to 16 without raiding the ACC.
That’s almost indisputable at this point. The Big Ten is looking for schools that add value similar to Nebraska and Penn State. The only one remotely out there are the Mid-Atlantic schools if you assume that ND has no reason to join any conference.
The Big 12 is approaching this slowly and looking for the most valuable schools as well because of division alignment issues. They’re not going to take Cincinnati. They may not even want Louisville. The big point is how do you divide the Big 12 into 2 divisions without FSU? Texas/OU will anchor one division. FSU is a must to anchor the other division along with WVU and Clemson.
The SEC is pretty much the same. Unless they get an angle on the Mid-Atlantic (Va Tech), it’s hard to see why they would go to 16. That’s 2 extra mouths to feed, and they had better bring TV or Network value.
The Pac-12 really can’t do anything right now, so they’re going to stand pat.
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There is the “appearance” that the ACC is the hunting ground. Until someone actually leaves they aren’t actually damaged. And even if that happened it seems to have been shown that a conference of 12 can lose 4 of it’s more valuable members and “appear” to have become it’s former self by adding a WAC and a BEast. Does that only work once, or couldn’t that model be copied?
Not that I want or think it likely, but if Bevo started sniffing around another corrall in 10+ years which conference would teams want to be abandoned in?
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I think with the SEC they need at least one school from the “A” ist to pair with either another “A” lister or a “B” lister.
A List:
North Carolina, Virginia, Oklahoma
B List:
Virginia Tech, NC State, Duke, Maryland
Short of that they won’t expand.
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I cannot fathom the SEC taking Duke. And I would be surprised if Virginia Tech wasn’t on their A list.
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Duke only would go to the SEC in a UNC tandem. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised that Georgia Tech might be ahead of Duke on a potential Big Ten list, strictly because of football.
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Bullet
The SEC would take Duke if they could get NC. In a heartbeat.
I can’t imagine Duke or UNC would be interested, but the SEC has been after UNC since prior to grabbing aggy.
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I think Virginia Tech is now closer to an “A” than a “B.” It’s gradually been developing an SEC-like mindset and has made great strides in recent decades from sub-ACC status. (As late as 1970, Tech annually closed its season on Thanksgiving in Roanoke against Virginia Military.) Slive might prefer UVa for its academic cachet, but Tech is clearly the dominant program in Virginia — hardly a consolation prize.
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I seem to recall VPI being a homecoming opponent for Kentucky in those days.
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No real surprise if that happened, Bullet, given that Jerry Claiborne, Tech’s coach at the time, was a Kentucky alumnus.
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A later Kentucky coach as well.
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With a decade at Maryland (after one year as a Colorado assistant) in between.
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Pissedoff Now,
Why does one guy’s opinion bother you so much? Frank’s posts are always thoughtful and well reasoned- even when they’re wrong. Projecting the course of realignment is anyone’s guuess. I think most people realize the end game is 16 team conferences. I still contend without ND or an ACC raid (UNC etc) the B1G will stay where they are. I also tend to think you’re right about Brandon knowing FSU and Clemson are gone. Perhaps the SEC’s intentions as well.
There was WAY too much smoke for their not to be a fire in the case of FSU. They’re just waiting for the playoffs to get sorted out. I’m sure people will disagree, but I think Texas has a fight on their hands with Bowlsby. He is going to want to model the Big 12 after the rock solid models of the B1G and the SEC. Betcha in the next few years they end up voting for equal revenue sharing and betcha it passes. Texas could bolt, but I don’t think they will. Just my far flung opinion.
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FtT.
For Christmas can I have an edit option for those times when I mix up my their(s) and there(s).
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The big 12 has equal revenue sharing for Tier I and II. The Texas AD proposed it.
The big 12 revenue model is the same as the SEC model right now.
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Pretty much this. And the cat is out of the bag on a Big 12 Network. Texas is already wrapped up with ESPN for 20 years (or whatever the term was), and OU is wrapped up as well.
Perhaps they try a Big 12 Network for the rest of the teams, but there’s really no money issues left in the Big 12; it seems as if everyone accepts where the conference is.
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Yeah, for now. But the SEC is starting a conference network in 2014. Florida is already said to be on board.
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Slive still says it is only one of their options. UGA is on board. South Carolina is skeptical of overexposure. One thing to remember is that there is a lot more money generated outside of TV. The other main point is that a network must be able to generate more than they can generate independently. If UF and UGA are on board, it indicates their studies are supporting that.
http://www.ajc.com/sports/uga/sec-focuses-lens-on-1452841.html
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@bullet – I think you have a good point in regards to UF & UGA being on board. Those two schools (along with maybe Bama) were the schools that I was a little worried about in regards to their support of a SEC Network since they already made good money with their 3rd tier package. And like you pointed out if they are on board, then they are expecting to make more than what they already are making (and I believe that it has been stated that UF make over $10 mil from their 3rd tier package).
I doubt that Pastides is really all that skeptical about over exposure. I think by the way his quote is worded (“Overexposure, maybe”) he was probably baited with a question like “do you see a way that a SEC network could hurt the SEC?”.
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Yeah, that overexposure thing seemed like he was just reaching for an answer to a loaded question.
It seems like almost a guarantee that we’ll see an SEC Network at some point soon. The only questions will be whether they do it with ESPN and what kind of carriage they’ll get in Texas.
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I still have never seen a legitimate answer to the question of what exactly are they going to put on said network?
The addition of Missouri and TAMU is good, but simply doesn’t increase the number of football games in the inventory to a sufficient level to sustain a network (at least from any readings I’ve seen around here / on the web).
Basketball will be nice, but while the SEC has some interest in that sport its still not “crazy” about it like the Big East of ACC. Besides, as many have pointed out the basketball is “small potatoes” compared to football in the profitability and desirability quotient. We really think bball is going to push a channel on cable TV in the rural south?
Baseball is a legit spring sport with a strong draw in the south so it MIGHT be able to be a “football like” sport (seasonally / regionally), but its just as easy to be another basketball. Strong enough draw ratings, but not enough to force a channel on cable television. Besides…I have to believe ESPN recognized this and already owns the most desirable properties.
The SEC schools typically support a minimum total number of sports, with a large portion (especially in the female sports) being track & field type events. What’s more, with ESPN already owning most (if not all) the “desirable non-revenue generating” sports (I’ve literally already seen SEC women’s volleyball & softball on ESPN) what is left in this category?
Listen, I’m really not trying to be a hater, but I simply don’t see much content in the first place and the largest population bases (where conference channels seem to make sense) are highly fragmented (Florida & Texas)…Missouri is almost as much Big Ten / Big 12 country (with Kansas to the west and Illinois to the east) as it is now SEC country. I mean if it took the BTN three years to find its way onto cable channels in states it legitimately dominated as far as market penetration how does the SEC expect to do in areas where it is (at best) the most popular of several very popular schools in the state (sorry, I’ve been to central and western Texas and they care almost not at all about TAMU)?
Hell, maybe I’m wrong and the SEC channel turns into the next goldmine in college sports, but unless something fundamental in the current SEC contracts changes I just don’t see how.
PS – Sorry, can’t help but think the whole idea (at this time) seems to fall into the:
type of plan. 😀
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@PSUGuy – Most are assuming that ESPN will own a large portion (if not all) of an SEC Network, which means the largest potential source of games would probably be the ESPN Regional games that are currently syndicated to local stations and regional cable networks. Those are the same types of games that the Big Ten Network was built on (the games that used to be in the old Big Ten ESPN Regional syndicated package). If that’s the case, then the SEC Network would have content on par with the BTN. Now, if it’s just a pooling of the SEC third tier rights that ESPN doesn’t own, then that’s where there would be lower quality content. I believe that the SEC Network would easily get broad carriage within its footprint assuming that it takes over the ESPN Regional games. The real question would be how much the SEC would actually own of that network (as ESPN isn’t just going to give those rights back for free).
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In the article above, the UGA president is suggesting the SEC own 51% like the Big 10. He doesn’t want to take all the risk like the pac 12.
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I doubt it is a matter of risk. The cost of purchasing back inventory, possibly litigating, to approximate the BTN or P12N, plus start up costs might make partnering the only way into the conference network world in the near term. Unfortunately, it also let’s the fox into the henhouse.
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@Frank Fair enough, but I ask all the lawyers on here the simple question…why the heck would ESPN give up ownership of a property it already owns?
I mean, ok, I get starting a “SEC Channel” that is really owned by ESPN, but I don’t see them paying one more red cent to the SEC other than what they already have on contract. Even then, that’s a hell of a risk if I’m ESPN since when a the next round of contract talks occur if SEC takes those rights back then ESPN has a “SEC Channel” without the SEC.
:shrug: I’m sure it’ll get done. I’m just as sure it won’t be anything like the BTN (I’m thinking much more like the LHN where they pay an obscene, but in the grand scheme of things small, amount for what little content is left and try to get it on cable in their immediate geographical areas).
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@PSUguy
My understanding of the SEC deal is that the SEC can’t start a network without ESPN, but they still retain the content. So ESPN doesn’t own the rights to those Tier 3 games.
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@bullet
I get that when it comes to Tier 3, but as is mentioned much around the web, its the overflow Tier 2 content that is the real foundation of a conference tv channel and its my understanding ESPN already owns all that (Tier 2 SEC content).
Now I could easily be wrong, but if I’m not that means the SEC has the equivalent of what Texas had which ESPN turned into the LHN.
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@PSUGuy – First I’m not sure if anyone has said for sure whether or not ESPN owns all of the SEC’s 2nd tier content. What is for sure is that they own all of the 2nd tier content that present at the time that the contract was signed. But since that time the SEC has added two schools, and with those schools the new content that accompanies them. I think most have assumed, and probably correctly, that ESPN would still own the rights to that new content, but we don’t know that for sure (it depends on how the contract was worded). If the SEC made sure to have a clause in the original contract that made a provision for any new content added due to expansion, then those games could be added to the 3rd tier content and that would be about the same level of content that the B1G shows live on their channel on Saturdays (you can only show a maximum of 3 games on a given Saturday).
But let’s assume that ESPN does indeed own the rights to the newly added content (which is most likely). They already (before the new additions) couldn’t show all of the SEC’s 2nd tier content on their current stations. Now they have more 2nd tier content, which means they are going to have to sell it to someone, just like they are currently selling the unused 2nd tier content to local affiliate stations (whose contract is up in 2014). Now the million dollar question becomes, is it more profitable for ESPN to continue to sell that content to local affiliates, or to partner with the SEC on a true SEC network? It is my theory (all any of us can do right now is assume) that a partnership with the SEC (even a 51%-49% B1G/Fox type partnership) would be more lucrative, and gain both ESPN and the SEC more coverage (more eyes watching their content). If ESPN can make more money and gain more eyeballs with a partnership in the SEC Network, then I’m guess they would gladly do it.
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@bamatab – ESPN does own all of the SEC’s 2nd tier content, most of which is syndicated via ESPN Regional (what is currently branded the “SEC Network”). I could definitely see how forming a new cable network with that content could make more for ESPN than syndicating it, so that’s where ESPN has an incentive to work with the SEC here. As long as ESPN has equity in the network, that could conceivably be a fair exchange to grant the SEC equity in that network, too. Regardless, I agree with you and the other SEC people here that the network would easily get basic carriage in the Southeast. It may not get the same rate in Texas and Missouri as it would in Alabama and Georgia, but I think it would still work in the new SEC markets at a lower rate (similar to how the BTN is in Philly at a lower rate than the rest of the Big Ten footprint).
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Nobody here ever mentions that equal revenue sharing is worse for Oklahoma than anybody else in the conference. After the LHN deal, Oklahoma went from number 2 behind Texas but way ahead of everybody else to tied at number 2 with everyone else.
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OU signed their own deal to give over a huge amount of programming to a local Fox channel in that region (including their 1 football game).
That should keep them ahead of the pack.
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I highly doubt that OU’s 1000 hours of programming on a regional Fox network will keep them well ahead of the pack in the Big 12. It’s nice, but it is isn’t a gamechanger, and they will fall behind every school in the Big Ten, SEC, and Pac 12.
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Well who knows what will happen, however, if you take Brandon’s comments along with those by Brady Hoke maybe there is something there. I don’t read too much into it, but they are thinking this way for some reason. Maybe they read message boards and blogs like Delany.
“I think really, in about three years, you’ll see four super conferences, and I think the Big East will go away and maybe the ACC,” Hoke told the Dayton Daily News last week, “But look, I’m just a coach. I don’t know all of it.”
http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-footba…nferences/
http://www.daytondailynews.com/dayton-sp…83280.html
“I read it on the blogs, but personally, I’m not a consolidationist,” Delany said. “I think what you’ll see is some conferences grow and some stay where they are (but nothing more).”
http://btn.com/2012/06/05/audio-big-ten-…l-playoff/
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Of course some conferences will “grow and some stay where they are”; we can safely assume the latter refers to the Pac, as it has no viable expansion options in the two western continental time zones.
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Hoke’s comments are meaningful in the sense that the only way the ACC really goes away is if the Big Ten and SEC raid it. It doesn’t particularly mean that would happen, but it’s just interesting to hear someone in his kind of position say that.
Plus, the Big Ten has undoubtedly discussed ACC expansion options internally. Dave Brandon is a numbers guy as well and probably has some ideas and opinions of what the best options for the Big Ten are (ND then ACC schools), so it’s not surprising at all to hear him say that.
None of this means anything is going to happen soon with conferences other than the SEC going over 12, but it means these guys are all locked in and have probably thought about the various conferences’ options as much as we have…
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Here’s another article from the Detroit News where Michigan Athletic Director David Brandon says the following:
Conference changes
Brandon expects more conference expansion to take place this summer.
“Conference expanding and realignment — there’s more to come,” Brandon said. “I actually believe this summer you’re going to see some activity.
The Big Ten, now at 12 teams, has the luxury of sitting back and watching.
“We’re in the enviable position of not having to do anything,” he said. “We’re stable.”
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120605/SPORTS0201/206050436#ixzz1x0hnBSQq
The article below has a tweet from a DetNews reporter indicating that Brandon see movement towards 16-team conferences.
http://www.rantsports.com/big-10-football/2012/06/05/michigans-david-brandon-sees-another-round-of-expansion/
These comments come in the wake of the recent Big Ten meetings, so this may be what the conference is currently thinking. I suspect they fully expect that some other conference will get to 16 members first–perhaps the SEC or the ACC.
On a related note, there’s an article on Eleven Warriors about the impact of the Big 10/Pac 12 agreement not only on football, but among all the sports the two conferences play. One thing the writer feels will happen is that there will be multi-sport (not just football) festivals (an opening day Rose Bowl Festival) on campus sites over selected weekends that include soccer, field hockey, volleyball, etc. all packaged together with the football game. I think the author is a bit over the top in his writing style, but he does make some good points as well.
http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2012/06/11655/b1ggie-pac
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I don’t read much into Brandon’s comments. He was always pro-expansionist internally………..There were 4-5 schools that wanted to go slow……….
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FWIW, some of the Missouri football coaches said privately that they think the ACC is going to be divided up among the SEC, Big Ten, and Big 12. This was just a couple of weeks ago. But I don’t think they actually know anything. They’re just guessing.
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If Hoke is reading message boards, he will be an assistant coach in the Big East soon.
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My recollection of the public comments on further realignment:
* Delaney said something about tectonic plates continuing to shift
* UM AD Brandon says something about more realignment to come yet this summer and specifically mentioned 16
* Clemson’s odd statement about being open to hearing from anyone
* FSU’s conflicting statements
* GTech statement about believing nothing will change for ACC
* Miami’s public commitment to ACC
* Big12 PTB all stating various degrees of 10 being fine…for now
* Swofford statement about no changes until at least the playoff stuff is determined.
* VT AD statement about being happy with the ACC as it is currently constructed
* SEC saying 12 was fine but we’re at 14 with no plans to move beyond
* Swarbrick stating ND things
* BigEast interim commish mocking Dodds’ love affair with the Irish
Let me know if I’ve missed anything noteworthy.
Some of the comments seem to indicate the outcome of the playoff stuff will impact any conference realignment.Here are my questions:
* Setting aside the notion of a 4 conference champs only playoff which has less momentum than anything else right now, what playoff related outcome would drive further conference realignment?
* Still setting aside a 4 conference champ playoff (so we are guaranteeing access to independents) is there any playoff structure where ND or BYU would choose to join a conference because it enhances their chance at participating in the playoffs?
* Is 16 better than 14? Is there any reason for the SEC or ACC to expand beyond 14 other than the chase for TV revenue?
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The playoff outcomes will not affect ND because ND is mainly affected by access to the championship rather than money from the playoff.
The calculation of payouts for the playoff may affect the ACC. If the payouts are largely affected by which teams are perennially in the playoffs then FSU and Clemson are more likely to head to the Big 12 than if the payouts are more based on similar sized shares going to the Big 5 conferences (as it is for the current BCS where the only small boost to income comes from getting a 2nd team into the BCS; otherwise the conferences get equal amounts).
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If ACC schools aren’t satisfied with their payouts for playoffs, they could be the swing votes that lead to its downfall. If Texas was able to block Big 12 expansion without satisfactory payout compensation to the ACC, the whole house of cards could collapse.
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at the same time the power brokers are talking about helping the ACC with bowl deals, mentioning 5 major conferences, etc, which makes me question the notion that the ACC will be treated differently when it comes to money.
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So you don’t think there is a scenario, say a 3+1, where ND might come to the conclusion that they have a better chance at being selected to the playoffs by joining a conference and that this would weigh heavily on their decision?
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Nope. ND has pretty much indicated through Swarbrick’s statements that as long as they have a feasible route to the national championship, they’re content to remain independent.
ND already knows that they pretty much have to go undefeated to get to the national championship, and that wouldn’t change under a 3+1.
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Bowlsby said while they are happy at 10, they would certainly look at anyone (I think these were his words) “adding substantial value.” Obviously that applies to Notre Dame. I would think that would also apply to Florida State.
Dodds has repeatedly said he keeps talking to Notre Dame and Neinas has said the Big 12 would be interested in Notre Dame. Swarbick has said they had discussions with the Big 12, but nothing unusual–i.e. ADs should always be aware of what their options are.
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1) A pure top 4 model would likely aid conference realignment as schools liek Texas and Oklahoma don’t have to directly fight for one spot with FSU. And that goes both ways. Does FSU really want to move knowing their one spot is potentially blocked by UT or OU? Even if a pure conference champs model is out, any model that gives weight to champs will hurt realignment. So basically any model that gives no weight to conference champs will help it
2) Doubtful. At least with Notre Dame. BYU isn’t really at Notre Dame’s level, so I would like to think they’d join a major conference if asked (I don’t consider the Big East “major” and I don’t think talks progressed far enough with the Big 12)
3) Doubtful. 14 is somewhat unwieldy and 16 almost creates two conferences in one. Not sure any schools would be happy with more scheduling issues. For example, the SEC would almost certainly need to go to 9 conference games in football (they don’t want to) and also wouold still see some traditional rivalries become increasingly less frequent. The best argument is from a Network standpoint, although only the Big 10 and maybe the SEC would even have networks (the Pac -12 is not looking to expand)
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In a “3 champs + 1 at-large” playoff scenario, could a bowl matchup be promised between the other two conference champions? That might placate the ACC, which more often than note would be on the outside looking in, but while the Big 12 and SEC might be amenable to such an agreement, I can’t imagine that would fly with the Big Ten or Pac.
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I meant “more often than not,” but you probably figured that out.
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Sounds like for now the four power conferences (B10, SEC, Pac 12 & Big XII) are treating the ACC as an equal other than keeping their own bowl game; whose value is pretty significant (estimates are around $55mil). Those two bowls (Rose and Big XiI/SEC) and the new playoff payouts are what is going to determine the have and have nots in the postseason era…
ACC should do well in terms of getting paid in the new playoff format but they are lagging behind in both media/tv revenue (they’ll fall farther back after the Big XII and B10 sign new tv deals and the Pac 12 and SEC start profiting from their networks) and having their own bowl game. Even if the ACC did work out a deal with the Orange Bowl as some have predicted here, its pay-out is going to be nowhere near that of the other two bowls.
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ACC football is quickly becoming 2nd tier status due to media deals falling behind the four power conferences. I think the most valuable ACC schools are very vulnerable in this next round of expansion. That will fuel the next round of expansion more than playoff format, access to the playoff, etc.
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I mostly agree with your point in 1) above except…
2. I used to think like you re: ND but I’m starting to really waiver on that. To me it always felt like ND was on equal or better footing with every other program when it came to accessing the National Championship but I’m starting to wonder if the 3+1 and the selection criteria might end up changing that dynamic. To be clear, all parties seem to be indicating that ND will have access, but its not clear at all if the access ND has will be at parity with the rest of the programs. If ND wakes up at the end of this month and sees that B1G, SEC, Big12, ACC, and Pac teams have better access it might decide to join a conference even if it isn’t blocked from accessing the National Championship. @zeek, Swarbrick’s comments could easily be read as if they are merely helping to slow down the realignment game giving ND as many options as possible should it need to move.
So to me, depending on how the meetings go this month we could see Florida State leaving the ACC or we could see ND actually looking for a home. Some interesting dominoes in play either way.
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http://chronicle.com/blogs/players/does-switching-athletics-conferences-lead-to-academic-gains/30227
On average, colleges that moved to a new league saw about a 3-percent decrease in their admit rate (meaning they became more selective) and a 5-percent increase in their admission yield rate (more admitted students enrolled) three years after joining the new conference. The ACT scores of incoming students increased by more than .29 points. And the colleges saw a net gain of about 130 applications per year three years after their moves.
The results persisted even after taking into consideration institutional characteristics and prior institutional prestige, along with athletic financial and on-field success, the authors say.
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Makes sense. It’s a major increase in brand awareness. The institution is already well known in the region of the old conference, and now makes a splash in the region of the new conference. Also, it’s a surefire way to get into the news a lot. Suddenly the school can become a “hot” place to be. Thus more applications, and the school can afford to be more selective.
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Did they measure the changes in schools that didn’t change conferences, i.e. the ones that were left behind or already in the new leagues (while choosing similar ones in profile)?
Because these kinds of selectivity issues are happening to every top 100-200 school (and especially the private schools nearer to the top) due to the nature of admissions.
While there may be some benefit, it’s hard to know just how significant the change in league is as compared to the “rising tide lifts all boats” that’s affecting everyone.
It seems as if every good school has had significant decreases in admit rates and significant increases in their yield rates over the past couple of years…
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For example, this seems utterly bogus:
‘Among the biggest winners were institutions that moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference. Boston College, which left the Big East for the ACC in 2005, saw a 37-percent increase in applications three years later. Virginia Tech, which joined the league in 2003, was getting 16.6-percent more applications three years later.
Texas Christian also made big academic strides after its move to the Mountain West. Three years after leaving Conference USA, in 2005, it was receiving 50 percent more applications. The college also became more selective, admitting 14-percent fewer students. (We’ll have to wait a few years to see how the Horned Frogs’ latest move pays off; the university becomes a member of the Big 12 next month.)’
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Compare BC and Syracuse, which stayed behind in the Big East. Syracuse is similar in profile academically (although larger in absolute size) and also had a 40-50% increase in applicants between 2005 and 2008.
Compare Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh, and you’ll find that both had similar increases over that time frame.
As for TCU, that’s ridiculous. The Mountain West has media exposure where TCU gets students? I don’t see how going from C-USA to MWC helped TCU’s application numbers at all. Nobody was making application decisions based on that, and the notion that the MWC is of much higher profile among high school students is ridiculous.
Now, the Big 12 is different for TCU because that will help raise awareness about them across Texas especially; that’s entirely a different move from some of the others discussed here.
Heck, winning BCS bowls probably does more in the short term for a university than changing leagues…
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Baylor’s applications are up dramatically with their 10 win season and Heisman trophy winner.
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I didn’t remember if I knew that from sportswriters or message board posters, so I did a quick search. Baylor had 40,000 applications this year vs. 15,000 in 2005.
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Yeah, but again how much of that is due to the 10-win season and Heisman winner?
They had a 6% increase this past year.
They had a 6% increase the year before that when they had a 7-6 season including a 4 loss streak to close out the season and were only ranked at the bottom of the poll twice before that 4 loss streak.
‘Gereghty said the 6 percent increase is roughly the same as last year’s percentage increase at this time.
“We have been trending upward in the number of applications and the quality of our classes,” Gereghty said, “so we’ve already been on a trajectory of bringing in great students and meeting our enrollment goals.”’
http://baylorlariat.com/2012/04/12/baylor-reports-large-increase-in-applications/
There’s definitely some kind of impact that sports can have (the best example in my opinion is Northwestern’s 1 year anomaly in the mid-90s due to the Rose Bowl appearance after which applications increased 20+% and then fell in subsequent years).
TCU also got the Rose Bowl boost in going from 14k applicants to 19k applicants; that kind of boost isn’t explainable naturally since it’s so dynamic and large; no one else experienced a straight up 35% boost like that, so it’s a lot easier to point to the athletics to explain that.
But outside of something splashy like a BCS Bowl appearance or national championship appearance, it’s really hard to tell what the impact is.
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State politics enters here with the top-10 percent rule. UT is locked out for almost everyone in the state outside the top 10 percent. A&M less so. Biggest beneficiaries are Tech, Baylor, TCU, UH, etc.
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Oklahoma St., LSU, Alabama and Georgia are also beneficiaries of the Texas restrictions, which have been changed to top 8% for UT. I have some UT friends who know UT is hopeless and are just hoping their kids can get in to A&M, which is also very hard to get into now.
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@zeek – I think this is a great point. Selectivity at all top 100 or so schools has shot up dramatically over the past 5 years because of (1) the rise of the Common Application that makes it much easier to apply to several schools and (2) the number of high school graduates has been going up. When I was applying to colleges way back in 1996, most people in my position sent applications to 5 or 6 colleges. Now, you’ll see kids send them out to 20 or more schools. The almost random nature of how the most selective schools are choosing students is feeding into the application frenzy, too. What used to be “safety schools” for a certain caliber of student are turning into “reaches”, which has a trickle down effect where more students feel the need to apply to lots of schools.
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The summary paper is only 3 pages long, and linked within the story. You might want to read it before disparaging their work. These are doctoral students being overseen by a professor, not some random guy on a message board.
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@drwillini I think you are underestimating Duke’s value. Duke is 7th ranked in R&D funding. Most of its students come from the affluent northeast and its basketball brand is very popular there. If there are two schools who rivalry actually feeds off each other, it is UNC vs Duke. It is to basketball what OSU Michigan is to football (or at least what is was). I think its a package deal even with their god-awful football product. I do agree with your idea of bridging the footprint with Maryland. I don’t see much value in Rutgers. If any thing, I think Duke basketball would be more worth it sports wise in the Northeast vs anything Rutgers brings.
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WFinally made it through this trail, and following is my response to many points raised…
Don’t get too excited about attractive ACT scores, the average ACT is 2.5 pts greater than it was in the early-mid ’80s.
We should not impose our own values on conference cohesion. It can be differet for different conferences. The stability of a given conference is a product of its internal cohesion and attractiveness to raiders. The SEC’s internal values are basically rabid football fans, and the only prospective raider is the B1G for schools that are more attuned to there values. With football driving the bus, they are generally in good shape, although the early move to 14 has limited their options.
The PacX is a very coehsive conference, with limited expansion options despite an agressive leader. Geographical compactness and an emphasis on academics bind them, and geographic isolation protects them.
The B1G is the ultimate sister conference of the PacX, sharing their values and thier own geographical compactness, however the B1G has a couple unique advatages. First, the large and nationally dispersed alumni base, and second the BTN. By sitting at 12 they have preserved options.
The Big12 is the snow white and X dwarves. They are bound together by Texas’ need for supremecy, and the others need for membership in a major conference.
The ACC is bound by geographical compactness and a common appreciation for academics, but their weak football and geographical proximiy to the SEC and B1G makes them a weak sister in realingnment.
As conferences try to emulate the BTN, they miss the point. Tennis and golf are not on TV because of the Walmart fans, they are on TV because folks that watch those sports have money to spend. The geographical compactness of the B1G is the obvious thing that drives the BTN, the real thing that drives it is the large alumni and fan base that have disposable income. No other conference has the number of alumni x income per alumni to equal that disposable income.
16 is a magic number for a conference. You go to four pods that best preserves historical rivalries. Then every year each pod plays another rotating pod, and two teams from a third pod to give you 6 out of pod games. Combined with the three within pod games that gives you 9 converence games. Every member of a pod has the same conference schedule, and within four years you play every every other confernece game home-and-home. Between doinng your best to preserve natural rivalries within pods and insuring that every team willl be played every other year conference cohesion is preserved.
From a B1G perspective this scenario works. Throw in the assured PacX game and you are committed to 10 games. You schedule two noncon patsies. UM, PU and MSU have no room for ND (too bad 😉
Here is where it gets interesting. Every member of a pod plays the identical conference schedule. First tie-breaker is the PacX game. Winners of the four pods play in conference semifinals, and then winners in the conference final game. B1G conference champion plays in the Rose Bowl, and the Rose Bowl winner plays the winner of the Champions Bowl.
So you make the post season by being better than the other three teams in your pod relative to an identical schedule. If the other 4 major conferences mirror this arrangement you have a 16 team playoff where the teams qualify by being the best of 4 teams with the same schedule.
Finally, what makes this all happen is the realization that when a team qualifies in this manner for a 16 team playoff, every conference game is important. Think of how important last year’s regular season LSU/Alabama game is. When you increase the value of the regular season games, you add to the value of the BTN. This value is singularly created by the winner of the Rose And Champoins bowls playing. Who cares about right and wrong and national perception, potential value will be realized.
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How do you guys get such nicely formatted posts? My formatting seems to leave when I post.
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That’s solid advocacy of 16 team leagues. However………….I’m an advocate of the status quo or plus 1 with regard to college football. Going to 16 would inevitably lead to an 8 team playoff sysytem, which dminishes the Rose Bowl and lessens the importance of the regular season. To those who see the 8 game playoff as most fair………..I disagree. I believe the object should always be to find the two best teams to play for the NC. Why in the hell is it “fair” that a team which has had the 8th best regular season gets a shot at the NC? The present system has worked well to match the two best teams. The Plus 1 would restore some interest/luster to the 4 biggest bowl games.
In any sport, the bigger the “tourney”, the less likely that the true #1 team wins—–just the opposite of what the “win it on the field” yakers claim to want.
Now, I don’t disagree that the playoff would yield bigger $s…….but what, exactly, is the “return” on the bigger $s? ……….a continuation of the facilities war and bigger coaching salaries. Just what college athletics needs.
With respect to “16” and the Big 10……don’t see it happening without ND….and don’t see ND ever being in the BIG 10. In the end, they will be pussies and seek a special advantage or easier route.
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16 would be really bad for the SEC and Big 10 which don’t have neatly confined groups of 4 rivals. The SEC is already having trouble figuring out 14. The ACC, an expanded Big 12 or Pac 12 might be able to do it without destroying too many traditions, but the SEC and Big 10 are different. Moving Alabama and Auburn east might not be too bad for traditions in the SEC, but an eastern division with those 2, TN, UF and UGA would be too strong and be bad for all. Big 10 has even more difficulty.
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16 with pods works way better than 14 as far as scheduling and playing each other conference team semi regularly. That being said, I don’t see the BIG expanding unless Notre Dame or the ACC dies. Everything is up to the Big12 and SEC. If those conferences choose to expand, I can see the BIG acquiring UNC/Duke/UVA and a 4th. Live content is the future of ads revenue for cable in the DVR/Internet age. The BTN could be a cable standard with it’s huge alumni bases built in audience plus tshirt brands in Penn Sate, Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska for football and UNC,Duke,Mich Sate, Indiana for basketball. Add in growing popularity of Mens Ice Hockey(the new conference), and Lacrosse (possibly adding the ACCs powerhouse programs), you will have a network with in demand live content from Labor day to Memorial day.
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If you really want pods, you can do it with 14. Just have two 4 team groups as anchors and rotate the two 3 team groups. It works the same way. Its just not as elegant as 4X4 or 4X16.
I really thought the pods were a great innovative idea when the WAC did them. It didn’t work there. Zippers in the ACC haven’t worked. No conference greater than 14 teams has held together for long in either Division I or II. Much better is to follow Frank’s advice, KISS. And that means you don’t go to 16 at all and don’t do 14 unless it is a really valuable addition.
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PSU hockey is right. And if it comes to pass that UNC/Duke/UVA do join, ND WILL be the 16th. There is no way they don’t align themselves with a conference that prestigious in lieu of the Big 12. Third tier rights be damned. The addition of the ACC schools will adequately temper the alumni’s Big Ten rage and ‘regional’ recruiting fears. If our relationship with the PAC continues to blossom, it will also give ND it’s yearly access to USC and Stanford. Besides, the faculty and administration will be adamant. Now if only we could bring in University of Toronto as an academic (with hockey exemption) member the BTN would be on the road to global domination.
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Bullet:
While I agree that you don’t go beyond 12 without a really strong reason to, I also don’t think continually citing the WAC’s failure at 16 as a reason. They are not the B1G, barely the same species. They are crumbling right now at 10… now 8…now 7. Aren’t they trying to find some move up candidates?
Each conference has its own character and what may hurt one benefits may another.
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@cc
True, but the Big East is crumbling, the Pac West disentegrated and the Lone Star has fallen apart. All of those conferences cracked after getting to 16 or larger. So there are 4 examples of failure and none of success. They say insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Some of it is shear numbers resulting in different objectives. There’s a lot of discussion down in Georgia about 5 to 7 member school boards being more effective than 9 or more. Its just easier for the smaller number to work together and compromise.
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BEast hasn’t failed…yet. It has changed membership (a lot), but so has the B12, ACC, and most others still standing.
I agree larger could present different challenge, as well as advantages. But there are numerous examples of conference failure that don’t involve over 10/12. A significant part of the large conference’s failures are probably attributable to similar problems, and shouldn’t be blamed solely on size.
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Thanks for the replies. I don’t think my proposal diminishes the value of the Rose Bowl. That has been done in the current BCS system. I would argue that my proposal actually enhances the Rose Bowl as it returns to its historical roots plus becomes a “national” semi-final game.
Also, I think my proposal GREATLY enhances the importance of the regular season. And that is why I think something like this might happen for B1G or any other conference with its own network. With the 4 pod champions starting the post season playoff, and with each team within pods playing an identical schedule, every game matters more. If the B1G preserves its homogeneity in expansion, given that the complete home and home cycle is complete after 4 years, I think you could re-balance the pods every four years based on the last four years performance. As an Illinois fan I’m not sure there are any current teams that I would not be excited to see in our pod.
16 is really a “magic” number in that it allows scheduling equality w/in the pod and also allows every 4 year student to host and travel to every other B1G team. I think that is a must for conference cohesion. You can maintain the historical rivalries on that context. Seemls like recently Illinois only played Iowa half the time, and that rivalry still works for me.
If I am Delany I tell Texas, Florida, ND and UNC that this is the plan, and give them first dibs and the ability to somewhat determine the other new entrants. I would not give them a long period to think about it, we saw in the case of Nebraska how fast things can move if both parties want it. If you really believe that 16 is the magic number, B1G slots are a scarce commodity, and if you have friends you want to bring along you want to jump in quickly.
In that scenario I think UNC jumps. If the “kings” do, that’s great, but most likely they will not, I think the ship has largely sailed for all of their interest in the B1G. You can tell that I am a fan of geographical compactness, so you get UMd and UVa as a “bridge” to UNC, brining along their compatible values, alumni bases, and TV markets. The fourth addition would be interesting. The pressure in South Bend would be enormous at this point. Of course the key here is that I have left out Duke and I’m sure others would put them in. So the fourth team would likely be ND, Duke, Rutgers, or GaTech.
I would prefer Rutgers, strenghening the presence in the NE TV markets. Then, I would strenthen the bond with the PacX. I would let the PacX network show an early B1G east coast game, and I would show a late night PacX “game of the week” on BTN. This both increases the national visibility of the showcased games and provides valuable live programming at times that local teams would not like to perform, but most importantly it builds up the Rose Bowl as we see more of the PacX and they see more of us.
I personally beleive there is a good chance this will happen. I don’t want it to, I am an academic snob and think adding Nebraska was a mistake (I’m OK with PSU). What makes this happen is the BTN. I think other conferences and schools are realizing just how difficult this is to pull off. The value this creates for second and third tier rights, not to mention the added inventory of basketball games, and the potential of hockey and baseball might be too great to leave on the table.
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It is true that all the conferences that hit 16 have cracked but I don’t think you can pin that on the number of teams. Look at the Big East. The Big East died because you had Different types of universities with different goals. They basketball schools and football school. They had large universities and small private colleges. That kind of mix was destined to fail with parties going in different directions ultimately leading to their own demise.
The BIG is the most exclusive conference because they make sure the schools will fit together with the rest of the universities. They have certain core values and make sure any prospective university has similar values. It’s not just a football affiliation, let alone sports in general. Commitment to research and academics are just as important. Nebraska probably does not get in without the AAU membership. They said so themselves. And the BIG is so committed to academics that member schools voted to kick Nebraska out of the AAU because they weren’t up to snuff even though they are conference mates and it would look poorly on the BIG. If you look at UNC, Duke, and UVA, they fit under the BIG’s values. All are committed to academics and are members of the AAU. UVA and UNC are the preeminent universities in their respective state and Duke and UNC are already two of the top 20 research universities in the country. These schools would not be a dissenting voice in the room nor would there be a self serving arrogance against other universities in the conference. If Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State are willing to subjugate themselves for the good of the BIG, would UNC be able to hold their nose up against these schools based on their own athletic or academic prestige?
In all probability the BIG is done expanding. However there is a part of me that believes a deal has already been struck for a further expansion in 2015 when the Tier 1 and 2 are up. Their was way too many signals of a larger profitable BIG than what the last round of expansion brought. Administrators mentioned 16 or 20 team leagues, the BTN increasing value through the addition of states and markets, and a southern expansion. Supposedly numerous teams were studied and would be a boon to the network coffers. With the contracts already signed thru 2016, adding one school to get a conference championship was the only move that would increase payouts to all schools instead of limiting them by adding additional mouths to feed. Getting better payouts from new states for the BTN takes time to negotiate with cable companies so there wouldn’t be an immediate increase in revenue that way either. Only when the new Tier1 &2 contracts are signed will there be an ability to add schools without shortening the pie.
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You’re a heckuva lot more likely to have to take Maryland with Virginia, North Carolina and Duke (or Georgia Tech) than Notre Dame, which will only join a conference when it has absolutely no other access to a 4-team playoff (the conference champions-only scenario). Or does taking Maryland instead of ND make Big Ten expansion a non-starter in your eyes (though it has more to offer the conference than Rutgers)?
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I am not sure who the 4th team would be. Notre Dame is the ideal but like you stated, still might not join even with the allure of gobs and gobs of money. If ND is a no go, Maryland or Georgia Tech would be a fine addition. Both are great academically, are AAU schools, and do a fairly large amount of research. Based on the terrible financial state and recent on the field performance of the Maryland athletic department, I would probably go with Georgia Tech. If Virginia Tech was close to AAU status and could achieve it by 2015 they would make a good addition as well. If they could break from their little sister, Kansas would also make a decent addition. Although they are not great academically they have AAU status. You add them, UNC, and Duke and winter programing on the BTN becomes must see tv. Not to mention, the BIG sells their basketball Tier 1 separately from their football. They would probably get a record payout for men’s basketball.
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http://nittanylionsden.com/2012-articles/may/the-big-ten-networks-big-takeover.html
I hear you, dr. Illini. I think the btn could be the game changer in expansion.
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I certainly agree with you that a viable 16-team Big Ten Conference could be built out of four pods with four additional teams being added to the mix. Ideally, one of those four teams would be Notre Dame in order to better appeal to the target markets in the northeast and mid-Atlantic urban areas. I’d throw in three AAU schools that are located near major metropolitan areas to round out the conference–Rutgers (NYC/NJ), Maryland (Baltimore/DC) and Georgia Tech (Atlanta). Other possibilities that aren’t in major urban areas would be Virginia, North Carolina and Duke.
The pods in the Big Ten could be set up with an eye to keeping the relationships within the conference intact as much as possible (keeping Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin together; giving Penn State eastern partners, Michigan-Ohio State, etc.)
Pod A – Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin
Pod B – Northwestern, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana
Pod C – Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State
Pod D – Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland, Georgia Tech
Michigan would play Michigan State, Notre Dame and Ohio State each year plus four teams from another pod and two more from a third pod. Michigan’s division would encompass the three teams in its division plus four more from the pod it played in total that year.
For example, if Pod C and Pod D were a division for two years, Michigan would play Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland and Georgia Tech within its “division” plus two teams from either Pod A or B to make up a nine-game conference schedule. The division winners then go to to the conference championship game. After two years, the pods rotate and new divisions are formed. Every Big Ten team plays the other at least twice in a four-year period.
Another consideration would involve greater integration between the existing members of the Big 10 and Pac 12 into a pod system with eleven games being played every year between the two conferences:
Big Ten West – Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Illinois
Big Ten East – Purdue, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State
Pac 12 North – Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, California
Pac 12 South – USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, Colorado
Big Ten East team Michigan, for example, would play Purdue, Indiana, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State each year plus two each from the Big Ten West, Pac 12 North and Pac 12 South on a two year rotation. The 12th game would be a non-conference game. Each conference could then have their respective championship games and go into the post-season from there. Each team would play the other at least twice in a six-year period.
This set up would certainly minimize the number of tomato can non-division games. If Michigan (and USC) were to keep its series with Notre Dame intact as a non-conference game, then an annual schedule with ND, OSU, PSU and MSU plus some of the major teams in the two conferences (Nebraska, Wisconsin, USC, Oregon, Stanford) would be a pretty attractive schedule. Teams from each conference would play at least two on the road with a team from the other conference.
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@psuhockey – I think this blog and its commenters, generally are underestimating how important basketball is to the BTN.
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One major edge for Maryland is its impact in two large TV markets, Washington (an affluent area where many Big Ten alums reside) and Baltimore; I doubt UVa by itself could command those markets like College Park could. And whereas UVa and UNC would likely have to divide their states with the SEC (the likely destinations for Tech and NCSU in this scenario), Maryland would have the BTN all to itself.
True, the athletic department is currently being terribly run under Anderson, but Maryland still has plenty of positives to offer the Big Ten.
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Cutter, that 16-team Big Ten proposal adding Notre Dame, Rutgers, Maryland and Georgia Tech was the one making the rounds earlier this year for when ND’s contract with NBC expires. For ND to agree, though you would probably have to put it in a pod with Rutgers and Maryland, and possibly Georgia Tech as well, so it would continue to have football access to the East Coast.
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I love what UMd brings to the B1G (or should I say B16). Shared instiutional values, land grant school, large metro area nearby, flagship public school of a populated state. Has their moments in football, and basketball will not hurt the conference RPI. Not sure UMd is the first school you take (unless you want to use their financial situation to disrupt the ACC), but to me they are perhaps the best complementary add with UNC, and if you through UVa in there you have an almost perfect fit.
I really like Rutgers as the 4th. First off, don’t think you really want to add an entire “ACC Pod.” Second, although I understand the demographic argument for the Carolinas, most of the sports fans in the NE are not going anyplace soon, and th B1G can do much more than it has there to leverage the Penn St brand. I think Rutgers does that. If we have to expand, and I think we will, UNC, UVa, UMd and Rutgers is my dream expansion. The way the so-called “kings” are behaving I think they would be trouble in our conference, and I think bringing them it would be a huge mistake. I think you would see NYC metro area big ten alumni flood the Rutgers stadium whenver their team plays there.
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@bullet – Actually a 16 team pod system schedule would work out a lot better for the SEC than our 14 conference schedule if it was structured properly. You would almost have to include either one permenant cross-pod rival in every pod (total of 3 permenant cross-pod rivals), or just have one cross-pod rival (total of only one cross-pod rival) for the rivalries to be kept. You could keep most of the real rivalries and still play every team in the conference at least once every 3 years if you use a 3 permenant cross-pod rivals, or even more frequently if you just went with one permenant cross-pod rival.
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@drwillini I think you are underestimating Duke’s value. Duke is 7th ranked in R&D funding. Most of its students come from the affluent northeast and its basketball brand is very popular there. If there are two schools who rivalry actually feeds off each other, it is UNC vs Duke. It is to basketball what OSU Michigan is to football (or at least what is was). I think its a package deal even with their god-awful football product. I do agree with your idea of bridging the footprint with Maryland. I don’t see much value in Rutgers. If any thing, I think Duke basketball would be more worth it sports wise in the Northeast vs anything Rutgers brings.
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I hear you about Duke, and it is quite possible I am irrationally against them. I think the thing that has sort of just droped in the B1G’s lap is that the BTN values many of the things that bind the conference (i.e. big alumni base with mostly good jobs that care about college sports). So if you do something that hurts the cohesion, you are threatening the golden goose.
I think it is pretty apparent that NU and “NU” are the two farthest outliers in the conference. That in itself doesn’t mean much, you should always be able to find two samples that are the two farthest outliers from the mean. And in fact its teh actual distance the outliers are from the mean that can be a measure of homogeneity. So lets look at one of our outliers, the real NU.
At first glance Northwestern doesn fit the B1G stereotype: it is smaller, more undergraduate focused, and therefore in rankings focused on undergraduate education and that particularly value liberal arts, it is the best academic school in the conference while sometimes struggling in its revenue sports.
But Northwestern has some things tying it to the B1G. First, it was a charter member so there is a lot of history. Geographically it is at the center of the conference footprint. And finally, it is the only school in the major metropolitan area in the conference.
I think you take Northwestern, remove its history, move it out of Chicago and put it on the periphery of the footprint, and you ahve Duke.
In terms of athletics, in our conversation about conference realignment, Northwestern’s mediocrity in football is more valuable than Duke’s excellence in basketball, or at least that is the assumption the bean counters seem to be making. The UNC/Duke rivalry can be carried on nonconference, just as Illinois and Mizzou. Anyhbody from either of those schools will vouch for its intensity.
I would take Duke if I had to, to get all of UNC, UVa, and UMd. If UVa and UMd would come without Duke and UNC would not, I would not take Duke/UNC. I think it is a mistake to be in love with Duke basketball. Duke basketball is about 20 years behind Notre Dame football. They are going to have a heck of a time staying at the current level when Coach K retires. Mike Brey is a decent coach, but no Coach K, and when you are used to national final fours, making your conference final four is not as big a deal.
I would even take ND before Duke, just because I think it has more of the things going for it as Northwestern does in assimilating it into the conference.
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I agree that Duke is not like the other land-grant schools but more than makes up for it in research funding. It would be the 3rd biggest in the conference. Having Northwestern actual makes it easier to take IMO.
I don’t think its worth expanding without Notre Dame or the UNC/Duke property. In a general sense, basketball is not worth as much as football. However, UNC/Duke as a basketball propery are big enough, probably the only ones, to increase revenue especially to the BTN. The fact that they are both top 20 research schools only makes them fit all the better. Just my opinion.
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cutter,
“Pod A – Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin
Pod B – Northwestern, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana
Pod C – Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State
Pod D – Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland, Georgia Tech”
No. Just no. The B10 would never form those pods. 1/3 of the time you’d have this:
OSU, MI, ND, NE, WI, MSU, IA and MN versus PSU, GT, MD, NW, PU, RU, IL and IN.
That’s worse than the east/west split of 12 by a wide margin, and balance stopped that from happening.
This would seem better:
A – NE, WI, IA, MN
B – MI, MSU, NW, IL
C – OSU, GT, MD, IN
D – PSU, ND, PU, RU
Locked: OSU/MI, NE/PSU, ND/MSU, WI/NW, IA/IL, MD/MN, GT/RU, IN/PU
Secondary lock (if 1st one is in the paired pod):
OSU/PSU, MI/NE, ND/GT, WI/MSU, IA/PU, NW/MD, IL/IN, MN/RU
MI/ND becomes less frequent, which is a shame, but they take breaks already. ND gets 2 of their 3 rivals every year, plus lots of eastern exposure. The western 4 stay together which keeps them happy. MI and MSU both keep their top 2 rivals, plus MSU gets Chicago exposure from NW. OSU gets Atlanta and DC access and IN gets to play their neighbor plus some hoops schools. PSU gets an eastern partner plus ND. Everybody has a midwestern team to play. It’s not perfect, but it’s workable.
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@ ChicagoMac – I’m not. It’s like the early days of ESPN in that regard. The Big Ten has a deal with CBS already in place for a minimum of 24 games and the men’s basketball conference tournament for $72 million through 2017.
But in any case, I’ve consistently said Kansas is in play because of their basketball prowess. Personally, I think the Big Ten is done expanding, but Kansas could easily make #14.
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@Frank – the common application might explain the increase in selectivity, but what about the yield rate? A higher percentage of students enrolling after being accepted suggests something is making that school more attractive. That’s what caused TCU some problems the last couple of years; they were expecting more applications after the BCS bowls, but they weren’t expecting so many more students to take them up on the offer. A good problem to have, but not a minor one for a school that requires all freshmen to live on campus.
As for the MWC effect, I can’t imagine how that increased TCU’s exposure. Arguably, the 2005 MWC had worse markets than the pre-Big East raid C-USA. And it’s not like anyone was tuning into The Mtn. But I’m straining to think of something else that might explain the bump. I mean, there were some campus improvements, but who isn’t constantly doing that these days?
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I think it was the rising tide of applications going everywhere combined with “smarter admissions”. Pretty much every school in the US News rankings has experienced an upward moving yield over the past few years.
A big reason why is that admissions officers over the past 5-7 years have become a lot better at predicting which kids want to go to the schools.
Having worked in an admissions office, I can attest to this effect. Many schools are actively waitlisting or rejecting applicants that they think would have several choices ahead of them. They’ve been using much better models to predict these things as well…
5-7 years ago, they weren’t doing this; they would generally accept a lot more of the students that they didn’t think were coming…
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This effect has been much more pronounced for private schools than public schools (which may explain why it impacts TCU).
For example, in the past, there may have been a lot more dual-admits to Baylor and TCU, but overtime, they’ve figured out how to tell who would choose one over the other or vice-versa.
The same thing has happened elsewhere, such as between Duke-Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt has largely figured out what students are more likely to get into both and choose Duke, and they’ve largely been bypassing those in favor of other students.
You see a lot more students accepted by Duke and then waitlisted or rejected by Vanderbilt than you’d ever have seen just a few years ago.
My guess is that’s the effect at work at TCU, it’s been happening at a lot of private schools.
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Jake;
There’s also the impact of the top 10% law. It was passed in 1997 and may have started to really have an impact around that time. Texas got to 81% of its freshman class by that rule in 2008. Both Texas and A&M have really tightened admissions. So TCU may be getting people who previously would have had the less expensive state school option.
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zeek,
Did they measure the changes in schools that didn’t change conferences, i.e. the ones that were left behind or already in the new leagues (while choosing similar ones in profile)?
Because these kinds of selectivity issues are happening to every top 100-200 school (and especially the private schools nearer to the top) due to the nature of admissions.
While there may be some benefit, it’s hard to know just how significant the change in league is as compared to the “rising tide lifts all boats” that’s affecting everyone.
It seems as if every good school has had significant decreases in admit rates and significant increases in their yield rates over the past couple of years…
The paper is available here:
Click to access AIR_2011.pdf
“Our empirical strategy contrasts the number of institutional applicants, institutional admit rate,
institutional yield rate, and the academic ability of incoming students before and after the athletic
conference realignment “treatment” with those institutions within similar athletic conference and
divisions serving as the control group within our analysis.”
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Looking at that, I’m still not sure that you can use that kind of model to adequately measure the difference between the institutions that change conferences and those that don’t.
There are so many other variables in comparing institutions such as where the different institutions are at in their specific historical structure and specific timing issues due to the huge application boom of the past 10 years that it makes it almost a moot point.
I think we can agree that TCU got no boost from its move to the MWC from the C-USA (I mean we’re talking about a conference that just lost its TV deal and whose TV deal gave it little to no exposure anyways), yet if that’s in there, it makes me suspicious of the whole thing. Some things don’t pass the eye test and that’s one of them.
And conversely, what happens to the schools that are left behind? It doesn’t make that much sense for this kind of effect to work one way even if it theoretically does exist. I’d assume that schools left behind in a conference whose overall prestige is devalued should end up having some kind of overall net negative effect if there’s a positive effect to conference realignment.
It’s not as if the applicants are just adding extra applications to send out, they may end up replacing some of their applications to supposedly lower profile schools with those to send to the supposedly higher profile institutions.
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They lost me at Eit = α + (SCC x At) + X’itξ + Z’itξ + iSi + βtYt + εit.
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zeek,
There are a whole lot of schools below D-I, and that may be more where the negative effects show up. Also, since they were using controls, the controls could dip while the movers rise or everybody could rise for outside reasons but movers rise more.
There are always other factors involved, but that’s the point of modelling. They are trying to capture the results with reasonable accuracy without factoring in everything. That’s why they have confidence intervals and not just numbers.
As for TCU, I don’t agree the move from CUSA to MWC didn’t help them. They got headlines for the move, if nothing else. Also important, though, is that they then proceeded to go 11-1 and 11-2. Their winning also got them headlines, so that was a prolonged period of coverage for them. They even became regular members of the preseason polls starting in 2006. Would TCU have won as much or more in CUSA? Probably, but we’ll never know. Winning in the MWC may have gotten TCU more coverage than CUSA gets because bigger leagues cover the same territory completely.
Even if TCU didn’t benefit, why would that invalidate a study of multiple schools moving? All of them will vary in results. That’s what data does.
I will point out that the “eye test” and common sense are terrible ways to judge science. If I had a dollar for every time common sense was wrong about science, I’d be very rich.
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Statistical models though aren’t exactly science.
They’re mathematical applications to data that are strictly based on assumptions. In many cases, you know that the model you’re creating won’t have any actual validity even though you create it anyways.
I mean, look at demographics models; most 50 year projections end up well off path within 5 years. Or financial models where you use statistics to price options even though you know that the future path will never follow the predicted path used for pricing.
Also, you bring up another great point. What about wins/losses? Why isn’t the football record a much better explanatory variable than the switching of conferences?
That might actually end up supportive because if you win against higher profile competition, then you should attract more publicity. Conversely, if you switch conferences and then become a doormat, you’ll probably attract less publicity because you end up in less important games and being a bad team is always going to be a bad thing in terms of publicity.
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@Frank – between your job, your twins, and this blog how did you found time to pitch a TV show?
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Congratulations to the Alabama women. The SEC has defined a juggernaut in Collegiate athletics this year.
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The Bama ladies have really represented their school well in athletics this year. As I said in an above post, they have won the softball, gymnastics, and ladies’ golf national championships this year. I hate that our men’s golf team lost in that final round of the national championship, but they had a great run none the less.
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Now if your women’s basketball program would only get it in gear. I believe it hasn’t beaten Tennessee in eons.
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The Director’s Cup doesn’t have its final standings published yet, but the one published on 31 May has the ACC, Big Ten and Pac 12 wth three institutions apiece in the top ten. Florida is the lone SEC representative at #2 behind Stanford. The next SEC team after them is #17 Georgia.
Alabama is at #26 with LSU (#20) and Kentucky (#24) ahead of them. See http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/nacda/sports/directorscup/auto_pdf/2011-12/misc_non_event/may31dI.pdf?KEY=VQNGRMVWSKGGBVM.20120530195334
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The problem with the Director’s Cup (and the Capital One cup) is the formula that they use to determine the standings. The reason that Stanford has won the directors cup so much is the fact that they offer over 30 sports, where as most SEC schools only offer half that many sports. All 30+ of those sports for Stanford get include, where Bama only has around 15 sports that gets included in the formula.
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The problem with the Director’s Cup (and the Capital One cup) is the formula that they use to determine the standings.
Oh the irony.
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bamatab,
“The problem with the Director’s Cup (and the Capital One cup) is the formula that they use to determine the standings. The reason that Stanford has won the directors cup so much is the fact that they offer over 30 sports, where as most SEC schools only offer half that many sports. All 30+ of those sports for Stanford get include, where Bama only has around 15 sports that gets included in the formula.”
Not true. There is a cap on how many sports can score points (top 10 for men and top 10 for women for I-A). Having more sports does help, kind of like oversigning in recruiting.
Perhaps the SEC schools could spend some of their cash on adding sports, then they wouldn’t have to complain about it being unfair. The whole point of the directors cup is to honor broad based success in athletics.
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Regardless if there is a cap on 20 teams (10 per gender), a lot of SEC schools don’t offer 20 sports. Like I said, Alabama only offers 19 total sports (I looked it up, but thought it was around 15), 8 men’s & 11 women’s. So Alabama’s men’s sports are already handicapped for 2 sports, and I’m not sure if all of the women’s sports count in the Cup standings (I’m guessing they probably do though).
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I think the point is that Alabama has the resources to fund more than 19 sports.
Schools that do well in the Director’s Cup do so in large part because they have balanced athletic departments and fund a lot of sports.
Stated succintly, less money to Fax Girl and more money to Field Hockey.
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bamatab,
That’s a self-imposed limit by AL. They could easily support 25-35 sports. I mainly wanted to correct your statement that all of Stanford’s 30 sports count. The difference between 20 and 30 is considerable.
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Looks like the SEC just reeled in two more national championships. UF just won the men’s track & field, and LSU just won the women’s track & field.
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Interesting (and amazing) stats concerning the BTN coming out of the Chicago B1G meeting.
The biggest news Monday was the monster growth of the Big Ten Network, which begins its fifth season in August.
“The Big Ten brand has gone nationally across all our platforms, not just television,” BTN President Mark Silverman said. “Our TV network now is in over 50 million homes. We actually have more subscribers outside the nine Big Ten states than inside the nine Big Ten states.
“We have over 30 million subscribers to BTN to go. That is where you can watch the entire BTN network and all our games on your phone, computer or tablet.”
Of the almost 900 conference sporting events this school year, 600 were carried live by BTN, including the NCAA Gary Baseball Regional at U.S. Steel Yard featuring Purdue.
“We’re going to be making BTN to go available internationally later this year,” Silverman said. “During football season, BTN.com, combined with the official school webites, finished as a top 15 sports site across the entire Web.
“We’re looking to grow into the top 10 this fall.”
BTN programming is seen in more than 20 countries, Silverman added.
Ratings increased 15 percent this year and prime-time records were set in football and basketball. Advertising revenue also grew by 20 percent.
“We carried 43 football games and all were featured in HD,” Silverman said, “and 40 percent of our football games featured a team ranked in the top 25.”
http://www.nwitimes.com/sports/football/college/big-ten-network-growth-steals-the-show-from-conference-officials/article_ac18794a-9de8-5722-a3d6-9bd274a98e4a.html?comment_form=true
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GLS, that info is pretty cool… ‘course anyone with ties to the B1G had to know it would grow. Big alumni bases, big alumni dollars… internationally…
Speaking of money, expansion, etc… If you really take a hard look at the logo the BigTen conference chose when Nebraska entered, don’t the BOLDED 1 (or I if you choose) and the BOLDED G—as in 1G look much more like 16 as opposed to 10—just some crazy food for thought…
Delany and crew tend to be forward thinkers, right ?!?…
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…leaders and legends…
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That B1G logo is a goldmine…..and so adaptable (:
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“We carried 43 football games and all were featured in HD,” Silverman said, “and 40 percent of our football games featured a team ranked in the top 25.”
This line is why the Big Ten has to be careful with expansion; you don’t want to decrease that percentage…
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Interesting that both the NC State chancellor and an FSU board member have floated the idea of an 8-school playoff in the last 24 hours:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/06/06/2117885/nc-states-woodson-eager-for-a.html
Texas is still in favor of 8, as is Arizona and Georgia. Would benefit pretty much every conference except perhaps the B1G and P12.
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Not surprising that those teams are in favor of eight teams. NC St, Arizona, and Georgia will probably not win their conference any time in the near future. And Texas has the easiest conference to play in with one game against a traditional power for which they could lose and still get an at large.
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An eight-team playoff also makes sense if you’re inclined to put value in conference championships as a benchmark for being playoff eligible. If it’s the top five conferences plus three at large teams, then any decisions made on the post-season will be on the seeding and which three teams are at large. The rest would be automatic, although there might be some criteria for a conference champion to get the autobid (such as being NLT #12 in the rating system used).
Does this help the ACC? Absolutely, given its stature in the college football world. It also lends a hand to any team from one of the other conferences (Big East, MWC, C-USA) that can produce an undefeated team (especially one with a 13-0 record). Instead of being set aside in the old BCS system, past undefeated teams like Boise State, TCU and Utah would have had a shot to win the national championship by beating three top teams in a row in the playoff.
If we had this system last year, the SEC would have had three teams (Alabama, LSU, Arkansas), the Pac 12 two programs (Oregon, Stanford) and the other three would have been Oklahoma State, Boise State and Wisconsin. Because of its finish at #15 in the BCS, ACC champion Clemson would not have been given an autobid.
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I don’t think the 8 team playoff will get a whole lot of traction. If there’s one thing we know, it’s the major players will not make any drastic moves. I mean it took us a 100 years just get us to this point of a 4 team playoff.
If the ACC is throwing out an 8 team playoff it’s nothing more than a compromise point hoping they could get a decent concession on the final plan.
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Really? It’s much better than four and more palatable than sixteen.
You can emphasize the champions and throw in a wild card for the truly deserving.
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You’ve got the B1G and PAC wanting one post bowl game, after a final post bowl ranking (that they might move off of to final four), and you think a proposal of eight is anything but a play for leverage and access?
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I could care less what it “is”. I like the idea in principle.
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metatron,
“I could care less what it “is”. I like the idea in principle.”
Too bad you replied to a comment saying the idea wouldn’t get much traction, then. That’s about what it is, not the idea in principle.
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If we had this system last year, the SEC would have had three teams (Alabama, LSU, Arkansas), the Pac 12 two programs (Oregon, Stanford) and the other three would have been Oklahoma State, Boise State and Wisconsin. Because of its finish at #15 in the BCS, ACC champion Clemson would not have been given an autobid.
8 bids = 3 SEC, 2 PAC, 1 B12, 1 B1G, 1 MWC, 0 BigE, 0 ACC.
cutter,
your post implies an underlying issue often forgotten in the discussion. Is a MWC school equal to one in the Big East or ACC? Schools with Multiple MNC’s in bold and schools with at least 1 MNC in italic prior to realignment.
MWC = 2 historic MNC’s, 0 after 1950, 0 after 1975, 0 after 2000
Boise State / TCU / Air Force / CSU / UNLV / UNM / SDSU / Wyoming
Big East = 10 historic MNC’s, 2 after 1950, 1 after 1975, 0 after 2000
WVU / Syracuse / Pittsburgh / Louisville / Cincinnati / Uconn / Rutgers / USF
ACC = 14 historic MNC’s, 11 after 1950, 9 after 1975, 1 after 2000
Miami / Georgia Tech / Florida State / Clemson / Boston College
Maryland / Virginia Tech / North Carolina / NC State / Virginia / Wake Forest / Duke
some points to ponder
#1 Can TCU go 0 or 1 loss in the B12? I bet the B12 adds at least 1-2 extra L’s.
#2 The ACC is adding Pittsburgh and Syracuse who both have at least 1 MNC.
#3 In the past decade top to bottom, the BigE has been better than the MWC
Yet here Boise State is making it into a playoff when an ACC or BigE team does not. There really is a drop between top tier football, and that realm occupied by CUSA / MAC / SunB / WAC. I would argue the MWC is much closer top to bottom to these teams that the top tier of the ACC / BigE / B12 / B1G / PAC / SEC. It really is separate and unequal when it comes to football at the D I level, yet this is not reflected in the rankings which are basically beauty contests culled by wins and losses.
After realignment the structure may look more like this :
B1G / SEC = solid from the top to the middle
ACC / B12 / PAC = a few great teams at the top, but drops quickly
BE / MWC / CUSA / MAC / SunB / WAC = maybe 1 good but not great team
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duffman:
We won’t know the answer to that until we let them play one another.
If I were to use your criteria for evaluation, then the Fiesta Bowl game I witnessed in person a few years back between Boise State and Oklahoma should have ended up a Sooner victory because of the difference in the number of historic national championships that OU and the Big 12 had over BSU. We both know, of course that Boise State beat Oklahoma in a great overtime matchup.
We can’t know what a program like Boise State would look like in other conferences because they don’t play in them and can’t realistically schedule enough of them to make the sort of determination that you seem to desire.
That leaves one avenue–if they’re high enough in the rating system and there are enough at-large bids available to do so, let them match themselves against the best teams in the country in a playoff setting. With the kind of setup I’m advocating, you’re likely to get perhaps one team outside the major conferences (which for this discussion is currently the ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac 12 and SEC) in an eight-team playoff. I’d be quite happy with an eight-team playoff that takes an occasional “flier” from one of the non-major conferences to see how they’d do against that level of competition.
If Boise State were to go undefeated or have a single loss in the regular season and then win three games against top-flight competition at various bowl sites (including one that may be physically close to their opponent) and at a neutral stadium for the championship game, then I’ll happily call them national champions if they go 16-0 or 15-1.
I also think the powers that be will eventually implement an eight-team playoff. It may come about because of structural changes in football that involve reducing the number of Division 1-A teams and reorganizing the remainder into four larger conferences. To be frank, that would take a level of coordination and singular vision that we haven’t seen out of college football and I can’t foresee that happening in the near future.
The other option is the much feared “playoff creep”. I think we all remember how the 12-game regular season experiment became a permanent fixture. Well, after a handful of years (let’s say four or five), the powers that be also realize that the squabble caused by picking only four teams with a Plus One or a committee, etc. isn’t going to work well. The major conferences will want to have a near guaranteed “buy in” into the post-season playoff and the number of teams required to do that will round out to eight programs.
The beauty of doing this way is that it also allows the stronger conferences to have greater representation in the eight-team field. In the scenario above, the SEC has 3 of 8 teams and the Pac 12 has 2 of 8. Those stand as a rough barometer of how good those two conferences were in relation to the others last year.
The one interesting thing coming up is how seeing how much the Big XII and SEC really value their Champions Bowl game. If they really want to make it a match up between the champions of the two conferences, you’ll see those two conferences being in favor of a Plus One setup. Of course, the problem they realize is in that set up, the Big XII or the SEC is more likely than not knocking the other one completely out of the national championship game. Plus it helps make the Rose Bowl another de facto semi-final game so that we’re going to see more NC games being SEC or Big XII team v. Pac 12 or Big 10 team with maybe the ACC champion or a conference runnerup getting into the NC game on occasion.
I don’t think the Big XII and SEC are as in love with the Champions Bowl as the Big Ten and Pac 12 are with the Rose Bowl. In the end, my guess is we’ll see a three conference champions plus one at-large adopted playoff setup starting in 2014. That’ll be the first step to what will eventually become a five conference champion plus three-at large model to follow sometime at the end of the decade.
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TCU and/or Boise State may have went without a loss last year in virtually any conference. Both are without their primary offensive weapons this year (their star QBs)–thus wouldn’t be a surprise to see each with multiple losses this year… (regardless of conf affiliation).
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Face it, the B1G has underperformed (i.e. stunk) for a decade. I really believe, only now, with the recent coaching changes at tOSU, Michigan, PSU and MSU not to mention Pelini at Nebraska that we are FINALLY entering the era of modern college football. The salaries, recruiting etc. Let’s see where the B1G is in three or four years. I’ll bet (most years) we would land two teams in an eight team playoff and one in a four team playoff.
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Bah…there was nothing wrong with the way the Big Ten was doing things other than that it refused to over-sign when the biggest guys on the block in many other areas of the country were doing nothing but that. Facts are those that over-sign have an advantage over those that don’t and it was visible on the field.
Visibility into the practice and (I hope) the 4 year scholarship should help to minimize that practice and also go to show Saban is a good coach, but one who never had better than a two loss season without over-signing.
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The SEC has now banned oversigning. There are strict rules against it that will supposedly be enforced. We’ll see how much that affects their winning.
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Unless they changed the rules very recently and I was unaware of it, no they did not ban over-signing.
They limited the number of scholarships each school could accept to the NCAA’s official number of 25. However, most school do not have 25 kids leaving the football program every single year.
If you have 10 kids leave (10 scholarships open up) and you bring 25 kids in for fall semester (25 scholarships accepted) you have still over-signed by 15 (25 scholarships – 10 available spots = over-sign by 15).
Each Big Ten school, per conference rules, is only allowed to accept a total number of scholarships, per year, equal to the number of scholarships it has available for that upcoming year (some bend in this, but it depends on conference review). Thus if UofM has 10 kids leave it can only accept 10 scholarships to replace them.
The 4 year scholarship however is slightly curbing this trend, but I still expect over-signing to be rampant in certain programs…most notably with Saban and Miles.
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Better recruiting and better coaching. Big Ten hasn’t had it in a while.
Hoke is putting together some really good talent, much better than I’ve seen at Michigan in a while.
Urban Meyer is Urban Meyer; he’ll get stacked classes and put together winning teams. That’s what he does.
Having Nebraska will help the Big Ten’s depth a lot over time. And Bill O’Brien already looks like he’ll have Penn State doing a much better job of recruiting than JoePa did over the past couple of years. You can’t underestimate his ability to travel around the country; a lot of the recruiting gurus have said they haven’t heard Penn State talked about this much by recruits in years.
Michigan State and Wisconsin are performing really well now too. That gives you a lot of strong programs. The Big Ten hasn’t had this many programs on the upswing in a long time (maybe ever).
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The Big Ten of the last decade has been what the SEC was in the 90’s: a one team league slow to change with the times. Florida dominated the league under Spurrier just as OSU did to the BIG under Tresell. Both coaches only won one national title and performed mediocre in the bowls (Spurrier 6-5 Tressel 6-4). They dominated because the rest of the conference was stuck playing antiquated styles and living off of their previous success. The BIG was terrible in he 2000s because their traditional powers were terrible. PSU hasn’t fielded a nationally competitive team since the mid-90s and had been rotting ever since under Paterno. Michigan also went thru the tail end of Carr’s reign and made a terrible hire in RichRod. Both those programs look like they are on the right track.
The move to 4 yr scholarships was brilliant by the BIG. It will limit the SEC’s practice of over-signing eventually. The SEC will always have the lack of academic standards advantage and ESPN backing. However, football is all about coaches. Right now the SEC has that advantage, but I think you will see a downward turn. Petrino already has been booted. There are rumors of Miles leaving every other year. Lastly, BIG money will pull ever more ahead of the SEC by 2016 when the contracts are up. I do not see the SEC network being as successful as the BTN simply cause of the difference in alumni numbers and the population footprint. More money equals higher salaries for coaches and better facilities.
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@Psuhockey – You need to read this article that was written back in 2010 on the difference in population numbers between the B1G and the SEC: http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/13409431/population-could-play-large-factor-in-expansion-plans
In 2010, the B1G’s population footprint covered roughly 26% of the US population, while the SEC’s footprint covered roughly 23% of the US population. Also the total attendance of the SEC was more than the attendance of the B1G. And all of those numbers were before the SEC added the Missouri and Texas A&M. If the SEC hasn’t already moved past the B1G in population footprint already (I haven’t seen a recent comparision since the SEC added those two schools), then it probably will within at least the next 10 or so years. And the current attendance trends show that the same could be said for overall alumni numbers (although it may take a little a generation to two for that to happen). It’s not the Purdue alumn that moves to Texas that you have to worry about. It’s his children that grow up in Texas and wants to go to UT or TAMU that you have to worry about.
And if you think that SEC alumni are going to be the biggest customers of the SEC Network, then you are mistaken with that assumption as well. Take Bama for example. I would be that there are 10X more Bama fans that never attended UA than those that did within the state. In the SEC states, the teams have always been viewed in the same way that other states view pro teams. Graduating from most SEC isn’t what makes you a fan of those schools. People become fans of those schools before they enter junior high, not when they decide to attend college. I don’t see how you could come to the conclusion that a SEC Network will not be as successful as the BTN, based on population footprints and alumni numbers.
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The SEC Network is probably going to end up as successful as the Big Ten Network, but for different reasons.
The SEC’s alumni base is much more likely to live within the SEC’s footprint as compared to the Big Ten whose alumni are more likely to leave the footprint. That kind of thing tends to help the Big Ten more because the Big Ten already has carriage in all of its home markets with the bonus of alumni outside getting the network (on the contrary, the SEC is going to probably earn higher $ per subscribers in more of its markets similar to what the Big Ten gets from Nebraska’s citizens).
The SEC’s footprint is now probably larger than the Big Ten’s, although it’s hard to tell because no one has any real idea of what Texas A&M delivers in terms of markets and people within the state of Texas (in conjunction with the other SEC schools).
The Big Ten’s footprint is complete in the sense that it delivers all of the markets contained. The SEC has that in all of its states except Texas. The ACC has that in only the Mid-Atlantic, which is why you can’t just compare pure population footprints (because the ACC barely delivers on wide swaths of its footprint).
As for the sports, the SEC has baseball, the Big Ten is going to be putting up hockey; I’m not really sure that matters as much, both will do fine with their non-revenue sports filling up airtime.
I will say that the Big Ten had the advantage of timing in the sense that the Big Ten got 50M+ people locked up before the big cable vs. content provider wars really start to heat up as they’re going to now. The SEC is also negotiating against the fact that they put in the “no networks” clause into their ESPN contract, so ESPN is likely to drive a hard bargain.
All in all though, the Big Ten and SEC are going to be the richest leagues by far, so this debate isn’t really that important. Based on recent success, I’d guess that the SEC outperforms the Big Ten on money for the next few years after their deals get revalued, although the Big Ten may shoot back to parity or ahead with the next revaluation in 2016. Both should be far ahead of the rest of the leagues though soon enough (except for Texas which will match the payouts because of the LHN).
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Zeek, I can’t say that I disagree with anything you just said.
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I’ve long been bullish on an SEC Network. BTN succeeds due to passion and content. I’ve thought the SEC Network could succeed with zero football content, though at a lower subscriber rate, due to passion. Stick a bunch of talking heads on it, saying how awesome the SEC is, and the fans will tune in. If the SEC Network comes to fruition and has less football content than the BTN, I would expect them to be successful but lag a little bit in monthly subscriber rates.
But the other wild card is that ESPN would be likely half owner in the network and would be able to use their muscle to get carriage at a price they prefer. They aren’t having great success with LHN, but thats a niche channel. The recent ESPN book Those Guys Have All the Fun shows how they used their muscle and leverage to get huge subscriber rate increases to ESPN and to get carriage of their secondary channels. ESPN could maybe overcome the content issue and get about the same subscriber rates as BTN.
I don’t think A&M delivers all of Texas. PSU hasn’t delivered Philadelphia to BTN at in-conference subscriber rates. I imagine part of Texas would be at the high rates, but another part would be the out-of-conference rates. I’m not close enough to the situation to know where that line would form.
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The SEC footprint with Texas and Missouri added covers nearly 30% of the US population.
That doesn’t guarantee success of the network.
There are a number of advantages the BTN has over the SEC here:
* Median income rate in the B1G footprint is about 15-20% higher than the SEC footprint
* The poverty rates in the SEC footprint are about 30-50% higher than in the B1G footprint
* Basketball is a major contributing factor for success in the B1G where there is a deep roster of schools with sizable basketball following. The SEC does not have the depth of following (steep drop after Kentucky). Keep in mind that when it comes to programming hours for the BTN or the proposed SEC network Men’s Basketball is going to eat up an awful lot of programming hours.
* Texas and Florida, which represent almost 50% of the SEC footprint’s population, and are also the best economies in the footprint are kind of unique markets. S Florida which is the biggest population center in the state is not a football mad geo and the state of Texas is obviously much more of a UT market than it is an aTm market.
* Also, half the BTN subscribers are outside the B1G footprint, I wonder how that translates for the SEC?
Ultimately, its just not as simple as our footprint/14 vs. your footprint/12.
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@ChicagoMac – First of all, my post wasn’t arguing the fact as to whether or not a SEC Network would be successful, it was arguing Psuhockey’s assumption that the SEC Network wouldn’t be as successful as the BTN that he based on the stance of the B1G having a bigger population and/or more alumni. No one can be100% sure whether or not a SEC Network would or wouldn’t be as successful as the BTN (although I personally believe it will at least be as successful).
But with that said, let me ask you some questions/thoughts based on your stated advantages that you believe the BTN has:
* Can you you provide link that give the median income & poverty rates for the B1G & SEC footprints? I’m not saying that you are wrong, I just would like to actually see those numbers, along with how those numbers project over the next 20 or so years.
* Also when figuring in median income, you also need to figure in cost of living in those footprints. Just because someone makes more, doen’t mean they have more to spend and/or are willing to spend it more freely. Again i personally don’t know what those numbers are and would be interested in what they are.
* Obviously you would be surpised at the basketball following the SEC schools have. The SEC was second last year in basketball attendance behind only the B1G. Football isn’t the only sport that SEC fans will watch. Heck, even Bama averaged over 12,000 in attendance per meet for gymnastics last year. Now every SEC won’t subscribe to a SEC Network based soley on those other sports, but once they’ve subscribed for the football/basketball/baseball (which is also a pretty popular SEC sport) related content, a lot of them will watch the other sports when they are on.
* As far as what percentage of FL & TX will subscribe to a SEC Network, I don’t think anyone knows that for sure. But I think it is a pretty safe bet to say that there will be enough demand in FL to push the network into the basic cable packages, even in south FL due to those providers already providing it for the rest of the state. Now TX is the wildcard. I can’t say for sure how well it’ll get picked up there. I think the Houston market is a relatively safe bet to have the network in the basic packages due to the amount of TAMU & LSU alumni/fans in that area. I will admit that the rest of the markets are a tossup.
* As for how half the BTN subscribers being outside the B1G footprint affects the SEC, I don’t know how that translates for the SEC. But I would think that it could have a negative affect on the B1G over the long term. Again if B1G graduates and fans are moving outside of the B1G footprint, then their children and grandchildren have a greater likelyhood to end up either rooting for the schools that their friends root for (especially if they are within the SEC footprint), and/or are more likely to enroll in the universities within those footprints outside the B1G.
Agains, I personally don’t see how anyone can say with any conviction that the SEC won’t be as successful as the B1G. Now it will take a few years to catchup with the B1G, no doubt. But I don’t think there is any concern that there won’t be a huge market for a SEC Network.
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One source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income
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@bama If you consider resident states as the footprint, you are right that the SEC pulled ahead of the BIG. However there is some fault in using that number as ChicagoMac points out. That number assumes that all of Florida and Texas will be watching cause of UF and TA&M just as the BIG has Chicago and Philly cause of Northwestern and Penn State. We both know thats not the case but those are the numbers. However the BIG’s footprint is being undervalued because of Penn State’s influence on the rest of the northeast. New York, New Jersey, and Maryland are not part of the BIG footprint even though all three of those areas have numerous PSU T-shirt fans and more importantly alumni. PSU by polls taken has been the 1st or 2nd favorite college football team in New York City, Baltimore, and D.C. That is because it is really the only major college football program in the Northeast and its huge enrollment.
Penn State currently enrolls 95,833 students in all of its campuses. That number is almost a quarter of the total enrollment for all the SEC schools (around 410,834 added up at stateunivesity.com and wikipedia for the satellites if you want to check). The BIGs total is around 555,540. Northwestern’s enrollment is bigger than 4 SEC schools. That matters hugely in regards to a network. Alumni are more likely to watch other sports programing from a school like baseball, basketball, and hockey. How much are t-shirt fans going to care about those sports? Like you stated, SEC football is like professional football in these areas. A large portion of Philadelphia Eagles fans couldn’t care less about the Flyers, Sixers, or Phillies and especially would not pay extra to catch a couple of preseason games; they would just go to a bar. Look no further than the lack of demand for the LHN in Texas and that is the richest athletic department in the country.
I concede your point it is a little premature to say with conviction that the SEC network will not be as profitable. But is it just as premature to say that cause of recent population numbers, SEC schools enrollment will pass BIGs in ten years. I know every sports writer like to cite those
numbers to show the imminent death of the BIG which is actually laughable when you look closely into those numbers The south has a much higher population of hispanics both recently legal and illegal and the bulk of the migration from the north has been low income workers leaving the dying Rust Belt factories to the more prosperous southern ones; not typical college candidates and expensive cable subscribers. My belief that the SEC network will not be as successful as the BTN is based on the huge alumni numbers of the BIG schools with the t-shirt fans adding to that number, not driving it as it would with the SEC states IMO. The footprint of the BTN is essentially bigger because these graduates take their allegiance with them where ever they go.
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@bamatab
Greg posted some links below for income and poverty rates by state.
I don’t have data on cost of living or disposable income. I actually think the poverty rate is most important number though, I suspect the % of households with Paid TV Subscriptions is dramatically different above and below the poverty line.
I’m well aware of the attendance figures in basketball. TV ratings are obviously the big key and B1G ratings are 20% higher than SEC ratings on average. Keep in mind though, the average isn’t the best number because every B1G game is on TV and I do not believe that is the case for the SEC. So there is a selection bias when it comes to the SEC games.
There are something like 6 different cable providers in each of Texas and Florida. Eash one is likely to pay different amounts and work towards different tiers. The intensity of the college football interest in Florida is almost certainly more heavy in the less populated Northern part of the state than the South. I think we dramatically oversimplify things when we talk about these footprints and how much each is worth. Its different in Alabama vs. Florida vs. Texas vs. Missouri.
The point about the success of the BTN outside the footprint is that if you can show a national footprint you can attract a wider selection of advertisers.
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@PSU hockey
Got any stats on those statements? I’m pretty sure the opposite is true. Its more likely the professionals that move and the poor that don’t have the resources stay. The midwest has had good union jobs, but has been relatively light on white collar jobs. One obvious fact is that the southern states trend younger. I think several have made the argument that B10 grads are everywhere. Part of that is an effort to find jobs that don’t exist in sufficient numbers in the midwest. I’ve got two family members that made that choice. They just couldn’t find jobs in Ohio. If you ever spent time driving around Charlotte, Atlanta, Dallas or Houston, you would find that your steretypes of the south are at least 50 years out of date. I remember spending the summer with my parents in Cincy during college (after being in Texas for 10 years) and just being stunned at the obvious wealth discrepancy in favor of Houston and Dallas compared to Cincinnati.
Now I don’t buy Andy’s argument that the SEC will necessarily pass the Big 10, but its not because poor uneducated midwesterners move south. If he’s right, its because the educated professionals move south.
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@bullet. Here are some stats. Civilian unemployment rates percentages per about.com as of June 2011: 7 SEC states in the top 12 all above the national average of 9.2. Florida 10.6 South Carolina 10.5 Mississippi 10.3 Alabama 9.9 Georgia 9.9 Tennessee 9.8 Kentucky 9.6. Only 1 BIG state in Michigan 10.5. College grad unemployment is three times less than high school only grads. So one could correlate that these states have a higher concentration of unemployed unskilled workers versus employed college grads.
Cant verify the quality of the website ( LatinosTories.com) but they had the percent difference of 2000 to 2010 Hispanic populations per state, all increases. Alabama 144.8% increase Arkansas 114.2 increase Florida 57.4 increase Georgia 96.1 increase Kentucky 121.6 increase Louisiana 78.7 Mississippi 105.9 increase Missouri 79.2 South Carolina 147.9 Tennessee 134.2 Texas 41.8. Texas and Florida had the smallest increase but had the largest population of Hispanics. So seven of the other states practically double in that time. Here are the BIG states percentage increases: 32.5, 81.7, 83.7, 34.7, 74.5, 77.3, 63.4, 82.6, 74.2. The BIG states Hispanic population has grown at a much slower pace on average than the SEC states.
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ChicagoMac, you’re wrong about basketball. Check average attendance figures for leagues. SEC is a close second to the big ten, and ahead of the Big 12, ACC, Big East, and Pac 12. Support for basketball in the SEC is much stronger than you seem to think. Kentucky, Florida, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabma, and Vanderbilt all have strong followings. Texas A&M, Mississippi State, and LSU have respectable followings as well.
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@Andy, Like I said above, it is TV ratings that matter. The SEC basketball TV ratings are 20% lower than the B1G’s if we set aside the Tier 1 games I would bet big money that the spread widens. The bottom line is that the B1G has a much deeper roster of schools whose fans care enough about basketball to tune in and watch.
SEC basketball attendance is extremely top heavy after UK and Tennessee there really isn’t much there. I believe the 3rd best in the SEC would be something like 8th in the B1G.
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@PSUhockey
Hint: The Hispanics aren’t moving to the South from the midwest.
If you look at that poverty map you will see exactly what is going on. In Texas it is concentrated along the Mexican border. In the deep south its rural poverty. There’s the “black belt” running from N. Carolina to the Mississippi River that is the old cotton country. Midwest rural areas are not as poor. The major metro areas in the south are not as poor.
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Michigan at the tail end of the Carr reign won 10 or 11 games per year and went to a few Rose Bowls. That’s pretty good.
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Interesting article here regarding this subject from Eleven Warriors. http://www.elevenwarriors.com/2012/06/11655/b1ggie-pac
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Don’t think anyone has linked this. Mr SEC doubts SEC will expand soon unless the ACC collapses:
http://www.mrsec.com/2012/06/the-sec-isnt-interested-in-adding-more-teams-anytime-soon/
the gist is that 14 has been a lot more complicated than they expected. That’s consistent with several other reports from unnamed ACC and SEC sources. Even Neinas said SEC people were telling him it was difficult.
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Yeah, I think the only way the SEC expands is if they can get one of the following combos: UNC and Virginia, UNC and Virginia Tech, UNC and NCState, or UNC and Duke. None of that is happening unless the Big 12 makes a major raid on the ACC (4 or more schools). And since that isn’t happening, the SEC won’t be expanding.
I think any SEC expansion without UNC would likely only happen if everyone was going to 16 and for some reason the SEC had to keep up. But how likely is that?
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UNC doesn’t want the SEC, but is it stupid enough to want to dominate a fiefdom merely for domination’s sake, even as that fiefdom fades into football irrelevance and permanent #5 football revenue status? (And its recent scandal doesn’t help matters any.) Eventually, it will have to make a choice — and if it doesn’t, other ACC schools (FSU, Clemson, GaTech, VaTech, UMd) may make it for them. You can talk all you want about ACC unity, but as its football revenue and relevance compared to the other four conferences increasingly lessens, that unity soon will be a thing of the past — particularly for members who occupy states with SEC competition.
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Hmmm, remember when Chaddddddd said the FSU BOT Chair Haggard was a lame duck and thus his comments about the B12 were meaningless and FSU would never even considering leaving the ACC? And how the usual suspects jumped all over that lame duck rationale? Turns out Haggard can run for another term if he decides to:
http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20120607/NEWS/306070018/Barron-says-ACC-FSU-will-shot-title-game?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|frontpage&nclick_check=1
By Friday afternoon, the board will have determined how much it wants to raise tuition for the coming school year, and it may well have elected a new chair. Andy Haggard, chair of the board since March 2010, has not said if he is interested in seeking a second term.
Also:
But Barron said that FSU and the Big 12 have not been talking, and he stressed that there are multiplie factors at play.
“Fear that the ACC will be frozen out of a title game is driving this more than anything,” Barron said.
He said the ACC will not be kept out of a playoff for a national championship game, as long it has an undefeated team.
Said Barron, “The only thing that will freeze out FSU is not winning.”
And in another article an FSU BOT suggested that they request the ACC to push for 8 playoff spots.
So wait a minute, I keep hearing from the usual know-it-all’s that no school would consider leaving the ACC because the academics are so great and trump all other factors. That the money issue is so small that no one would even consider leaving. That playoffs (and any implied monetary factors tied to playoffs) are so insignificant in the grand scheme of things that it would be ludicrous to even consider that it would matter.
Yet here we are, with multiple BOT’s discussing the possibility of realignment and weighing options, playoffs as a factor, and concerns that the money gap over time would be quite substantial. Now that doesn’t mean FSU will jump, but it sure looks like realignment has a part of their attention.
The talk is careful and downplays realignment, but just talking about it openly is odd if there is no possibility of leaving and certainly doesn’t do the ACC any favors. I can start a rumor that FSU is going to give every student a free pony and might get substantial discussion about it on the internet, but the BOT is never going to discuss it other than perhaps a curt, “That’s ridiculous” or “No substance whatsoever to that.” So it seems that a lot of the initial arguments that any school leaving the ACC is unfathomable have been proven wrong.
Again, that doesn’t mean the arguments in favor of staying in the ACC are not stronger and won’t win out, but it seems clear that a move is possible, or rather possible enough that FSU and/or other schools may at some point examine them at some level.
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@Playoffs Now – I interpret the comments a bit differently. What I see is that the FSU president clearly doesn’t want to leave the ACC. It goes back to the email that he shot off to alums stating that the faculty wouldn’t agree to leaving for a conference that’s lower on the academic pecking order and he’s now dismissing the fear of an ACC team being left out of the playoff by essentially saying “FSU just has to win”, intimating that the conference home doesn’t matter for that issue. FSU’s president hasn’t just been issuing the standard “We haven’t talked to the Big 12 and we’re happy in the ACC as of today” denials – his comments have been going beyond that indicating his position on the matter even though he leaves enough wiggle room to not foreclose anything completely.
Now, that might not matter if the trustees have a different opinion and effectively order him to speak to the Big 12. There could be enough alums with pitchforks up to drive a move through. Nonetheless, this is very different than the situations at Nebraska, Texas A&M and Missouri, where all of the day-to-day management, trustees and alumni were largely on the same page. I don’t see where the key prongs of the FSU community are on the same page at all as of now. That could certainly change and maybe FSU ends up in the Big 12, but their president isn’t leading the charge and that makes things not as clear. Even in the case of A&M, their president might not have been quite as forceful in pushing a move toward the SEC if alums didn’t keep the issue at the forefront, but there was still built-in acrimony within the Big 12 that I don’t believe really exists at the leadership level in the ACC. (The fans’ perceptions might be a different story.)
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I’m not so sure Missouri’s president was leading the charge at all and the KC alumni were split. A&M’s AD is out basically because he wasn’t for it. So, yes FSU does seem to have some split and the President seems to be against it, but your analogy is not accurate.
Its like someone said about Clemson’s statement. Its like saying you are happily married but you are looking around and will consider going on dates with others. FSU has announced publically they are running the numbers and will decide based on that (assuming they get an offer).
PN’s comments are against the media and many fans across the country who think all of this is a made up fantasy of some kids in WV claiming to be insiders. On other realignment there has been skepticism about whether it would really happen, but the refusal to believe this is even possible or even being considered is just amazing.
I’ve seen enough different people from enough different places commenting that I believe this is very far along. FSU could still run its Tier 3 study and decide there wasn’t enough to make it worth switching, but this probably will happen. Ultimately, the President has to listen to the accountants. The BOT certainly will.
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The one difference between FSU’s situation and everyone else to this point is the academic angle.
Going from the Big 12 to the SEC wasn’t a downgrade in terms of academic prestige; plus, those two universities had to make sure they were in stable positions.
The decision that FSU has to make is different. They have to go against the grain on that angle to pull off this move. It’s not insurmountable by any stretch, but it changes the equation.
This isn’t just a numbers game for FSU.
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Going from the Big 12 to teh SEC wasn’t a downgrade in prestige at all. The Missouri curators commissioned a study on this. With the departure of Nebraska and Colorado, the SEC actually became a stronger academic option.
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And other than A&M there was no acrimony at the Presidents level in the Big 12. They all got along well (see the Nebraska president’s article about how it all went down). Same is true in the ACC. There was some fan and perhaps BOT acrimony in Big 12. Same is true in the ACC.
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Yes, as I said above in the super-long thread, Missouri’s leadership wasn’t at all united about leaving the Big 12. They were divided and hesitant about the Big Ten and just as much or more so about the SEC (which is why it took several months). Missouri helped found what is now the Big 12 over 100 years ago. KC alums especially were not as much in favor of the move.
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Frank, I sent you two emails on a business-related topic that I thought might interest you but no reply. Did they go to a spam folder or have you gone big time and no longer respond to the “little people.”
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@rich2 – Ah, I just saw them in my spam folder. I’m certainly far from big-time.
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Ok, … and are you interested to at least discuss further — if so…
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C’mon man. You’re hyperbolizing a lot here.
The ACC looked rock solid to everyone until the Big 12-SEC Champions Bowl game creation.
That event triggered the switch between seeing the ACC as more stable than the Big 12 towards seeing the Big 12 as a top 4 league with the ACC on the outside.
Everyone here acknowledges this fact. It’s also why we now believe that the Big 12 has a good shot at grabbing FSU and Clemson.
The issue is going to be getting all of their actors on the same page including the faculty groups; you don’t want a rebellion from the academics…
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Everyone?
A Bowl agreement changing two conference’s long term stability? There is only one Bowl that has that kind of influence. It will take decades of extreme success for a startup to approach that kind of influence. It is an interesting creation, and it may achieve that. But until it does it doesn’t confir stability.
Attracting FSU and Clemson? A shot. Maybe a decent one. Maybe.
Until the ACC goes through a near death experience, losing major body parts and having to scramble to get back to the point it can fulfill its media commitments, I’d still consider it more stable.
I guess I’m not part of everyone…
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You don’t have to go through all of that.
Perception is like 9/10ths of the battle here…, and the perception is that the Big 12 is stronger than the ACC as a result of the comparative media agreements and Champions Bowl.
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I agree that it is a matter of perception. I disagree as to perceptions actual impact. When did “perception” write a check? If after thorough examination perception is shown to be based in fact then you act, or don’t act, based upon the facts. Perception said the B12 was dead, more than once. Perception said ND was becoming irrelevant a decade ago.
What I enjoy about FtT’s blog and most of the contributors is the constructive examination of the facts around rumors (perceptions). It is the discrimination between false perception and perception based in actuality that most informs, and occasionally is predictive.
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cc, the Pac declining to take Texas or Oklahoma (twice in OU’s case) effectively changes the equation for at least the next decade because of the GOR and makes the Big 12 a solid conference with two football kings, some potentially very good programs at the next tier and more depth from top to bottom than the ACC.
Had the Pac expanded beyond 12, either to 16 with the Big 12 South minus Baylor or to 14 with OU and Okie State, the Big 12 would have been mortally wounded (in the first case) or considerably weakened (in the second), leaving the ACC either a solid #4 (with a Pac-16) or even with the Big 12 at #4 (with a Pac-14). In essence, the Pac presidents’ reluctance to bring in Okie State (in either case), along with the Big Ten creating a 13-year GOR, puts the ACC behind the 8-ball. Even were it to keep Florida State and Clemson, neither are #1 in their states (the mark of a true king). Moreover, no ACC member (other than possibly UNC and Duke) would be interested in any conference GOR.
By the time the Big 12 GOR runs out, the ACC might be able to counteract — but by then, the ACC will either be dead or a shell of its former self, as many of its members will either have found new homes or be screaming for one. (For example, far more Maryland fans are pining for the Big Ten than was the case two years ago.) Being deemed a more or less permanent #5 in a four-conference college football universe is a ticket to oblivion.
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That should be “Big 12 creating a 13-year GOR”. Oopsie.
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The ACC looked rock solid to everyone until the Big 12-SEC Champions Bowl game creation.
I don’t know about rock solid. There had been rumors about the Big 10 and SEC sniffing around for 2+ years and FSU and Clemson were linked before the Champions Bowl was announced.
The fact is, the only conferences that are rock solid are the SEC and those that have signed a GOR.
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ACC became a lot less stable when everyone realized the media deal they signed was awful and deals signed by other conference will make it look tiny.
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It’s what you expect out of a conference on the East Coast, especially one with most of its schools from North Carolina on up, where college football culture is relatively weak. One wonders the last year any of the NC schools had a higher average home football attendance than Clemson or South Carolina; you might have to go back to the 1980s.
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Hey Andy, Where’s Missouri in this list? Forbes must also be spreading opinions and half truths; you better to enlighten them.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2011/12/22/college-footballs-most-valuable-teams/
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yeah, that list is kind of dumb. Missouri is one of the to 10 winningest programs in America over the last 6 years. They did it in the 2nd best football conference in America, beating teams like Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, Arkansas, North Carolina, and others. If you rank based on winning, Missouri would be pretty high on that list. But the list is based only on revenue from football. Missouri’s revenue hasn’t been great for for two reasons: 1) they only made about $12M per year in TV money from the Big 12. This is about to more than double from the move to the Big Ten. 2) compare last year’s home football schedule: Miami OH, Western Illinois, Iowa State, Texas, Texas Tech, to next year’s home football schedule: Southern Louisiana, Georgia, Arizona State, Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Syracuse. Which schedule do you think will sell more tickets? Ticket sales right now at Missouri are at actual all-time record highs. And they’ve increased the donation requirements to upgrade seating. Expect football revenue at the University of Missouri to go up sharply next year, and since that’s entirely what this ranking is based on, expect them to shoot up that list.
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should read “based on their move to the SEC”, too much Big Ten talk in this forum, seems to be contageous. Hey word press, how about an edit feature? Plenty of websites have these…
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Yeah, and have you noticed how MrSEC has too much SEC talk. What’s up with that?
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is FranktheTank Mr. Big Ten? From what I can tell this blog is for everyone. Frank just happens to be an Illinois guy.
FWIW I’m a Big Ten alum too. Did my graduate work at Michigan.
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^I don’t think he is, but a lot of SEC guys act like he is.
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Ofcourse it’s dumb, it doesn’t support your arguement. This also shows which teams merchandise are being bought nationwide (aka national appeal). Iowa made it for crying out loud. Come on Andy, Missouri just isn’t one of the Top 25 best football programs in the country; you are kidding yourself.
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Missouri ranks 18th in the country in apparel sales right now:
http://www.clc.com/clcweb/publishing.nsf/Content/Second+Quarter+Rankings+2010-2011
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…..ranked right behind West Virginia and Wisconsin.
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That’s just because the university bought a bunch to hand out at the SEC meetings in Atlanta this week. They didn’t want to be embarrassed by the Aggie turnout.
Just kidding. Kind of weird seeing the Missouri is in the SEC billboards in Atlanta. Not sure what type of benefit they expect to get out of that. Maybe they had to bribe people and agree to advertise on their billboards to get the SEC invite. It was either that or be a junior member in the SEC!
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That is not 18th in the country. The CLC represents a lot of schools, but not all of them. They don’t include OSU, USC, Iowa, MSU, Oregon and others.
http://www.clc.com/clcweb/publishing.nsf/Content/institutions.html
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greg, feel free to find me a complete ranking. That’s all I could find. Interesting to see Missouri ranked ahead of South Carolina, Texas A&M, Kansas, Florida State, Illinois, Clemson, Washington, UCLA, Cal, Arizona, Duke, Syracuse, Virginia, Colorado, Stanford, BYU, UConn, etc. Not too bad.
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Andy, Nebraska didn’t make so much more on TV revenue than Missouri…so that argument makes no sense. It has more to do with tickets sold, merchandise sold etc. The SEC money will help but it won’t move Missouri up to Nebraska’s level.
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Danimation, of course Nebraska makes more money in football, duh. OrderRestored is trying to use the Forbes ranking as evidence that Missouri isn’t a top 25 program. I’m saying that a lot of that has to do with Missouri’s weak home schedule, which will soon be fixed, and their weak tv dollars, which will soon be fixed.
I mean really, it’s a miracle Missouri averaged 63k fans per game in a down year with that schedule: Miami OH, Western Illinois, Iowa State, Texas, Texas Tech. That’s just awful. From now on Missouri gets either Florida and Tennessee at home every year or Arkansas and Georgia. Plus rotating games with teams like Alabama, LSU, etc. This, plus all of the traveling SEC fans, should add to Missouri’s attendance considerably. HUGE upgrade to the schedule. That and they’re going to make $15-18M more per year in TV money, and apparel sales are already strong but they just started a major deal with Nike with brand new uniforms, apparel, etc so that should go up. It’s almost certain that Missouri’s football revenue will rise by $20M+ per year. That should shoot them up the Forbes rankings considerably. That’s what I’m saying.
But yeah, Nebraska sells a lot of tickets, no doubt.
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Interesting note at the bottom of this ESPN article.
“The Big Ten also Monday announced it will distribute a record $284 million in revenue to its members this year. Nebraska, which joined the league in 2011, reportedly will receive a smaller share of the revenue until the 2016-17 academic year.”
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8007923/big-ten-wants-selection-committee-pick-four-team-playoff
That means that the buy-in for UNL into the BTN was actually 5 years starting in the 2011 year and going through the 2015 academic year. Not a bad deal.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/stewart_mandel/07/24/tv-deals/index.html
In relation to that Eleven Warriors article I agree that it has some bias however I do feel that the points that the SEC is trying to copy/emulate the B1G’s success is obvious in relation to the CIC and the Rose Bowl.
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In looking at the TV contracts that the B1G had in place prior to adding UNL and the conference championship game the link below showed that the yearly average was ~$214mm with a per team amount of $19.45mm. I realize that advertising rates and some other factors play in however I am trying to estimate what the bump the B1G received by adding UNL and creating a conference championship game. It looks like it would be in excess of $50mm. Am I off my rocker here?
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/stewart_mandel/07/24/tv-deals/index.html
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Andy, no doubt that Missouri will see a bump in interest by having some big time opponents coming in from the SEC during the honeymoon phase. If Missouri gets consistently hammered I wonder how long the short-term spike in attendance will last.
I think Missouri is going to be around a .500 regular season team this year (+/- 2 games) because of their schedule and who they have coming back. They could win a couple more than that but it isn’t going to be a breakout year.
UNL on the other hand had a disasterious year in their first year in the B1G last year and yet they sold out and had excellent fan support…albeit some serious gripeing was probably going on. So again big difference there.
It will be interesting to see how Missouri fills out their stadium once it is expanded. Hopefully SEC fans will travel well to fill it up and I would venture a guess that is what was driving a good part of the idea to expand. Although Missouri is not really a mecca or a must see environment for SEC fans compared with the other places that they have been going to for years. TN, GA, FL, Bama are all big time environments that are fun places to go to while Columbia, MO is kinda alright but nothing special.
I am glad that we have come to a meeting of the minds on UNL & Missouri. Similar academic institutions (Missouri has an advantage with AAU which helps profile with enticing new applicants), similar research funding amounts with Missouri in a slight lead (UNL should increase funding due to CIC & partnering with B1G instituions), UNL is a far superior football program via tradition, fan base, attendance, winning, merchandising, travel etc., UNL is significantly ahead in athetlic department revenue which will increase significantly in five years once they are fully vested in the BTN.
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Last sentence should have read “…four years once they (UNL) are fully vested in the BTN.”
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“Andy, no doubt that Missouri will see a bump in interest by having some big time opponents coming in from the SEC during the honeymoon phase. If Missouri gets consistently hammered I wonder how long the short-term spike in attendance will last.”
Arguments like this are terrible because you could say the same for 95% of programs in the country. Also, there’s really no reason to think Mizzou will do significantly better or worse in the SEC than they have in the Big 12, but they will be in a much better conference with more attractive games and higher revenue.
“I think Missouri is going to be around a .500 regular season team this year (+/- 2 games) because of their schedule and who they have coming back. They could win a couple more than that but it isn’t going to be a breakout year.
UNL on the other hand had a disasterious year in their first year in the B1G last year and yet they sold out and had excellent fan support…albeit some serious gripeing was probably going on. So again big difference there.”
UNL fans have turned fast on Bobo and Taylor Martinez. It is not pretty. It’s not hard to wonder about Pelini’s job security if he churns out a few more meh seasons for a fanbase that still thinks they should be competing for national titles.
I see Mizzou at 7 or 8 wins next year in the regular season, and I doubt the majority of Mizzou fans think much different. It’s silly to think the huge increase in season tickets will go away if Mizzou doesn’t win the SEC East next year.
“I am glad that we have come to a meeting of the minds on UNL & Missouri. Similar academic institutions (Missouri has an advantage with AAU which helps profile with enticing new applicants), similar research funding amounts with Missouri in a slight lead (UNL should increase funding due to CIC & partnering with B1G instituions), UNL is a far superior football program via tradition, fan base, attendance, winning, merchandising, travel etc., UNL is significantly ahead in athetlic department revenue which will increase significantly in five years once they are fully vested in the BTN.”
As I’m getting to the end of your post I am realizing you must be a Husker homer. The Nubs have great history but they have a pretty hefty glass ceiling on their potential given the small in-state population and talent base. Their best days are likely long gone.
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Andy, I found something a little comical in your boosting of Missouri’s imaginary prominance. Shouldn’t the fact that you are comapring Missouri’s best decade (’02-’12) since the ’60s to Nebraska’s worst decade (’02-’12) since the 60’s and its even comparible tell you something? Just a thought. I know my Irish haven’t been stellar lately; but you don’t see me on here spewing delusions of granduer for my fellas in South Bend. It is what it is, Andy. Missouri is just second rate.
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Missouri is in the SEC East, so I think they have a good chance. If they were in the SEC West I’d be more pessimistic.
I think Missouri can beat Kentucky and Vanderbilt consistently. I think Arkansas is likely going to stumble because of the Petrino scandal, and they don’t average all that more in attendance than Missouri at this point. I see South Carolina’s success as largely linked to Spurrier. They didn’t do much before he showed up. Georgia is a power, but not a superpower. I wouldn’t rate them any higher than Nebraska, and Missouri has been competitive with them. Tennessee and Florida are great programs, but they’ve both sucked lately, so I don’t see why Missouri can’t win those games some of the time. Missouri will also rotate games in with Ole Miss, MSU, and Texas A&M. Those are games Missouri should win. They only have to play LSU, Alabama, and Auburn 1 out of every 6 years, or one game from that group once every two years. So I expect Missouri to win between 6 and 10 games in any given season, averaging around 7.5, which should be enouhg to keep fans interested. But I know, I know, Mizzou sucks, you say. All of their recent success is meaningless, etc etc. And the fact that Missouri was a top 20 program in the 40s,50s,60s,and 70s is irrelevant and there’s no way Missouri could be returning to that given that they’re top 10 in wins over the last 5 years. Yeah, good for you.
Yeah, if Misouri goes back to losing all the time then their attendance will fall and they won’t make much money. But if they keep winning then they’re on track to jump into the top 20, maybe even top 15 in terms of revenue eventually. We’ll see what happens. No doubt you’ll be rooting against us all the way. Good for you.
As for SEC fans traveling: Missouri will play 4 border state schools every season: Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt. All of them are a reasonable drive from Columbia. They also play South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida every year. Those three programs have rabid fanbases that travel well.
Visitors to Columbia are typically happy with their visit from what I’ve seen, but I know, I know, Mizzou sucks bla bla.
Yeah, Mizzou’s academics aren’t worlds apart different from Nebraska. Probalby about 20% better. Certainly not twice as good or anything like that. They’re both big landgrant schools with agriculture departments, etc. You say Nebraska will benefit greatly from the CIC. Maybe eventually. And Misosuri will probably benefit somewhat (although not as much) from the SEC Academic Consortium once they get their act together. But where Missouri will likely be able to surpass Nebraska even further is in people. Missouri is the fastest growing University in the AAU. They’ve grown from 22k to 34k in just a few years. They’re building like crazy to grow, grow grow. There are a lot of people in Missouri and more of them want to go to the University of Missouri. Also, Misosuri has been drawing record numbers from out of state. Many are coming from Dallas and Chicago. Missouri is now heavily recruiting students from Atlanta and Florida (bullet, that’s what those billboards are about). At this rate, Mizzou is going to have 40k students before too long, much like top schools in the Big Ten like Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc. More students means more alumni, more tuition dollars, more fans, more support. That’s worth a lot, and it’s something Nebraska is going to struggle to acheive given their tiny population.
Nebraska has better football. Missouri’s football is on track to maybe be top 20 level. Nebraska is already top 10 level. So no doubt Nebraska has better football. Missouri basketball is quite strong. Unfortunately they have a terrible habit of losing to lower seeds in the tournament, but they had more conference titles in the Big 12 than anyone but Kansas (Yeah, Texas was slightly ahead too but they got 90% of their titles in the extremely weak-in-basketball SWC), and had a winning record against every Big 12 team except Kansas and very narrow defecits to Oklahoma and Kansas State. Nebraska is dead last in the Big 12 in basketball. Amazingly, they’ve never won an NCAA tournament game, ever. But what am I talking about, basketball doesn’t matter in realignment at all.
What you skip over again of course is the biggest factor of all, which is population. Missouri has more than three times as many households as Nebraska. So for Nebraska to break even on subscriber fees they’d need to more than tripple their subscriber fees and advertising fees. It seems doubtful to me that they could pull that off, so likely Nebraska brings less money to the BTN than Missouri will bring to the SEC network.
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Order restored, like I said, take out the 80s and 90s and Nebraska leads the series with Missouri by about 4 games. Yes, Missouri was absolutley terrible during those years. There’s no denying it. But in the years before and since Missouri has done pretty well. Nebraska on the other hand has done very well pretty much constantly in football. Kudos to them for that. Their state population is tiny. Their basketball team is one of the worst in the country. They’re the first AAU University to ever be kicked out of the AAU. Oh, and their football team has been slumping for about a decade now and currently typically finishes worse than Missouri. But yeah, you guys were a no brainer for the Big Ten. Definitley. The SEC were idiots for taking Missouri. Mizzou sucks, or something.
And Danimation, yeah the SEC is copying the Big Ten right and left. They’re setting up a conference network. They’re setting up a southern CIC. They’re setting up a southern version of the Rose Bowl. Sure, so what? They’re good ideas. I’m glad they’re stealing them.
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I’m not in any way connected to Nebraska, Andy….I just know college football and have enough sense to call someone’s BS. Take out the 80’s and 90’s? How about take out the 00’s and Missouri look alot like Kansas, except without the banners in basketball ofcourse. (which means little to nothing in expansion anyway). The Big Ten does a lot of goofy things, I recognize that. But taking Nebraska hands down over Missouri wasn’t one of them. You are well in the minority in thinking otherwise.
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“OrderRestored”, I have a hard time believing you aren’t a Nebraska fan considering “Order Restored” is a common catch phrase among Nebraska fans (google it if you don’t believe me), and you’ve spent about two dozen posts enthusiastically defending Nebraska. But if that’s how you like to spend your time have at it.
No, if you take away the 2000s Missouri wouldn’t look like Kansas. Historically Kansas wins about 4 or 5 games per season, and about once or twice per decade they win 8 or maybe even 10 games. They have 12 bowl games all time. Missouri was a team that went to bowl games regularly (they have 29 bowl games total), but then starting in 1984 they fell off a cliff and started losing all their games. For some reason the University decided it was a good idea to basically stop funding the football program for about a decade. The results weren’t pretty. Several one win seasons. Regular losses by as many as 77 points. It was a disaster and I can’t think of a single other program in the country who went from beating Bear Bryant’s Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl to losing badly at home to MemphiS State at home a decade or so later.
You’re somehow insulted by the idea that Missouri got a proposal for possible membership from the Big Ten and was a finalist. But you’re not a Nebraska fan. You’re just a football fan insulted by this somehow. And the fact that Missouri has about 400 miles of its border bordering Big Ten states, or the fact that it’s a strong academci institution with decently good sports, or the fact that Missouri would be a great market for the BTN (or SEC Network) is not convincing to you because Nebraska used to be an elite football program, and they’re still kind of good. OK. Thank you for your input.
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Order Restored is the name of the band I used to be in in High School; but nice to know we had free publicity amongst Nebraska fans. I was quiet for a long time and rarely post on here (because 95% of posters here know what the are talking about) but you got on my nerves for some reason. Like I said, the Irish haven’t been great for awhile….but I think we are still considered and elite program. Elite programs respect other elite programs. Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Ohio St, Penn St, USC amoung few others I am probably failing to mention are all in this level of respect I am referring to. Missouri isn’t there and I have a hard time believing (not matter how fanatically you oppose the thought) that they will ever be above the level of teams like Arkansas, South Carolina, Kansas St, Oklahoma St, and Iowa. These are all good teams from time to time; but they aren’t top echelon programs. No matter how their fans try and spin their ‘above average, but not great academics’ or their 7 million TV sets (which 2/3rds don’t care about Missouri athletics). The Big Ten made the correct choice. The SEC made the correct choice with Texas A&M; Missouri was just a go along, not a prize.
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Think of it this way…in SEC Expansion, Texas A&M was the box of crackerjacks. Missouri was the plastic toy inside. Sure, the plastic toy is great to have; but you’d never buy it by itself. You buy the crackerjacks because you want the crackerjacks…..the toy is just a bonus.
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Ah, I see. Yes, Nebraska and Notre Dame do have a lot in common. Both are from rural low population areas. Both had huge success in football in the past and both have struggled over the last decade or so (even longer for Nebraska). They’re kind of like old money aristocrats who hate all the new money moving into the neighborhood. Somehow their money isn’t as good as your money.
I’ve already talked about the lost 13 years where Missouri’s win total basically fell off a cliff andy they only won 2 or 3 games per year for those years. Because of that, in all-time wins Missouri ranks similarly to:
Wisconsin, Utah, Boston College, and Virginia in ll time wins (a number I assume a Notre Dame fan cares about?)
If you bring those 13 years up to Missouri’s all-time average, then Missouri ranks all time in wins with Florida, Washington, Colorado, and Arkansas. So even with that undeserved adjustment, Missouri is still nowhere near Notre Dame or Nebraska. If Notre Dame and Nebraska are A level Programs, then Missouri has ranged between about 5 decades of B+ to A- average and 2 decades of D or F. Overall GPA is a B to B- because of that. Right now they’re at a B+ over the last decade. A- isn’t outside of the realm of possibility. Nebraska has around 6 decades of As, and they’re down in B range right now. The Irish are hovering around B-.
As an Irish fan, you hate the idea of a resurgent Missouri. That’s just one more program you’d have to compete with. You’d rather freeze time where Notre Dame was a king and you had a royal court of Michigan, Alabama, USC, etc. No need for new additions. You also probalby hated the 30 pt loss you had to Missouri in basketball this year. That could color your annoyance with me.
Missouri is 2-2 all time vs the Irish btw, including a win vs #2 ranked Notre Dame, including this classic:
http://www.rockmnation.com/pages/september-9-1978-mizzou-3-notre
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HAHAHA, so now you are going to try and debate that Missouri is on the level of Notre Dame? Wow, buddy….you need to lay down. Notre Dame holds more power than some entire conferences. Nebraska and Notre Dame are very similar in their blue-blood history. As for basketball, hey, even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then. Notre Dame basketball isn’t want makes them so desirable though so I doubt that arguement will hold much water. I don’t remember the 1978 game, I wasn’t born yet. That is the difference though, fans remember when their teams beat Notre Dame. They normally expect to beat teams like Missouri. Thank you for pointing that out.
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OrderRestored, you’re having fun taunting me I’m sure.
Missouri has won 4 out of it’s last 5 vs. Texas A&M. They’ve won about 50% more games over the last decade than A&M has overall. If you subscribe to the idea that A&M doesn’t deliver the entire state of Texas, but rather just the Houston area, then Missouri delivers about the same number of people. Maybe A&M delivers more if they reach out to other Texas metro areas (which is likely). A&M’s academics aren’t all that much better than Missouri’s. Their football all-time win total is slightly above what Missouri’s would have been if not for the 84-96 stretch, which again I’m not saying you should count things that way, but just to illustrate the point, A&M over the long run isn’t all that much different from Missouri when they’re not dysfunctional. Apparel sales in the ranking I posted above, Missouri ranked ahead of Texas A&M. Missouri basketball is way better.
Where A&M is definitely better is football attendance. They’re great at that. Kudos to them.
But the kind of silly metaphore you’re painting about A&M being so much better of an addition (several times better even) just doesn’t bear itself out in facts. They’re at best 30% better. Probably less than that.
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No where did I say anything remotely similar to “Missouri is equal to Notre Dame”. I did point out correctly that the all-time series is even, but that was just a point of trivia I threw out at the end. In fact, I cearly said just a few sentences earlier that they aren’t even. I also pointed out that you are almost certainly threatened by the fact that Missouri is better at football in the last decade. In fact, had Missouri played Notre Dame every year over the last decade, Missouri likely would have won 7 or 8 out of 10 of those games. But does that mean Missouri’s all time importance or current global influence is higher than Notre Dame’s? Of course not. That’s grandfathered in at this point. But I’m sure you hate that Missouri, a program that at one point was on the level of Rice or San Jose State, as regained its former strength while your program is struggling considerably. That has to get your goat a bit.
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No not really. I know that Notre Dame will still be relavent when my kids are old enough to enjoy college football. You can’t say the same with nearly as much certainty with Missouri. Missouri doesn’t have staying power (by the way I never have seen Missouri as a San Jose St) Missouri is a good mid-level program. I’m not in any way envious of Missouri’s recent success. If Missouri would have played Notre Dame’s schedule the past 10 years the W/L records would be interesting to look at; but that neither here nor there. Missouri will always be a 7 win program. Nothing more, nothing less. For a few years at a time they’ll rise above that…..for a few years they’ll dip below. It is what it is.
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To andy: Missouri has never beaten Maryland (in nine tries, I believe), although I don’t think they’ve met since the Jim Tatum era in College Park. If you’re going to cite the Mizzou-Notre Dame series, you must use this as well…though I doubt it would have carried any weight in a Missouri vs. Maryland Big Ten argument two+ years ago.
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“Missouri will always be a 7 win program, no more, no less”
Well that simply isn’t factual.
Compare these seasons, final national AP rankings:
recent years:
2010, 10-3, 18th
2008, 10-4, 19th
2007, 12-2, 4th
best years in the past:
several seasons ranked in the 15-20 range in the 70s
1969, 9-2, 6th
1968, 8-3, 9th
1965, 8-2-1, 6th
1962, 8-1-2, RV
1961, 7-2-1, 11th
1960, 11-0 5th (1st in another poll)
several seasons ranked in the 15-20 range in the 50s and late 40s
1941, 8-2, 7th
1939, 8-2, 6th
in between seasons like this:
1985 1-10, loss to Oklahoma 51-6
1986 3-8, loss to Nebraska 48-17
1988 3-7-1, loss to Miami 55-0
1989 2-9, loss to Nebraska 50-9, loss to Oklahoma 52-14
1990 4-7, loss to Nebraska 69-21, loss to Oklahoma 55-10
1991 3-7-1, loss to Baylor 47-21, loss to Colorado 55-7, loss to Nebraska 63-6, lost to Oklahoma 56-16, loss to KSU 32-0, loss to Kansas 53-29
1993 3-7-1, loss to Texas A&M 73-0, loss to West Virginia 35-3, loss to Nebraska 49-7, loss to Kansas 28-0
1995 3-8, loss to KSU 30-0, loss to Nebraska 57-0, loss to Kansas 42-23
Those were some truly bad seasons. It’s been amost a complete 180 as in recent yeras Missouri has beaten Nebraska in Lincoln 52-17, they beat Texas 17-5 last year in Columbia, beat Oklahoma 36-27 when they were ranked #1 in the country. Then there’s the case of Colorado. Colorado beat Missouri 12 straight times during their down years. Since then Missouri has won the game 8 out of the 14 times they played.
Your mistake is thinking that everything necessarily follows an even track, and once something is one way that is more or less the way it will stay. I’ll agree that it almost always works that way, but in the case of Missouri it has not. It’s kind of a Jekyll and Hyde thing. Missouri can be really good and they can be really bad. If you just look at the numbers you would think they were always “a 7 win program, no more, no less”, but that’s just not how it works here.
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vincent, I wasn’t making that argument at all. Missouri has all-time winning records against schools like Alabama, Florida, Michigan, USC, and others. They also have losing records against Kentucky, Indiana, and yes Maryland. I was just bringing it up because when Notre Dame has played Missouri, it’s not like they did so much better, and I think most objective observers (and computers) would agree that Missouri has been quite a bit better at football than Notre Dame over the past few years, so if they want to start a series and see who’s better now they’re welcome to it. Notre Dame earned their spot as a king, but right now they aren’t any better at playing football than Missouri is.
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Andy says: June 8, 2012 at 1:16 pm
vincent, I wasn’t making that argument at all. Missouri has all-time winning records against schools like Alabama, Florida, Michigan, USC, and others. They also have losing records against Kentucky, Indiana, and yes Maryland. I was just bringing it up because when Notre Dame has played Missouri, it’s not like they did so much better, and I think most objective observers (and computers) would agree that Missouri has been quite a bit better at football than Notre Dame over the past few years, so if they want to start a series and see who’s better now they’re welcome to it. Notre Dame earned their spot as a king, but right now they aren’t any better at playing football than Missouri is.
.
FWIW, here is Missouri’s record against their future conference members :
(and travel distance)
Texas A&M : 1957 : 12 games : 5-7-0 : 750 miles
W in 2002, 2003, 2007, 2010, and 2011
L in 1957, 1958, 1992, 1993, 1998, 1999, and 2006
Mississippi : 1973 : 6 games : 5-1-0 : 475 miles
W in 1973, 1978, 1979, 2006, and 2007 / L in 1974
Arkansas : 1906 : 5 games : 3-2-0 : 310 miles
W in 1906, 1963, and 2008 / L in 1944 and 2003
Vanderbilt : 1895 : 4 games : 2-1-1 : 435 miles
W in 1895 and 1896 / L in 1958 / T in 1957
Alabama : 1968 : 3 games : 2-1-0 : ~ 620 miles
W in 1968 and 1975 / L in 1978
Kentucky : 1965 : 2 games : 0-2-0 : 2-0-0 : 460 miles
L in 1965 and 1968
Mississippi State : 1981 : 2 games : 2-0-0 : 575 miles
W in 1981 and 1984
S Carolina : 1979 : 2 games : 2-0-0 : 870 miles
W in 1979 and 2005
Auburn : 1973 : 1 game : 1-0-0 : 740 miles
W in 1973
Florida : 1966 : 1 game : 1-0-0 : 1010 miles
W in 1966
Georgia : 1960 : 1 game : 0-1-0 : 735 miles
L in 1960
Louisiana State : 1978 : 1 game : 1-0-0 : 770 miles
W in 1978
Tennessee : DNP : 0 games : 0-0-0 : 610 miles
I would say the future is cloudy on Missouri becoming a king in their new home. Since realignment in the 1990’s the Tigers have only played TAMU with any history. Here is Notre Dames record against the SEC (including Missouri and TAMU) for comparison :
Alabama : 5-1-0 : 1987 win in South Bend
Arkansas : Never Played
Auburn : Never Played
Florida : 1-0-0 : 1992 win in Sugar Bowl
Georgia : 0-1-0 : 1981 loss in Sugar Bowl
Kentucky : Never Played
Louisiana State : 5-5-0 : 2007 loss in Sugar Bowl
Mississippi : 1-1-0 : 1985 win in South Bend
Mississippi State : Never Played
Missouri : 2-2-0 : 1984 win in Columbia
South Carolina : 3-1-0 : 1984 loss in South Bend
Tennessee : 4-4-0 : 2005 win in South Bend
Texas A&M : 3-2-0 : 2001 loss in College Station
Vanderbilt : 2-0-0 : 1996 win in Nashville
Looks like the Irish have played the SEC more lately and held their own
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You guys need to chill on this whole Missouri-Nebraska feud—this does not have to be a redux of Hatfields-McCoys 🙂
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FSU’s budget
http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20120608/FSU03/120608004
The projected $2.4-million shortfall within Florida State’s athletics budget is apparently gone.
FSU athletic director Randy Spetman told the university’s Board of Trustees that additional money from the Atlantic Coast Conference helped erase the shortfall.
“On June 1, we got an extra $1.6 million (from the ACC),” Spetman said. “That put (the conference payout) right at over $16 million, which we thought would be $14.1 million.
“Our budget is balanced for this year and we’ll be in good shape for next year also.”
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Interesting stuff this. Really seems like everything out of Tallahassee over the last few weeks is pointing towards a calming the realignment waters…
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Over 10% increase when most of the revenue comes from NCAA tourney, TV contracts and major sponsors. They know these numbers in April. Something really bizarre about that.
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More from @iraschoffel – Tallahassee Democrat sports writer.
Checked w/ ACC folks. When all said and done league schools will each receive roughly $17 million for 2011-12.
Andy Haggard will remain on BOT for 3 more years, he says. Just not as Chair.
BOT wants to look into extending Barron’s contract, which has 2 years left on original 5-year deal.
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Sounds like Texas blocked Big 12 expansion after all.
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Or ESPN.
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More:
FSU AD Spetman said the 10-percent cuts across the board in athletics for 2012-13 remain in place.
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Sorta interesting, sorta irritating SEC response to the awesome ’11 Warriors’ post concerning the Big/Pac alliance
http://atlanta.sbnation.com/2012/6/8/3072354/sec-tv-network-big-ten-media-position
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already did it. There are a bunch of posts halfway up the thread.
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I’ve been slowly constructing this over the past year and its not quite ready for prime time, but here it is. I welcome any additional links that people have. (nostradamus?)
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Interesting breakdown. That would seem to show that the addition of Nebraska, along with creating the B1G conference championship game boosted revenues by ~$35mm…not to shabby.
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Impressive how little the ACC’s contract has grown. Everyone else has nearly doubled or even tripled their tv revenue since ’06.
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Here’s a Big 12 link to help you
http://www.rockchalktalk.com/2010/6/16/1520676/big-12-revenue-distributions
The Big 12 releases them every year, but it is almost impossible to find any links the next year. But this site has some history.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/college-sports/headlines/20110604-revenue-reaches-record-high-for-big-12-schools.ece
$145 and $137.8 total Big 12 for the two preceding years. Article says Big 12 doesn’t release distribution by schools, but I’ve seen it for both those years. Its just that it seems to disappear from the web before long. In the year with the $145, OU/UT/KU were the top 3 very close together.
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Here is the Big12 breakdown school breakdown from their IRS 990 Filings:
7/08 – 6/09
Oklahoma $15,395,212
UT $14,496,219
Kansas $13,202,657
Missouri $12,253,412
UNL $11,670,051
OSU $11,642,251
Texas Tech $10,859,348
Texas A&M $10,524,273
Colorado $10,135,802
Baylor $9,322,749
ISU $9,271,368
KSU $8,655,531
7/09 – 6/10
UT $15,536,100
UNL $12,891,885
Oklahoma $12,717,418
OSU $12,412,039
Kansas $12,378,435
Missouri $11,608,410
Texas Tech $11,367,676
ISU $10,586,104
Baylor $10,552,377
Texas A&M $10,470,376
KSU $9,639,630
Colorado $9,431,516
7/10 – 6/11
UT $14,506,847
Oklahoma $13,522,947
Kansas $13,072,890
Missouri $12,467,541
Texas A&M $12,244,812
OSU $12,008,515
KSU $12,059,100
ISU $11,376,296
Baylor $11,177,493
Texas Tech $11,020,888
Colorado $3,227,423
UNL $3,382,345
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“My personal feeling is that a huge factor has to be conference champions (included in the BCS),” Barron said. “If you look at any kind of four-team playoff system for example, and you’ve got more conferences eligible than that, than winning a conference championship is not enough so you’re going to have to look at strength of schedule or some other analysis by a committee or by polls or by something. But for my particular viewpoint, the most important factor here is that you have to be a conference champion. And that should be step one in my opinion.”
http://floridastate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1373523
Interesting comments from FSU Prez on playoff format. Seems like we’ve had quite a few people not named Delaney (ACC and PAC peeps in particular) speak out about conference champions and the playoff format.
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It makes sense that Florida State, if unable to go to the Big 12, would like the conference champs only scenario, because it would give the ACC champion more of a chance for entrance into a playoff if there’s a CCG upset or two elsewhere (though if the burnt orange bully keeps the Big 12 at 10, that chance lessens somewhat). That’s one of the few ways an ACC team can get into a 4-team playoff…and probably why the conference-champs only scenario is DOA with the four power conferences (and without consistent top-flight football or a culture to match, the ACC is a perennial #5).
Perhaps a higher payout to ACC members could be enough to bribe them to buy into the playoff, even as it casts them to second-tier status forever. But if I were an ACC president, I wouldn’t buy it.
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The ACC, Pac-12, and Big 12 all have the biggest disparity between haves and have nots. Would it surprise anyone to see USC, Oregon, FSU, Va Tech, Oklahoma, or Texas undefeated at year’s end? No. Conversely, it would be news if any other team from those conferences did so.
In contrast, the B1G and SEC have three or more teams that would not surprise anyone: Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Penn State, Nebraska, Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Florida, etc. With conference champions, it supports big fish in a small pond.
Still, if someone runs the table in the B1G or SEC, they are #1 or #2. If there was an undefeated team in each of the 5 top conferences, the B1G and SEC would be safe.
For an ACC school, being part of the top 5 and having a spot in the playoffs if a conference champion makes sense. The ACC will always have a conference champion. Better to be a 12-1 ACC Champion than an 11-2 third place team in the SEC.
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That is why this angle is so interesting vis-a-vis conference realignment.
The more the system favors a BCS style Top 4 ranking the more likely FSU is to want to move towards the Big12. Conversely, the more the system favors conference champs the more likely Notre Dame is to seek out refuge in a conference.
Both the Pac and ACC have come out pretty strongly in favor of conference champs. Meanwhile both the B1G and Big12 mentioned conference champ as key factors in getting to a top 4 ranking. Interesting…
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Why? The more competition, the worse your record (and standing) is. The only possible help is through SOS. But even then a decent OOC schedule solves that. Strength of schedule doesn’t do you much if you don’t win. Ask Oregon.
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@Jericho – the more the system favors a BCS style Top 4 the more FSU is hurt by the perception of the ACC. The perception of the ACC hurts it wrt to access to the championship and with the perception of recruits, etc.
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I realize the perception is there. It’s always been there. But either you’re #1 in the ACC or #3 in the Big 12. Which do you think leads to more likely playoff berths? Not to mention there appears to be this assumption that the Big 10, Pac-12, Big 12, and SEC will always have top teams each year. That’s unlikely. A 0 loss or 1 loss ACC team will make it into the Top 4 in most years under any top 4 scenario. You just need teams that strong.
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Key passage
no substantive steps towards investigating conference realignment were taken. No power was given to Barron or the board to make a decision on the issue. Barron also maintained that there will be no fact-finding committee formed to look at the conference issue.
And when asked if there was anything to keep an eye on between now and August 15, when FSU would be required to notify the ACC it was leaving, Barron said “No”.
“We are not seeking anything, we are not expecting anything, there are no conversations that are going on,” Barron said. “But as my board chair (Allan Bense) said, all boards that are responsible would take any opportunity presented and study it. OK, that’s not an invitation, that’s just a statement of fact.”
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The SEC’s proposal takes away guaranteed spots from the other conferences for their own weaker teams. There’s a gamble that a different conference might push in other teams, but who would take a regular payday for a lotto ticket?
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To read anything into statements from presidents of potential realignment schools means nothing as much as it means everything. Texas A&M and Mizzou are the best examples. I think FSU and Clemson have a lot to gain by moving to the Big XII and the Big XII also has a lot to gain as well. The waters are merely calming until the national championship issue is decided later this summer. There was a similar dead time and love for the Big XII before late summer when it then again became apparent that aTm and Mizzou would leave.
The new bowl between SEC and Big XII will help the future of the Big XII and it wasn’t a handout by the SEC to the Big XII, but an agreement that no matter what happened with the national championship issue, the 2 best football teams in the two best current conferences would play against each other at the end of the year. That bowl props up both conferences and gives them total control of what will be one of the top 2 bowls in college football.
If there is a gentlemen’s agreement (widely rumored) between UF, USCe, UG and UK not allowing FSU, Georgia Tech, Clemson, and Louisville into the SEC for recruitment reasons, then the BIG XII looks like a better football and sports option for these schools over the long run. The longterm income for some of these new Big XII schools could end up as or just slightly less than their SEC counterparts, which is much less now as members of the ACC and the Big East, and make competing budgetwise with their in-state counterparts more on par. Also, you could create a great cross-conference partnership with at least five or six schools from each conference.
Texas – aTm
FSU – UF
Georgia Tech – UG
Clemson – USCe
KU – Mizzou
Louisville – UK
Louisville is not as likely as some of the others, especially if the Big XII is waiting for ND, which also makes Georgia Tech less likely (in order to maintain 12 or 14 teams), but this makes for some great inter-conference play between two very legit top two performing conferences. It also makes these two conferences the perfect destination for some of the best football recruiting grounds in the nation.
Also, over time, as contracts change these two conferences could sell these popular rivalries as individual products. Because these two conferences are nationally relevant, and each game in conference play plays a huge role for at least one if not two national championship contenders, these games would not just have a regional appeal but a national one.
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Good points. Interesting ideas about cross-league arrangements potentially between the SEC/Big 12. The Pac-12/Big Ten series is exciting for our leagues and will generate national appeal and better competition. I hope to see more Big Ten/Pac-12 bowl arrangements too, in addition to the solid ones we already have with the SEC/Big 12.
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I would disagree with much of what you said. I think the Bowl announcement was full of sound and fury, but not that important. It’s good. It makes money. But it will rarely match Conference Champs. It’s not the Rose and I don’t see it cutting off access to anyone. It’s not a “game changer”
I also disagree about the moves making that much sense. Frank and others have talked about why FSU moving is no slam dunk. The same logic would apply to Clemson. In fact, they’re not the “king” that FSU is. So they just get pushed further down the pecking order. Not to mention you’re stuck playing the majority of your games in another time zone. Logic dictates that FSU and Clemson would either get stuck in ad division with the Texas schools (good for playing Texas, bad for playing everyone else) or the non-Texas/Oklahoma schools (generally bad match-ups all around outside WVU).
As for the Big 12, not sure what they gain. They will always have stability with Texas and no stability if Texas leaves. If Texas ever left, getting FSU would not hold the conference together. Do you think FSU would want to stay with the non-Texas schools? I think the big selling point to the other Big 12 schools would be money. But some leaks have indicated that it won’t be some huge bump to the TV contract (unclear if that’s true). There’s no network to expand into and the LHN prevents a decent one from forming. So not sure the additional markets are a huge win. Those markets would bring in more money with a network channel. Football quality is not really a worry. You look at all the reasons that conferences expand (to widen their network, to improve football, to become stable) and none really apply. It would have to be entirely for $$$ and it’s unclear how much that will help existing schools. Not to say they still shouldn’t do it. But the gain might be minimal. And if schools like Texas don’t want the competition for playoff spots (conference champ model or no, it’s likely the Big 12 gets 1 school in most years), then there’s less incentive to add schools.
The more I think about it, the more I tend to think it’s not much of a slam dunk on either side. At the very least, each side could choose to wait as I don’t think there’s much other options out there.
P.S. of the match-ups you mentioned in the cross-conference partnership, 4 of them are for schools not currently in the Big 12 and 2 of them are against schools that just left it. Any conference could come up with that.
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Jericho, those match ups would be if the 3 ACC and 1 BE teams moved to the Big XII, which I also clearly state is not an outright possibility. However, would make a great block of games to sell around Thanksgiving if they were all in the Big XII and SEC.
Big XII w/expansion SEC as is
Texas aTm
KU Mizzou
FSU Florida
Clemson SECe
Georgia Tech Georgia
Louisville Kentucky
Second, the two time zone argument doesn’t fly. The three largest, financially successful, and arguably most cohesive conferences already operate in 2 times zones.
B1G – Eastern and Central
SEC – Eastern and Central
PAC 12 – Mountain and Pacific
BIG XII just now joined the same pattern as the B1G and SEC of being in the Eastern and Central with the addition of West Virginia after it had been in the Central and the Mountain before Colorado left. Being in one time zone is an anomaly not the norm. Plus these are hour differences not the same as playing a team on the Pacific when you are a school in the Eastern.The Big XII with these expansions would have no more radically different footprint or travel expenses then conferences that already span from Miami to Syracuse (1452 miles), Lincoln to University Park (1092 miles), College Station to Columbia (1035 miles), or Seattle to Boulder (1361 miles). If anything, Austin to Morgantown (1400 miles) and Ames to Tallahassee (1170 miles) falls right into that range.
Third, I never said slam dunk. I said have a lot to gain, and I don’t see this as not still being true.
Fourth, Texas won’t leave any time soon because of the rumored grant of rights clause, and has the same voting power – not more – as everyone else. Texas and Oklahoma made concessions last year on revenue sharing and other issues because there was a true desire to see the conference survive after everything else blew up. The only option Texas would have at this point is to maintain status quo or independence. They won’t gain anything more now for moving to the PAC, B1G, or SEC, and, in fact, would lose much of what they have and gained from staying in the BIG XII – the LHN and “king” status – and this doesn’t seem to change 10 years from now.
Fifth, other schools are for expansion because of more access to recruiting grounds and markets that they can’t get right now. How does a footstep in the Carolina, Georgia, and Florida markets not make the B1G 12 as well as the addition of a storied football program like FSU valuable to network television. Under your same argument, Penn State or Nebraska didn’t add anything to the B1G; USCe, Arkansas, Mizzzou, or aTm didn’t add anything didn’t add any value to the SEC, and Colorado or Utah to the PAC 12 the same (I would argue this is more likely to not have added value). This doesn’t seem right.
Last, we don’t have any idea how the divisions would work out, and, yes, Texas and Oklahoma are kings in football, but West Virginia, K-state, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, TCU and Baylor aren’t slouches and are arguably much more competitive than many teams in the ACC – UNC, Wake Forest, Duke, UVA, Syracuse, and NC State. In basketball and baseball, many Big XII schools aren’t slouches either with several NCs in both sports. ACC is good but the Big XII is definitely not worse, many would argue better, than the ACC. And one could hardly argue that even if the division had FSU, Clemson, and West Virginia as the leaders it would be a slack division that would not be popular national game coverage – add a K-state, Texas Tech, Baylor, or even Kansas. Is there currently a better division in the ACC?
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Two time zones work fine, you have major issues at the tv level when you add a third time zone.
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It would be fun to have a 14 team Big 12 and a 14 team SEC paired up, along with a 12 team Pac 12 and a 12 team Big Ten. The ACC could survive by adding UConn and Rutgers to get to 12.
SEC/Big 12 match-ups could be:
Texas A&M/Texas
Missouri/Kansas
Florida/Florida State
Georgia/Georgia Tech
South Carolina/Clemson
Kentucky/Louisville
Tennessee/Kansas State
Vanderbilt/Iowa State
Alabama/Oklahoma
Auburn/TCU
LSU/West Virginia
Arkansas/Oklahoma State
Ole Miss/Baylor
Mississippi State/Texas Tech
It won’t happen but it would be fun to see.
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@ Farnsworth – I think you misinterpreted many of my comments
The point with the time zones was not that it could not work. And it really was not meant to be an issue for the Big 12. It was more an issue for FSU and/or Clemson. It just kind of sucks if you’re a fan of an East coast team having games an hour later. It’s not huge, but it’s not ideal either. And the point was not just about time zones exclusively, but about geography. It’s not exactly exciting playing “rivalry” games against Kansas, OSU, or whomever else the Seminoles would play. It’s not a huge sense of closeness. Most of the major rivals all take place in state or across borders.
The point is that the ACC already has three of the rivalry games you mentioned. It can’t be much of a big deal to those schools. I suppose it could be a big deal to the Big 12 if it added all those schools (high unlikely), but it would just generally be continuing what is already there. That’s not really much of a gain.
Not sure why you brought up the “slam dunk” comment. I never interpreted your post to imply that the move(s) would happen. My point in the reply is that I don’t see the move(s) as nearly as “beneficial” to either side that you do.
Also not sure why you brought up the Grant of Rights issue. I am aware of the Grant of Rights. The only reason I mentioned Texas leaving is that sometimes conferences grab teams for stability reasons. But FSU adds no stability to the Big 12. The conference’s stability is entirely tied to Texas. And yes, it IS stable right now.
I’ll admit I don’t buy the “recruiting grounds” argument. Am I supposed to believe that many more Florida kids will magically go play for Kansas and Iowa State that do already? I tend to think the argument is a bit of a red herring. Kids go to join colleges for the programs. Not because one of the schools in the conference happens to be from their home state.
Also, I did not say that PSU or Nebraska added nothing to the Big 10. They add to the Big 10 Network. That makes money. They are also a major program that will help in the next renegotiation of football deals. But you might recall that the Big 12 has no network and likely won’t have one in the near future. And they are locking in much of their content in for a long term deal with the possibility of added schools not adding value to that deal (which I will admit is not finalized so I don’t know if that is true). The overall point remains that financially, the immediate and near benefits to the Big 12 may be fairly minimal. That does not mean they cannot or should not look to adding schools. But it does not appear to be some great financial bonanza.
P.S. I don’t want to nit-pick too much, but Baylor is good at football? Really? one good season in the entire history of the Big 12? I also don’t share faith that TCU will remain nationally ranked post-Dalton and playing a major conference schedule. I freely admit that the Big 12 is stronger than the ACC. It;’s not much of a debate. But even OSU and KSU don’t have long historys of success. It’s all somewhat cyclical.
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Finally, how is the Big XII and SEC bowl less than the Rose Bowl in this situation? Tradition? Sure, there may not be a parade or decades of play, but it will still be 2 of the most successful football conferences over the last decade playing each other on New Year’s. Yeah, if the top two end up in the National Championship, or whatever end of season format is chosen, then it will be two lower ranked teams in the conferences playing each other, but again, how is that different than the Rose Bowl. The Big XII/SEC bowl has force because it establishes that no matter what happens with the end of the season if there is no established end of season format (unlikely), then there is a bowl, 2 with the Rose Bowl, where the likelihood of the best two teams in the nation playing one another is still very possible. This is a good bargaining tool.
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Some detail on North Carolina academic fraud case involving 54 fictional classes.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/06/08/2123750/unc-football-players-flocked-to.html
Discredits the whole major.
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If these classes averaged only 15 people per class and noone took more than two, that’s still 400 students with fictional credit.
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The key part of that article :
Other records show that football and basketball players made up a majority of the enrollments of nine particularly suspect classes in which the professors listed as instructors have denied involvement, and have claimed that signatures were forged on records related to them.
Is their 2009 National Championship now under fire?
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UNC will throw football under the bus to save its precious basketball, just as Southern Cal would try to gut basketball to save football (not that it worked for the Trojans — just sayin’).
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Wow.
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The NCAA gets worked up over agents and professionalism which is often more a lack of oversight than the school doing something to get a competitive advantage. This is the type of thing they should really be serious about. Academic fraud strikes at the heart of this really being intercollegiate athletics.
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North Carolina looks to be in a situation that Minnesota was in with our men’s BB program under Clem Haskins in the 90’s. That academic scandal still haunts the U. We are now finally returning to some routine competitiveness in BB under Tubby Smith. (Even Tubby has had some issues to deal with. He’s taken some heat because of challenges he’s had with some recruits that were less than perfect–and with subsequent handling of those challenges)
It’s amazing to think that a coaching staff and people in academia would attempt to cheat in the academic realm. The really sad part is when it goes un-noticed until too late and destroys opportunities, careers, and an entire institution’s reputation…
UNC may be just at the start of some serious pain…
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The difference here is that, with all due respect to Gopher sports and its illustrious football heritage, none currently have the national impact of UNC basketball. Penalties for football is something Chapel Hill people can take (though they may not like it); penalties for basketball, which UNC hasn’t seen since the point-shaving scandals of the early ’60s, well, that’s a different matter entirely. It would shake the university community to its core.
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Sandusky and Penn St. (now on trial), UNC academic fraud, Miami and the illegal activity going on there, Missouri flying the cocaine dealer around with the basketball team. Its been a pretty bad year for college sports. There have also been a number of shooting incidents (athletes not necessarily at fault, but being in the wrong places). These are all things that go beyond the simple cheating/lying/breaking rules like at USC and Ohio St. I can’t see this NOT driving some major reform of the NCAA. Not sure what direction that would take.
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re: the cocaine dealer at Missouri. I’ll say it again, he was a fan, in no way associated with the program. Fans can buy their way onto Missouri team planes on trips to away games if they pay for the ticket. Quote from the report:
“The indictment makes no allegations whatsoever about the university, the athletic program or coaches and players,” said Don Ledford of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in KC.”
End of story…..
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Does the 20 million a year and huge increase for FSU and Clemson have some orange spin on the facts. From the North Carolina State Boards…………………..
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=178&f=2515&t=9027945&p=2
MegaPack wrote: It seems the internet chatter is that Clemson fans and FSU fans, to a lesser extent, want out of the ACC. For those of you arguing financials of it, this (very biased) piece fairly accurately covers what kind of payday they are looking at eventually: http://www.cemetery-hill.com/2…n-30-years.html
The person that wrote that article is an idiot:
In 2015 the Big 12 will earn an estimated 15.83M versus the ACCs 14.69M.
http://csnbbs.com/showthread.p…1815&page=3
The Big12’s contract’s average is 20M it doesn’t start at 20M. The financials do not support the move.
There have already been articles on the Clemson boards indicating that such a move would affect recruiting in a negative aspect.
If you life in the blogsphere, then yes, FSU and Clemson is a done deal.
If you live in reality, sure they can move, but there is no reason other than emotion to support it.
Here’s the best part of that: It is our understanding the Big XII contract contains escalators for the addition of Clemson and FSU increasing the total annual payout to 23MM. Dude, you were so far off with all your facts in the first paragraph, yes, let me take a leap of faith and ASSUME you know what you’re talking about. I mean this article is total garbage and what’s even more perplexing and a little concerning is that the MSM reads this crap and reprints it in places like FORBES. I mean, if you read a Forbes article about the impact of taxes or budgets or stocks, it really makes you take a step back and ask, “Do these guys know ANYTHING and ANYTHING?”
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Hard to tell what you are quoting and what’s your opinion. But Hokie 4X4 is not an idiot. He also obviously doesn’t do anything remotely related to math. Liberal arts grad? In that comparison the ACC deal averages 17.8 million, not the 17.1. On top of that he does it over 4 shorter years, so extrapolating, he is pretending the ACC deal is $19 million.
Here’s the facts:
Big 12 deal w/o FSU and Clemson is $20 million a year average or more per Chuck Neinas.
ACC deal is $17.1 average over 4 more years per SBJ and the President of FSU. If someone who can do math extrapolates that, it would come out to $15.5 to $16.0 million over the same time frame. So the Big 12 deal is at least $4 million per year higher average over the life of the contract.
Big 12 deal allows teams to keep their 3rd tier rights. I’m not going to re-argue that here. There’s lots of apples to oranges around so its hard to pin down. But there’s lots of reasons to believe FSU can get $5 to $10 million more on that in the Big 12. I’ve heard people guessing its really only $1-$2 million but the only support I’ve ever seen for that is the few who quote PPV values for football games. Most are just flat out guessing with no basis. But clearly there is some amount of additional value for FSU.
Increased value of bowl games like the champions bowl. Some speculate $2 million, but that is just speculation. However, there is clearly some additional value for FSU of some amount.
Value of being in a stronger conference in the new playoff format. Since we don’t know how the revenue will be distributed, this is clearly speculative. But I can’t imagine any SEC fans arguing against there being some value in a conference that normally makes more appearances. The Big 12 has had 14 in the top 4 vs. 5 for the ACC in the BCS era.
Value of being in a stronger conference for ticket sales. Speculative. But where have I heard that? Aggies, Tigers?
Finally there is the value of expansion. A conference championship game is worth $18-$24 million (latter is approximately what B10 gets). FSU would be the 2nd or 3rd most valuable program in Big 12. Clemson would be above average. The deal isn’t signed yet with ESPN and the Fox deal is being re-worked similar to the Pac 12 Fox/ESPN sharing of rights. SEC fans will say the SEC on an existing contract will get a windfall by adding 2 average teams (compared to the rest of the SEC) while the Big 12 will get only the average on a contract being negotiated by adding 2 above average teams? Does a league in football crazy country with UT/OU/FSU as anchors have more value than the laid back Pac 12 with USC (the other recently done new deal)? Now I’ve seen numerous people saying FSU/Clemson would bump the value up to $24-$26 million. That, while within the realm of possibility, seems high. But $22-$23 vs. the $21 in the Pac does seem reasonable.
So:
Basic contract: $4 million
3rd tier: $1-$10 million
Bowl games up to $2 million
Playoff money-?
Internal revenues, ticket sales-?
Value of expansion: up to $6 million but probably at least $2 million.
So there’s real money. The only additional cost is transportation. And since Hawaii can get by on a total travel budget (not just transportation) of $3 million, FSU is not going to spend many millions extra going to Ames instead of Syracuse.
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bullet, if $2M for 3rd tier broadcast rights is just a guess, what evidence do you have for $5 to $10M for FSU?
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There’s nothing written in stone. But OU has consistently estimated $5 million for their deal with Fox which is nearly done (we should have a solid # on that soon). KSU has projected $3 million on theirs which is already set up (it has a lot of PPV so time will tell). UT of course got $15 million. A media consultant told Chip Brown that FSU would be between OU and UT (which is pretty easy logic-FSU isn’t #1 in their state but they are a national brand in the 4th most populous state). Florida gets $8 million on an old deal (although its not clear how much is media tier 3). Pac 12 is projecting over $10 million. B10 makes over $7 and is projecting over $10 million. Now they may have more tier 2, but the FSU is not WSU, OSU, Utah, CU, AU, ASU, Cal, Stanford, UW or Oregon. FSU is worth considerably more than the average Pac 12 school.
There are also reports of studies which make sense in light of that. Now the studies are just message board reports so they may not exist. But Clemson is reported to have a study showing $7-$8 million. A number of ACC schools are reported to have done studies with values of $4-$10 million for the additonal tier 3.
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bullet, we’ve been over this repeatedly. Those numbers include WAY more than 3rd tier broadcast rights. They include radio/advertising/coaches shows/etc. Iowa makes $6M without any broadcast rights, NCSU makes $5M. The BTN paid $7.2M per school this year by averaging 3.5 football games (43 total televised) and ~10 total basketball games per school, which includes 5 CONFERENCE basketball games. 3.5 football games plus 10 basketball games at $7.2M appears roughly analogous to $2M for one football game and a few basketball games.
Oklahoma’s proposed deal calls for 1,000 hours of programming. I feel confident that those 1,000 are mostly something other than Tier 3 football and basketball. I can’t find any articles on KSU.
One of the very few places I’ve been able to find a per-football game valuation is the BYU-ESPN deal, which is estimated to be anywhere between $800,000 and $1.2 million per home game. Perhaps FSU-Murray State would bring in more than your average BYU game, but I doubt it.
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The problem is almost entirely in the definition of “tier 3 rights”. Some use the term to apply only to TV rights, while other use it more broadly to apply to any number of multimedia rights. That confusion is amplified when people look at other schools “Tier 3” numbers. These numbers will even show a football-lite school such as Kansas making somewhere between $6.5-$8 million (depends on the source). Rest assured that Kansas isn’t getting that much for just their track program and the worst basketball games on the schedule. Most of these “tier 3” numbers represent the broader definition to include other multimedia rights. Something Florida State already sells for round $6.5 million per year.
The only difference between the Big 12 and ACC deals are the Tier 3 TV rights. There’s plenty of non-revenue content included there plus the worst basketball games and at least one football game (the worst one in all likelihood). The idea that this will be worth more than $1-2 million seems laughable to me. If FSU can sell their crappiest football game and a smattering of the worst basketball games for $5-$10 million, they should be getting $60-$70 million for their quality content.
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Texas is laughing all the way to the bank at $15 million. For anyone math challenged, that’s a lot more than $1 or $2 million.
What’s laughable is that ESPN is somehow “bribing” Texas and losing money. ESPN may well lose money on the deal, but they certainly expected (and may very well still expect) to make money long term on the LHN.
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First, it is my understanding that Texas’ $15 million includes the same stuff that other schools sell (and Florida State sells for $6.5 million). Second, Texas is Texas. there’s no one else like them.
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Also forgot to add one important piece to the ACC Tier 3 puzzle. What happens if ESPN does not air something? I’ve wondered this myself, as Tier 3 rights are the grand dumping grounds of unwanted content. Tiers 1 and 2 have the prime choice games in both basketball and football. But Tier 3 has a smorgasbord of what’s left over. I’ve found, at least according to this article – http://dev.chuckoliver.net/2012/05/third-tier-rights-defined-perspective-on-their-value/ , that if ESPN does not broadcast a particular game, the rights revert back to the individual schools to do with what they choose.
This essentially gives ESPN a right of first refusal on anything. But they obviously can’t and likely have no interest in airing everything. I certainly don’t expect them to broadcast much women’s basketball, baseball (non CWS playoffs) and other Olympic sports events. So much of this would appear to flow through to the schools. And although there’s no guarantee that ESPN won’t air every FSU basketball game, the likelihood is that they will not. So in the end, the difference between the ACC and Big 12 in terms of Tier 3 may be minimal.
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ESPN basically has sold everything to Raycom as required by the ACC. That’s where the ACC tier 3 is going. Now perhaps if Raycom doesn’t want something, but Raycom shows lots of stuff.
Texas has two contracts. With IMG, they get $9.4 million a year. http://www.texassports.com/sponsorships/tex-sponsorship.html
That’s the standard tier 3 that everyone has been exploiting. LHN involved selling media rights. For that, IMG gets 17.5% of the LHN contract, which totals $15.0 million a year average. So Texas is averaging over $21 million net for the broader Tier 3. The media rights are $15.0 million.
And even if Texas is an outlyer, its not 15 times what an FSU could get.
We’ll get a lot better idea when OU’s deal gets done or if FSU releases a study. But neither of those may happen prior to FSU making a decision which way they will go.
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Here’s the problem that I have from a purely logical standpoint. If you want to argue that Tier 3 TV rights can get $5 million or more per school (not all schools mind you, but most BCS level schools), then why are Tier 1 and Tier 2 TV rights so undervalued? Because we generally know what Tier 3 is. It’s maybe one football game (the Big 12 guarantees it but other conferences do not), a ahdnful of basketball games and all the other non-revenue sports. Which are called non-revenue for a reason. And it’s the worst football and basketball games.
Tiers 1 and 2 have an exceedingly greater amount of quantity (over 900% more football and 300% more basketball) and an exceedingly greater amount of quality (all the choice match-ups). If a random school like Kansas can supposedly earn $5 million plus on TV rights, how is it that the Big 12 is getting so little for Tiers 1 and 2? Logically, the numbers don’t add up unless you claim some schools bring down the entire average (Baylor? TCU? Iowa State?). How can such small quantity of the worst content get so much when ta large quantity of the best content gets so little. It just does not make sense to me. Which is why I believe many people are misrepresenting Tier 3 info…
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@Jericho
I really don’t understand it either, that the non-revs and these games are worth so much. But while the numbers other than Texas and the BTN are soft, there are people consistently putting out these estimates. I’ve heard these OU estimates since the LHN contract came out. If OU really does sell their 1000 hours of content to Fox for something like $5 million, that means its real. If the Pac 12 or SEC can get $10+ million (per school-that’s $120-$140 million) for similar content, its real. I don’t understand why anyone would pay $100,000 for a rapidly depreciating asset like a car, but I know they do.
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@Jericho and bullet – I think it goes back to what is actually included in the “tier 3 rights”. For instance, if tier 3 includes radio rights (which I believe is the case for the Kansas deal), then such rights can be fairly valuable for certain schools. That’s what I haven’t been able to get a clear answer on and why it’s so difficult to figure out legitimate apples-to-apples comparisons. The only thing that I trust is that the Texas Longhorn Network deal is 100% for TV and not inclusive of radio. Every other contract number that I’ve seen is hazy on the details.
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Doesn’t the Big 10 Network include a fair amount of Tier 2 rights? It also gets Tier 3 rights from all schools, but its my understanding it also has a fair amount of Tier 2 rights (otherwise how would it get so much football?) outside of select basketball games it sells to the networks (CBS I think). The only content provider for the Big 10 outside of its own Network is ESPN for Tier 1, CBS for some basketball (I believe 24 games?), and whomever does the conference championship (might also be CBS). So I don’t think the Big 10 is a straight comparison.
The Pac-12 Network I believe is mainly Tier 3 rights, but I believe it folds in some stuff (like coaches’ shows) usually reserved for the individual schools. So even that is not a straight comparison.
Texas might be the only one out there, and I’ve heard conflicting reports on what the LHN gives them (and what their IMG deal keeps). But Texas is pretty unique as a school and it does not seem the model is working particularly well right now.
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Jericho, BTN essentially includes T2 and T3. PTN is T2 and T3, and also some T1 as they get first choice some weeks. BTN televised ~43 games last year, PTN is supposed to have 36. The high payout for those two is because of the size of the content.
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Greg
I know the BTN is a mix of 2&3. But do you have a link on that Pac 12 deal? I seem to recall (and memory is not infallible) them reserving maybe 1 more fb game, but essentially it being ESPN and Fox sharing 1 & 2 and not much different than the SEC or Big 12 Tier 3 rights.
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http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegesports/2012/05/10/pac-12-tv-network-news-notes-and-musings/
In my mind, Scott’s true masterstroke was collecting the $3 billion while retaining the rights to 35 football games per year
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You are wrong on ACC 3rd tier. ESPN has the rights to sell all their live content. That link has been provided on here before.
So in the big 12 there is a lot of product you can’t sell in the ACC. The only thing they have is coaches shows which historically have been nothing more than a way to supplement the coach’s salary and normally make next to nothing for the school.
And Greg-all of these numbers I provided (except maybe Florida-which I have never seen anyone define either way) are only media rights. And these are people’s new deals, not the old IMG advertising, etc.
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If that’s true, then that’s true. I don’t know the details of the ACC deal. Seems like there’s some dispute between sources. But even if ACC schools got nothing for Tier 3 rights in the ACC, it’s still not much more than $1-2 million. If people are really going to pay FSU $7 million or whatever some people claim for their worst football game and a handful of their worst basketball games, they should be getting $60-%70 million for their prime content (11 more football games and 30 or so basketball games). Logically the numbers don’t add up
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bullet – the Big 12’s deal reserves X basketball games and one football game. That is the only difference between the Big 12’s deal and the ACC. Tier III is any content returned to the school, and I’m sure that ESPN/Fox reserves the right to air women’s basketball or baseball games (I remember ESPN airing UT baseball during the hockey lockout a few years ago) if they are of revelance.
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ESPN’s definitive answer. They understand what they have even if the ACC sometimes seems confused!
http://frontrow.espn.go.com/2012/05/acc-on-espn-rights-agreement-speculation-just-the-facts/
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so they individual schools do have content to sell. From the article it states “ESPN retains exclusive rights to all football and men’s basketball games. Additionally, ESPN retains the first selection rights to women’s basketball and all other ACC sports such as baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, etc. Whatever is not selected for coverage and distribution by ESPN from these sports is retained by the member institutions”. So at the very least, schools can sell non-revenue sports if ESPN passes on them (which it will most of the time). It’s unclear what happens to football (if any) or basketball passed by ESPN. Does this go to Raycom? Cause Raycom used to do a fair amount of conference stuff too. I guess that’s out.
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Raycom undoubtedly takes all the fb and bb.
Haven’t seen what rights they have, if any, on other sports, or if their agreement is only fb and bb.
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I do think it was notable that NCSU didn’t sell anything other than coaches shows in their latest deal. If ESPN can take whatever they want, it basically means the schools can’t guarantee anything, so its almost impossible to sell as a package.
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They actually did a study on the increased travel. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but it’s something like $1-$1.5 million more (there was a window). The increased travel cost is not so much due to distance, but the remoteness of many schools (i.e. they can’t just fly right in)
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@ Bullet
There are two other additional costs you forgot to mention: (1) someone has to pay the ACC buyout. It’s a one-time cost, but it’s a large one; and (2) neither WVU or TCU are coming in as full share members. It will take several season for those schools to get full shares (much like Nebraska also is not getting a full share of Big 10 money). Now FSU could be admitted as a full member right of away. That’s something of a big FU to TCU and WVU, but the SEC did it with A&M and Missouri.
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The bottom line about any differences in TV contract between Big 12/ACC is that the Big 12 isn’t sending invites FSU/Clemson’s way without getting proper assurances from ESPN (Tier I) and FOX(Tier II) that they would move the needle of the TV deal. People are forgetting FOX as a Tier II content provider for the Big 12 and are lump summing the “20 million a year” as one ESPN deal. FOX stands to get gain more than anyone on this by getting second tier rights to FSU/Clemson.
The Big 12 is not expanding for the sake of expanding. They will not put themselves in a position where they expand and then just pray on their knees the TV networks will oblige. That’s not how it’s working.
Even without the 3rd Tier rights in the equation,because I’m not sure anyone has a grasp on that, there are several revenue streams that could push the needle in the Big 12’s favor that both the Big 12 and FSU/Clemson will need to research
(1) Tier I ABC/ESPN contract
(2) Tier II FOX contract
(3) Conference Championship game
(3) Champions Bowl revenue – remember this will not act like a traditional “bowl” game as revenue from TV/Advertising flow straight to the conferences with no bowl committee in the way
(4) Playoff Revenue Distribution – how much of the pie will be split based on conference participation? When it’s all said and done, this could be the biggest edge the Big 12 has on the ACC
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As you mentioned at the end, the playoff participation and guaranteed money may be the underrated factor in the FSU/Clem B12 discussion.
Rumors have put the playoff TV money at as high as $500mm a year.
-Let’s say each spot in the semifinal and final pays $25mm. Since, based on history the ACC would almost never make the playoff and the B12 almost always would and sometimes have 2 teams or a team that makes the finals, that is another $25-50mm revenue advantage for the B12.
-That still leaves the $350mm guaranteed money to split. Joe Schad wrote they are discussing a formula for splitting that money based on past top 25 finishes by the conference. The B12 would have an advantage there, especially when they are adding WVU and TCU while the ACC is adding Pitt and Syracuse.
Bottom line, just the playoff money could be $3-6mm difference between the ACC and B12, which added to the regular TV contract difference and tier 3 rights start putting you in that $8-10mm+ range that FSU and Clemson could not pass up if offered.
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But if FSU comes in, TCU and WVU are immediately upgraded to full shares. Not that you’re going to hear us complaining; it’s still a huge raise of MWC bucks.
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If TCU/WVU get upgraded to full shares (and I am not sure that occurs), then FSU will not show up before the fall of 2014. That is the last TCU/WVU partial share year and pays 84% of a full share. So there is not much of a bonus in it for these schools since the reductions were front loaded (50% share in 2012-13, 67% in 2013-14).
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Big XII is unique in that most all of Texas’ games are their tier 1, the ABC/ESPN top pick regardless of opponent. Tier 1 will increase substantially when it comes time regardless of expansion, expansion with a king like FSU will help but not as much in the Big XII which airs nearly all Texas games on tier 1…
Where FSU/Clemson would really help is tier 2, the Big XII just signed a tier 2 contract, whatever is in that contract involving expansion will be telling on how much incentive their is to invite FSU/Clemson. Not only does going from 10 to 12 games improve your inventory but FSU/Clemson are great draws in their states. ESPN will gladly replace those Iowa State, Kansas games they have to air…
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I just want to thank the Kent St (Ohio) and Stony Brook (NY) baseball programs for demonstrating that all the B1G excuses about not being able to compete are just that, poor excuses.
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I was actually about to post this because I was watching the games.
Those two programs have like a dozen draft picks between them too, so it’s not as if they’re Cinderellas with a bunch of nobodies. You can have a talented baseball squad in the North.
Now, I tend to think that the reason why the Big Ten hasn’t been successful is that they really have ignored their baseball programs for the most part or are just not putting the necessary resources into getting good coaches that know how to get good players.
I really don’t know why they haven’t pushed to be as successful in baseball as in other sports, but that really needs to change because these other programs are proving that you can get talented baseball players in Northern programs…
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Granted, the MLB draft has 40 rounds, so getting a half-dozen players selected isn’t as remarkable as it may sound.
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Michigan got close in 2007. The Wolverines upset Vanderbilt in the NCAA Regional, but lost to eventual national champion Oregon State in the Super Regional.
Interestingly enough, UM would have hosted the Beavers that year, but the baseball stadium was undergoing a major renovation financed in large part by donations from UM alum and Mets owner Fred Wilpon (who also kicked in funding for the softball stadium as well). See http://www.mgoblue.com/facilities/ray-fisher-stadium.html
The last few seasons haven’t been good and Michigan recently fired the manager who was in charge when they made that last run described above (Rich Maloney had been there ten years). I don’t think anyone will be surprised to find out that Kent State’s manager will get a call to find out his interest in the job. See http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120605/SPORTS0201/206050436/1004/
I don’t know the stories of the other ten Big Ten schools with baseball programs (Wisconsin doesn’t field a team), but I doubt they’re completely static when it comes to funding their programs, etc.
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Funding isn’t an issue in the B10, they have terrific stadiums/facilities albeit small in capacity. They just have little access to the best recruits as they can’t get kids from the south (where most the top talent in baseball comes from) to accept partial scholarships (most baseball scholarships are partial, thanks Title IX) at out-of-state tuition costs…
With partial scholarships, the B10 doesn’t have a chance to get the better recruits or be competitive nationally unless they have a few elite players that came from in-state. Recruits from the south aren’t going to pay out-of-state tuition at B10 schools when they can play in their home state and pay 1/8th the price for tuition, regardless the quality of education…
Here is the best news for the B10 to be relevant in baseball, we’ll see if MLB follow through:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/baseball/story/2012-05-15/ncaa-mlb-ponder-partnership-on-scholarships/54977248/1
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I know when I went to school at Texas, that if you got a competitive academic scholarship, you could get in-state tuition rates. I would think the same could be easily done for athletes should the schools choose.
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The cold-weather states don’t tend to have as much talent per capita as the sun belt states (especially CA), but Illinois, for one, is a Top 5 school for baseball talent: http://www.necn.com/02/01/12/Illinois-top-five-in-high-school-basebal/landing.html?blockID=642770&feedID=629
Looks like B10 coaches need to step up their game in recruiting as well.
As an aside, the partial scholarships really hurt a private school like Northwestern in a sport where kids have a chance to go pro in that sport (like baseball).
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To emphasize this, since 2000, 6 IL kids have gone to a 4-year school and subsequently been drafted in the 1st round of the MLB draft. They went to ASU, Eastern Illinois, Eastern Kentucky, Miami (FL), Tulane, and Missouri St.
In the same time period, 11 OH kids have gone to a 4-year school and subsequently been drafted in the 1st round of the MLB draft. 3 went to Ball St., 2 each went to Kent St., OSU, & IU, and NCSU and Youngstown St. got one each.
If Illinois and OSU could actually out-compete MAC and other cold-weather directional schools for in-state kids, they’d be competitve; as competitive as Purdue, in fact. Only 9 IN kids who went to a 4-year school got drafted in 2012. 4 of them (including a 1st-rounder) went to PU (IU had 1). IL had 21 of those types of kids (3 attended the UofI). OH had 15 of those types of kids (none attended OSU).
Either recruiting or development is a problem at Illinois and OSU.
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“The cold-weather states don’t tend to have as much talent per capita as the sun belt states (especially CA), but Illinois, for one, is a Top 5 STATE for baseball talent”, is what I meant to say.
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“As an aside, the partial scholarships really hurt a private school like Northwestern in a sport where kids have a chance to go pro in that sport (like baseball).”
So why doesn’t this excuse hurt Stanford, Rice, or Vanderbilt?
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Brian #2:
Rice is amongst the lowest-priced of the top privates. In any case, maybe I should have amended that to “private school in an area with less baseball talent”. Vandy baseball being good, BTW, is a recent phenomenon. They went 22 years without making the postseason despite being in a baseball power conference before 2004.
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Playoffs Now,
“I just want to thank the Kent St (Ohio) and Stony Brook (NY) baseball programs for demonstrating that all the B1G excuses about not being able to compete are just that, poor excuses.”
Too bad that isn’t what they did. They showed it’s possible to overcome the obstacles that northern teams face. So have other teams like Creighton and ND in recent years.
The B10 doesn’t get a ton of NCAA bids (24 since the revamp in 1999 – 10th most), but the teams that go do OK. 4 of those 24 made a super regional (MI in 2007 was the last), too, but none made the CWS. The 24 teams went 36-42, with only 4 getting swept out, so the B10 teams have been competitive on that level but not elite. If the RPI wasn’t so important for getting in, more B10 teams might have made the NCAA and increased the odds of having a CWS team.
None of that changes the north being at a disadvantage, nor do those other schools face the restrictive academic and oversigning rules the B10 teams face. The B10 only allows teams to miss 8 class days in a season, which makes scheduling hard for them with the long road trip to start the season. They can also only oversign by 1 scholarship over 2 years (that’s the new and improved rule – it used to be 0), while other leagues oversign by 6-8. That means the B10 teams are short on talented depth because they lose a few people to the draft every year and other players were signed specifically because they wouldn’t get drafted.
Here’s a quote from the IN baseball coach:
It does help, but when other schools are over signing by 6-8 scholarships, the playing field is not even close to being even. The part that drives me nuts is nobody talks about this issue. Everyone wants to talk about weather, and huge stadiums, etc., as being the things the hold our conference back, but it’s not. The issue of over-signing is the real problem.
My friends who coach at southern schools laugh when I tell them that we can’t over-sign kids until our underclassmen physically sign a contact. They are like, “how in the heck do you guys recruit?” I have my response down to a science now, I put my hands behind my back and say, “like this.”
That said, I am not saying I agree with over-signing to the level most southern teams do it, because it can create some ugly scenarios where kids are “run off.” Again, too many reasons and not enough time to respond. But what I would like to see is some consistency with regard to the issue of over-signing.
That said, I’m fine with B10 baseball stinking because it’s a dumb sport and I wish it would go away. OSU’s money would be much better spent on a real sport.
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Doesn’t look as if we’ll see Brian at an Indians, Reds, Columbus Clippers or Dayton Dragons game anytime in the future.
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I haven’t been to a MLB game since I was about 8. I last saw a minor league game in the early 90s. I doubt I’ve watched an entire MLB game on TV this millennium. I haven’t even watched one whole inning in years. The game bores me.
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Brian wrote: “That said, I’m fine with B10 baseball stinking because it’s a dumb sport and I wish it would go away. OSU’s money would be much better spent on a real sport.”
Alan’s response: A real sport. . . like tOSU’s national champion co-ed fencing team?
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Yes, I’d take fencing over baseball in a heartbeat. Or lacrosse, or field hockey, or soccer, or volleyball or gymnastics or synchronized swimming or rifle or Tiddlywinks or …
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Don’t forget OSU’s competitive cheer
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Cheerleading is a complete waste of time and not a sport in the conventional sense, but it’s still a better use of money than baseball.
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And Stonybrook downs LSU to advance to Omaha. Wow. Now Kent State is up 2-0 in game 2, leads the series 1-0. Wouldn’t it be awkward if two Cinderellas showed up to the ball?
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Congrats Seawolves! And Tigers also. Super class shown by LSU fans post game. Saw quite a few congratulating players at the fences
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Yeah, sounded like they gave them a nice ovation. Good on the crowd at the Box.
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I just took a look at the Stony Brook schedule and it’s pretty hilarious. They went 32-3 in the months of April and May, basically whomping on other teams in the Northeast.
Kent St. had a 21-game winning streak (including wins over Purdue, Oregon, and Kentucky twice) before that last loss to Oregon. Too bad they couldn’t protect the lead or they would have gone in to the CWS on a 22-game winning streak (which must be a record). Pretty insane stuff.
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It’s not a record win streak…. I think it’s 37, something like that. I know Texas used to hold it. Started a season 34-0 — and didn’t make the NCAA playoffs.
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Record for streak heading in to the CWS, I meant. Maybe it was done before; someone who knows NCAA baseball history better than me would have to look in to it.
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Stonybrook will the be crowd favorite at the CWS. They will have more “fans” in Omaha than anyone else.
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Unless Kent State makes it, too. Them Omahans (Omahanians?) won’t know what to do.
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The CWS field is set.
SEC (3) – Florida, South Carolina & Arkansas
Pac 12 (2) – UCLA & Arizona State
ACC – Florida State
MAC – Kent State
Am East – Stony Brook
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Well, TCU didn’t make it this year, but at least Baylor lost. It’s some consolation. I will now hear arguments from Kent State and Stony Brook on why I should pull for their respective teams.
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Jake – both will get plenty of love, but Stoney will be more popular.
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I’m still lost as to how you want to break it down by geography & then place Miami in the north. Yes, I saw your post about “culture/character”, but it’s still odd that by your breakdown, they would be the LAST team to be placed as such. I would have figured you would have placed an NC school or WF there instead.
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I think Miami fits better in the north than a North Carolina school though. They have history with several northern members and arguably a rivalry with Virginia Tech. Taking a North Carolina school there alone would separate them from the rest of the state.
The north-south proposal that Frank and others have had basically takes the old Big East schools and puts them together with Maryland and Virginia.
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Big East sues TCU over exit penalties
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-11/big-east-sues-texas-christian-over-failed-membership-accord.html
The Big East Conference… said in a complaint filed in federal court in Washington today that Texas Christian committed to pay $5 million if it failed to follow through with the membership agreement reached on Nov. 29, 2010.
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Check’s in the mail.
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Now we know why Miami’s scandal had everything but cocaine. The dealer was flying around with Missouri’s basketball team.
http://chron.com/sports/article/Missouri-fan-on-team-plane-in-federal-drug-probe-3624807.php
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Andy’s sources categorically deny your slanderous allegations.
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The guy was a fan, not even a booster, who also happened to be involved in cocaine. He went to some road games, yes. You can buy your way on to the planes with the team in the extra seats in the back. People do it all the time. He was in no way involved with the actual team in any way. They’ve already done a thorough investigation. The world has drug dealers. Sometimes they’re basketball fans. They have a lot of money so sometimes they go to away games. There’s literally nothing there.
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Also, he’s been around for years, long before Haith showed up. He’s a local guy who owns a stereo repair shop (and sells cocaine). Has zero to do with Haith or basketball.
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And he flies around with the basketball team. That’s involved with the team. Its very embarrassing for the university. Its not like he’s just a season ticket holder who sits on the front row. For all we know, he was using the university plane to fly to other cities to promote his business.
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“For all we know, he was using the university plane to fly to other cities to promote his business.”
You really are a doofus.
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Sounds like you have a connection to Missouri. Calling people names does not help your own credibility.
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What part of this is hard to believe? A cocaine dealer might go on a pleasure trip and do a little business on the side? That it might be useful to him to travel on a charter plane that doesn’t go through normal security? That its embarrassing for a university to be flying a cocaine dealer around?
There’s nothing to say he did any business while on these trips, but he could have.
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I’ll say it again, he was a fan, in no way associated with the program. Fans can buy their way onto Missouri team planes on trips to away games if they pay for the ticket. Quote from the report:
“The indictment makes no allegations whatsoever about the university, the athletic program or coaches and players,” said Don Ledford of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in KC.”
End of story…..
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Dude (as in Andy…)… are you on Missouri’s payroll?? or what??
There might be a “homer” or two on this blog (of which I undeniably am a Gopher)… but…….
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“Sounds like you have a connection to Missouri. Calling people names does not help your own credibility.”
No connection to Missouri, just calling a spade a spade. You are a doofus and make some of the most biased comments on the board. Sounds like it comes with the territory of being a UT fan though.
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At least I don’t use the term “doofus!”
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bullet: “There’s nothing to say he did any business while on these trips, but he could have.”
—Without any actual evidence suggesting that he did so then that is just pointless rumormongering. After all, there’s nothing to say that Mack Brown is a serial rapist…but he could behave.
To be blunt even if Cooley was selling drugs during the road games; if neither the University nor the players were aware then as far as college athletics is concerned it’s a non-story. Now if the free tickets he was receiving were compensation for a little sumthin’ sumthin’ he was providing the players…then we have something the NCAA will want to jump all over. That being said the University of Missouri has stated that they’ve investigated for potential NCAA violations and feels confident that none were committed. Given Missouri does not have a history of dealing with the NCAA in bad faith on compliance issues I see no reason not to believe them.
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Some interesting comments on playoff proposals and a bowl proposal supported by Notre Dame that got shot down.
There is a revenue distribution committee. Delany, Slive, Swofford, Steinbrecher (MAC), Thompson (MWC).
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/19332347/playoff-system-get-ready-for-your-boise-statetypes-to-have-less-access
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Gene Corrigan (former Notre Dame Athletic Director and ACC commissioner) said his dream would be to go back to eleven regular season games and have a 16-team playoff with the first two rounds played at campus sites. The three remaining games would be played at bowl sites.
Other ideas mentioned in the article has college football evolving into five 16-team conferences with 80 total members and an eight-team playoff with the five conference champions and three at large programs going into the playoff.
Corrigan also talks about the conferences buying the bowls and running the post-season by themselves. See http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/sbt-notre-dame-football-exad-corrigan-discusses-looming-playoff-talks-20120609,0,861637,full.column
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That is intriguing. But I think it more likely that the conferences will stay at uneven numbers. I still don’t see where the Pac-12 finds teams. And the B1G and SEC keep increasing their numbers to a point where it is harder to find additional teams that move the needle up? Think about it… if the B1G added Texas and Rutgers… how much more would each team make? If they are already making $25M per school, that is $300M. If that combo added $100M/year… that would mean $400M/14 teams or an increase of $4M per. 15% increase.
Is a 15% increase worth the hassle of adding Texas? Maybe, maybe not.
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Congrats to the SUNY-Stony Brook Seawolves for beating my LSU Tigers and earning a trip to the CWS. The Seawolves are a great team made up largely of players from Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They had 5 position players taken in the first 12 rounds of the MLB draft last week, and solid freshmen contributing to a total team effort. Their pitchers probably had the best weekend of their careers.
LSU overachieved this year and peaked in April, but when your team gets this close, it still sucks to lose.
The point of this post is not pity or excuses for my Tigers, its that in the last two weeks, Kent State and Stony Brook have dispelled the myth that Northern teams can’t compete in college baseball. In consecutive weekends, Stony Brook beat two Kings of college baseball in Miami and Baton Rouge. A commuter school on Long Island with local kids and only one set of uniforms may have had only had 5 bad at bats all weekend.
No one can say with a straight face that B1G schools can’t succeed in baseball while Kent State and Stony Brook can. Michigan has a job opening right now, and if I’m the AD, I’m making only two phone calls.
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I agree with you that Michigan Athletic Director David Brandon is almost certainly going to call Kent State’s head coach for a job interview. We’ll see what transpires in terms of who he gets as the next baseball coach for the team.
I do have to say that having two real long shot teams in the college world series is a nice story, but it certainly doesn’t dispel the larger idea that northern schools remain at a disadvantage to their southern counterparts when it comes to baseball. If we were to look at the lineup of teams in the 2011 College World Series, then we’d all come to a different conclusion as the participating teams came from the SEC (3 – South Carolina, Florida, Vanderbilt), Big XII (2 – Texas, Texas A&M), ACC (2- North Carolina, Virginia) and Pac 12 (California).
Michigan played its first twenty games this season in Florida, Louisiana (including against LSU) and South Carolina starting in in mid-February and extending out for the next five weeks. LSU, in a contrasting example, played 20 of its first 22 games at its home stadium and the other two were at other sites within the state of Louisiana against Tulane and McNeese State. All in all, most people would agree that would put one program at a competitive advantage over the other (those are probably the same people who recognize that playing semi-final college football games on a late December day in cold weather at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor would give Michigan an advantage over Louisiana State).
That’s part of the reason why you’re seeing proposals to play some of the baseball season in the fall from the northern schools. Those twenty-some games that take place in February and March could be played late August thru October with the season picking up again perhaps in late March the following year or early April and end during the same time frame.
Some people might say that you can’t compete with football, but any good athletic department’s marketing arm will be able to bundle the football with baseball as part of a cross promotion. The Big Ten/Pac 12, for example, are talking about having multi-sport festivals in concert with the football games on campus as the agreement between the two conferences fully matures.
We’ll see what happens. This may turn out to be a situation where the northern schools and other conferences who wish to participate will have the fall season along with an abbreviated spring/summer season while other schools might want to remain on the current schedule. That might be something that would work out best for both parties.
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Great point about the B10 and northern schools playing so many games in the south to start the year. No recruit wants to spend February and March all on the road…
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Only quibble I have with your post is that calling Stony Brook a commuter school is a bit unfair as they’re one of the SUNY flagships, definitely SUNY’s engineering/sciences school, a member of the AAU, and have one of the only 2 public med schools in NY state.
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Richard, while I’ve never been to Stony Brook, the tens of Seawolf fans that I met this past weekend characterized that way – more for the lack of campus life than the quality of the education, I guess.
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I read that MI is unretiring Gerald Ford’s number and will instead give it to a top player each year (they do that with Desmond Howrd’s number now).
Does anyone else think it’s a bit odd to unretire a number, especially the one worn by a POTUS? A Heisman winner is one thing, but it’s safe to say POTUS is on another level.
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The Ford family apparenlty gave their consent. Dave Brandon (Michigan AD) pointed out that no one knows who the retired numbers are for, but an “active” honoring (like a special badge on a players jersey) will make sure people remember these former greats.
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They didn’t retire his number because he was the POTUS. Or maybe they did, but at least he was a preety good football player for them. Bottom line, what he did after Michigan football shouldn’t be relevant. They seem to be doing this for all the numbers/retirees. “Unretiring” probably is not the right word. Instead its “game honored,” as at least major players are wearing it as a honor to past stars. Does not seem too bad.
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I actually like this approach.
Retiring numbers in football and baseball doesn’t really mean that much to me personally. Pro-basketball is really the only sport where I think a player can have such a big impact over such a long period of time with a franchise as to deserve a number being retired (but that’s just my personal opinion), and it’s also the most noticeable because the jersey/number is hanging in the rafters near the championship banners…
I think this does more for the memory of a great football player than just hanging a jersey in a hall on campus or whatever the case may be.
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zeek,
“I actually like this approach.
Retiring numbers in football and baseball doesn’t really mean that much to me personally. Pro-basketball is really the only sport where I think a player can have such a big impact over such a long period of time with a franchise as to deserve a number being retired (but that’s just my personal opinion), and it’s also the most noticeable because the jersey/number is hanging in the rafters near the championship banners…”
I prefer retiring numbers, but I think some teams do it too often. It should only be the best of the best. I don’t see how a star player wearing your number is an honor outside of the locker room, really. No visiting team’s fan would know that #48 for the maize and blue is special.
Are you telling me the Yankees haven’t had players that deserved that sort of honor? And isn’t having the numbers visible in the stadium (on the fence in baseball, or on the facade in football) near the banners the same basic thing?
“I think this does more for the memory of a great football player than just hanging a jersey in a hall on campus or whatever the case may be.”
I suppose every school does it differently, but OSU has their names and numbers displayed inside the stadium like the NC banners (http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjaminpicklescohen/4500716327/ versus http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotos-g50226-d559429-w3-Ohio_Stadium-Columbus_Ohio.html). OSU has recently decided to stop retiring numbers in all sports. They still honor the numbers and players (like hanging a jersey in hoops), but the numbers stay available. One of the main drivers was football and the large number of players worthy of the honor. It would end up being hard to find enough numbers for the roster.
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Just a couple of comments. Michigan will also be taking two other numbers out of retirement–47 (Bennie Oosterbaan) and 87 (Ron Kramer)–along with #48 worn by Gerald Ford. That leaves two numbers in retirement (#11 honors the three Wistert brothers and #98 is Tom Harmon). Just like what the did for Desmond Howard and #21 (Michigan Legends Patch), Michigan will do the same for President Ford, Oosterbaan and Kramer next season during the Illinois, Air Force and Massachusetts games, respectively.
When Michgan Stadium was built in the mid-1920s, it was actually designated a memorial stadium by Fielding H. Yost. Yost wanted to make sure that no individual name was put on it and that it would always be known as Michigan Stadium. On a side note, Yost was responsible for getting a column on Illinois’ Memorial Stadium dedicated to a former UM player with Illini ties when it was built in the early 1920s after World War I.
The larger point I’m making is that it’s part of the Michigan football legacy that individual honors are downplayed in favor of the larger team and that Michigan Stadium isn’t a place for the sort of adornment you get with rings of honor or having names painted on the side of a luxury box, etc. Putting the patches on the uniforms is about as far as they’d be willing to go. The players who are honored will get special mention at the new exhibits going up at the soon to be renovated Schembechler Hall and the locker rooms of the players with the numbers being honored will also have signage on them as well.
I think it’s fair to imagine at some future time we’ll see #11 and #98 brought out of retirement, provided the families approve of the matter. I also expect to see #2 honored because of Charles Woodson and #1 will also be remembered because of Anthony Carter (the only other three time All American in football at Michigan besides Bennie Oosterbaan). There may be other numbers being honored in the future as well, but in the end, I expect there may be a dozen or so with the special designation.
See http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-football/michigan-to-honor-gerald-ford-bennie-oosterbaan-and-ron-kramer-as-football-legends/
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cutter,
You can say MI doesn’t play up individual honors, but they chose to retire those numbers. Undoing an honor is always a little strange, though. Unhonoring a POTUS is pretty rare. And wearing a patch or giving a number to good players is not the same level of honor as retiring a number. If MI wants that to be their policy, I don’t care one way or the other. They can honor who they want however they want. It just struck me as odd to unretire a POTUS’s jersey a few years after his death. Maybe if he’d won an election it would stay retired.
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Jericho,
“They didn’t retire his number because he was the POTUS. Or maybe they did, but at least he was a preety good football player for them.”
Yes, he was pretty good. It’s hard to judge how great a lineman from the 30’s was beyond that. That said, they retired his number in 1994, so being POTUS had to be at least a small factor.
“Bottom line, what he did after Michigan football shouldn’t be relevant.”
I disagree. Lots of schools honored players that left for WWII, for example. I think honoring the one POTUS that played major college football in a way they don’t honor other players would be good.
“They seem to be doing this for all the numbers/retirees. “Unretiring” probably is not the right word. Instead its “game honored,” as at least major players are wearing it as a honor to past stars. Does not seem too bad.”
Yes, and a change of policy is fine. It just seems a little odd to me to un-honor someone one way and then honor them a different way instead. I say “unretiring” because that’s exactly what they did. The number was retired, and now it is not. I’m not trying to be critical, it just struck me as odd (as opposed to no longer retiring numbers, for example, or for only unretiring recent players’ numbers).
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Pac-12 sources: Michigan close to home/home deal with Utah starting in 2014. Thursday night return visit to Salt Lake City to open the 2015 season possible.
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Probably return in ’16, M doesn’t want a Thursday night game.
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I believe they are talking about the Thursday night just prior to Labor Day 2015 for national TV. That would be acceptable. After Labor Day = unacceptable.
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That’s correct. The second game on the current 2015 schedule is against Notre Dame at Michigan Stadium. So if Michigan were to open the season at Utah on a Thursday night, it’d mean getting back to Ann Arbor on Friday and having a little extra time to get ready for ND.
Michigan hasn’t had much success during the regular or post-season in games played out west, so perhaps it’s a good idea to open at Utah in 2015 and concentrate on that game in the fall camp. It also makes sense not to play in Salt Lake City the third week of the season (right after playing ND) or the fourth week (immediately prior to a road game with Michigan State).
We’re still waiting to find out what will happen with the Michigan-Notre Dame football series. The two schools have a three year rolling agreement which allows either party to cancel out individual games or the series. The next hiatus is expected for the 2018/19 seasons, but with the Pac 12 scheduling agreement starting in 2017 and because the 2015/6 schedules are unbalanced (Notre Dame, WIsconsin, Nebraska and Ohio State are all either home or road games in those seasons), there’s an expectation that the series will end in 2014 or even 2015. If that’s the case, then the thinking among the fan base is that ND will replaced on the schedule by a major Pac 12 team in 2016.
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Has there been any talk from insiders or Brandon about the scheduling getting more balanced in future years?
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Brian – Brandon was quoted in the Detroit newspapers about the schedule inbalance problem Michigan had with Notre Dame, Nebraska and Ohio State all being home or away games starting last year. So when the Big Ten published the 2015/6 schedules and it showed the same scheduling trend (with Wisconsin added to the mix), the belief was that Notre Dame would be dropped from the schedule and replaced with another team.
As I mentioned above, the two schools have a three-year rolling agreement that allows either one to get out of playing the other or even ending the series. We have no idea if either school has opted to exercise that option, but it would make sense for both to some degree. (Notre Dame starts the 2015 and 2016 seasons with games against Texas and Michigan. That’s something I’m guessing they might want to change).
These were all things that the Big Ten Conference should have been aware of, so it’s telling to me that not only did the B10 keep the Nebraska and Ohio State games both at home or on the road thru 2016, but that Wisconsin was added to that list in 2015/6. We’ll see how this plays out, but one possibility is that Notre Dame is dropped after the 2015 season and replaced on the schedule from that point forward with one of the major Pac 12 teams. Here’s what the 2015 schedule looks like (and 2016 will be the same, but with the Notre Dame and Big Ten conference game locations are flip flopped).
9/3 – at Utah
9/12 – NOTRE DAME
9/19 – HOME TBD
9/26 – HOME TBD
10/3 – At Michigan State
10/10 – WISCONSIN
10/17 – MINNESOTA
10/24 – At Illinois
10/31 – OPEN
11/7 – NEBRASKA
11/14 – At Northwestern
11/21 – At Iowa
11/28 – OHIO STATE
In 2016, that means Michigan’s home conference schedule is MSU, IL, NW and IA with ND, UN-L, UW and OSU on the road. It’d make sense to balance it out by dropping the road game with Notre Dame and replacing it with a home game against a major P12 opponent.
We might know more later this week or next week. Brandon has indicated that there were deals pending with a number of teams. He didn’t mention Utah by name–that came from another source and we still have no direction confirmation from Michigan about that home-and-home series. Brandon did talk last July about not wanting to have any non-conference road games other than Notre Dame because of finances (see http://michiganzone.blogspot.com/2011/07/dave-brandon-wants-to-continue-boning.html), but it appears that’s changed due to the Big Ten/Pac 12 agreement
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I just don’t understand why it is so hard to provide some balance. Clearly lots of schools would be involved, but it shouldn’t be that hard to flip a few games so everyone has a balanced home schedule. Its important to have some marquee names. Even Michigan and Nebraska might not always sell out. They’ve got a lot of seats to sell. And that doesn’t even consider the competitive balance issues.
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cutter,
“Brian – Brandon was quoted in the Detroit newspapers about the schedule inbalance problem Michigan had with Notre Dame, Nebraska and Ohio State all being home or away games starting last year. So when the Big Ten published the 2015/6 schedules and it showed the same scheduling trend (with Wisconsin added to the mix), the belief was that Notre Dame would be dropped from the schedule and replaced with another team.
As I mentioned above, the two schools have a three-year rolling agreement that allows either one to get out of playing the other or even ending the series. We have no idea if either school has opted to exercise that option, but it would make sense for both to some degree. (Notre Dame starts the 2015 and 2016 seasons with games against Texas and Michigan. That’s something I’m guessing they might want to change).”
I knew Brandon had said something previously, but I didn’t know if he had given MI fans any reason to hope for a change in future B10 schedules (obviously ND is out of the B10’s hands). As I recall, I went through this before and tried to find a schedule that would be balanced for everyone and it is a lot harder than it sounds. I assume the B10 really only considers the 6 locked opponents for that, so I’d excuse them for WI. There shouldn’t be a schedule with 2 locked kings in the same location, though (unless you are playing 3 or more). In my opinion, all the conferences don’t seem to spend enough time thinking about scheduling issues like this (see the FSU complaints in the ACC, weeks off in the SEC, etc).
“These were all things that the Big Ten Conference should have been aware of, so it’s telling to me that not only did the B10 keep the Nebraska and Ohio State games both at home or on the road thru 2016, but that Wisconsin was added to that list in 2015/6.”
I wonder if the B10 basically told Brandon it’s too early to start swapping NE’s series around, but that they will look at it for future schedules. As I said above, I forgive them for WI because I think the rotating teams are purely on a cycle and they treat them all equally. It isn’t the B10’s fault that ND also is in that same cycle, but you’d like to think they take it into consideration a little bit.
“We’ll see how this plays out, but one possibility is that Notre Dame is dropped after the 2015 season and replaced on the schedule from that point forward with one of the major Pac 12 teams. Here’s what the 2015 schedule looks like (and 2016 will be the same, but with the Notre Dame and Big Ten conference game locations are flip flopped).”
Even if the schedule was balanced (say NE was swapped), I wonder about the long term viability of MI/ND. Does MI want a 3rd king every year on top of the P12 team, especially if performance and branding will be used to determine the B10/P12 branding? MI could theoretically see schedules like this:
OOC – ND, USC, directional MU
B10 – OSU, NE, MSU, IA, NW, MN, PSU, WI
It’d be great for SOS purposes (5 kings, 3 princes, 2 solid, 1 cupcake), but tough on the winning percentage. I don’t think location would matter much for that schedule.
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For Brian:
I suspect that Brandon is guided by two basic principles when it comes to the scheduling. As eluded to from his comments eleven months ago, he’s looking to have only one non-conference home-and-home series to ensure he has as many home dates as possible in order to maximize ticket revenue.
That alone coupled with the imminent Big Ten/Pac 12 series would be reason enough for him to cancel out on the Notre Dame series. Michigan has completed a number of major renovations on the athletic campus and is planning to continue building (such as a new lacrosse facility) and renovating other facilities to get them in a state so that they could sponsor conference and national championships. There’s even been mention that there’s a plan to expand Michigan Stadium by adding seating on the south side of the stadium and connecting the east and west concourses. All that is going to cost money, so I imagine he’s hard pressed to pass up the $4M to $5M the athletic department gets for every home football game.
The other guiding principle is that he wants to make the games into events. The Under the Lights contest with Notre Dame last season was heavily promoted, Michigan had the Big Chill hockey game with Michigan State, and now Michigan Stadium is being used by the NHL for their next Winter Classic game between Detroit and Toronto.
That means having an entertaining home football schedule each year–especially if he’s looking at not only selling out the stadium, but keeping the money from the luxury boxes and the PSLs flowing. Having such an uneven schedule where the home slate of games is really good one season and not so great the next doesn’t help him achieve that goal.
Since Notre Dame isn’t willing to flip flop its schedule (as far as we know) because it wants to make sure it plays UM and USC one home and one on the road each year and because the Big Ten has presented him with such an uneven conference schedule, he might feel compelled to drop the ND series and eventually replace them with a major Pac 12 team willing to playing at Michigan in the even numbered years and then host the Wolverines in the odd ones.
In the end, I suspect that’ll mean swapping out one king (ND) for a Pac 12 king in a home-and-home non conference series. The other three non-conference games then includes a couple of MAC teams plus a program willing to pay for play (like Air Force this season and San Diego State last year).
I think we’ll have a better idea fairly soon. I don’t know how much Brandon would be guided by the potential post-season setups (best four teams v. conference winners v. hybrid) in putting together the schedules. In the end, the adjustment might be fairly minor, i.e., everything stays the same, but a Pac 12 team replaces Notre Dame.
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Dabo Swinney doesn’t want Clemson to leave ACC.
And when addressing rumors about Clemson’s interest in the Big 12, Swinney said it would be the “worst thing” Clemson could do as a program and makes “zero sense.”
Swinney said the Internet rumors of Clemson’s interest in moving to the Big 12 have been “frustrating” to deal with as he has had to reassure recruits that Clemson is committed to the ACC.
“I think there has been a lot of irresponsible blogging and reporting whatever you want to call it,” Swinney said. “We live in this world (where) somebody hears something from the guy in the third stall down and it’s like, ‘OK it’s fact.’ It’s so far from reality it’s not even funny. We’re 1,000 percent committed to the ACC.”
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20120612/PC20/120619725/1032/swinney-watkins-likely-to-miss-games-bellamy-could-return-big-12-is-a-bad-idea-for-clemson
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So if Florida State was interested in the Big 12 and Clemson wasn’t, would Louisville be FSU’s partner? Would that placate Iowa State, Kansas State and Kansas, not to mention West Virginia?
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From my seat, it’s a positive for everyone to invite FSU and whoever (Louisville or Clemson or BYU) wants to come along with them. But Texas’ vote counts for all of the Texas teams along with both Oklahoma schools…
To me it appears Texas and Oklahoma have a strong preference to NOT have a CCG and NOT have competition in the Big XII so they can play one big game a year against each other and make it possible for both the winner and loser of that game to potentially play in the 4-team playoff. Big Two, Little Eight…
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Oklahoma’s president has already said he supported expansion. (Specifically, that he would “feel more comfortable” if the conference returned to 12 teams), and OSU president echoed his sentiments.
The coaches and ADs probably don’t want to expand but it’s the presidents who make the ultimate decision.
(FWIW, TCU’s president has also spoken positively about possible expansion but, as for as I know, has never officially endorsed the idea).
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West Virginia won’t be a problem either way. WVU (or at least Oliver Luck) is gung ho about expansion and will probably back any eastern addition
ISU, KSU and KU on the other hand, are likely to resist any expansion that cuts their Texas exposure unless the money is really good. (Think, Utah, Colorado, the Arizona schools and the No. Cal. blocking the PAC’s addition of the Oklahoma schools because they didn’t want to sacrifice LA exposure.)
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Re: vp19
Are you seriously suggesting FSU is going to consider joining the Big 12 without a regional team like Clemson to play in a division with WVU, UL, ISU, KSU, KU?
“Would that placate Iowa State, Kansas State and Kansas, not to mention West Virginia?”
Are you serious???????
Read the FSU’s President’s discussion notes to the trustees in the Warchant article cited below.
and combine that with Swinney’s comments.
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Wow! Very strong comments from Clemson coach on B12 move. B12 rumors are hurting recruiting. Leads me to believe a move to the B12 isn’t happening; At least not this year.
http://www.tigernet.com/view/story.do?id=10660
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If I was the football coach at Clemson (or FSU), I’d want to stay in the ACC.
Those two schools get top recruits (and win plenty of recruiting battles against SEC schools). FSU can get top 5-10 classes right now (including winning their share of recruiting battles against Alabama, Florida, and Georgia), and Clemson always has highly ranked recruiting classes.
Competitively, it’s a lot easier reaching the ACC title game and winning that given that those are two of the top 4 schools in the conference in terms of football recruiting/fan support etc. In the Big 12, they’d be going up against monsters like Texas and Oklahoma if they get there, and it’s likely the title game would be located in Texas. You’d also have tougher division competition in WVU and Kansas State as compared to what FSU and Clemson deal with now.
As a coach, it’s simple to see why they would be opposed, the Big 12 doesn’t really offer them that much; an undefeated ACC team is going to get into a 4 team playoff, and it’s a lot easier to win the ACC.
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It’s the conference commissioners, university presidents and athletic directors that make these decisions so anything the coaches say is moot. They have a voice but they don’t make any of these decisions.
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“It’s the conference commissioners, university presidents and athletic directors that make these decisions so anything the coaches say is moot. They have a voice but they don’t make any of these decisions.”
This isn’t accurate. While technically the football coach does not make the decision, the school’s decision-makers are not going to go through with moving to a conference half-way across the country if he is adamantly against it and they value his employment. Coaches also can help sway public opinion since they are the face of the program, so his opinion is more than just words.
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Doesn’t seem to bother FSU
In the final days before they nailed down their 2011 recruiting class, which eventually would be ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in the country by a variety of recruiting services, Florida State’s football coaches were frantically trying to tie up loose ends.
Florida State athletics director Randy Spetman supports the football program’s expensive use of chartered planes.
Throughthe extensive use of chartered planes and jets, Jimbo Fisher and his assistant coaches scurried back and forth across the Southeast and into Texas, Oklahoma and New Jersey.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/acc/story/2012-06-10/florida-state-charter-flights/55509134/1?loc=interstitialskip
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“I think there has been a lot of irresponsible blogging and reporting whatever you want to call it,” Swinney said. “We live in this world (where) somebody hears something from the guy in the third stall down and it’s like, ‘OK it’s fact.’ It’s so far from reality it’s not even funny. We’re 1,000 percent committed to the ACC.”
Someone should inform Dabo that it wasn’t a blogger and it wasn’t someone standing at a urinal. The Clemson BOT met to discuss the ACC and realignment. After the meeting the Chairman of the BOT issued a statement that sounded to me like it was anything but 1,000 percent committed.
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Best line from Swinney in Tigernet article;
“We live in this world nowadays where some guy hears something from a guy the third stall down in the bathroom and it’s like, ‘OK, that’s fact. That’s the way it is.’ It’s so far from reality it’s not even funny but it just takes on a life of its own.”
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Per Ivan Maisel of ESPN,
“recruits in SEC and ACC country have made it clear that they aren’t interested in playing in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc.”
http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/62009/
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Here is an interesting read on what kind of content can be expected from a SEC Network: http://outkickthecoverage.com/sec-network-could-carry-40-50-football-games-a-season.php
Now I take a lot of what Clay Travis says with a grain of salt, especially his financial numbers. But I think his content numbers are pretty close to accurate.
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Does he have any source for this or is he just making it up like his financial numbers? There’s no indication from his article that he is doing anything other than speculating.
Not sure how A&M and Missouri’s games fit in to the existing contract, but I think ESPN owns the rights to all but 1 that they can withhold. Its the extra 14 games available to Tier 2 (112 with 14 teams less 96 with 12 teams less two withheld by A&M/Missouri) that ESPN is discussing on its look-in with the SEC. To have 40-50 games would mean ESPN would be providing 26-36 of those games (Each SEC school would be contributing 1 game) and believing that an SEC network is a more profitable way to use them than ESPN2 or syndication. It would mean every time slot each Saturday would have a game, so the SEC would be competing with its Tier I and Tier II games (of course Big 10 is normally on ESPN and ESPN2 opposite itself in the morning slot).
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Doing this sort of thing is a lot more complicated than simply taking existing Tier 3 and throwing it into the network. There are all sorts of conflicts and differing rights to be negotiated. Does CBS have an exclusive time window? And ESPN and the conference have to weigh the value of their rights in this format vs. other formats. 1/3 of this is already being monetized by the schools. 1/3 is being monetized by ESPN. 1/3 is the content created from the new schools.
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I think that the theory is that ESPN would believe that they can make more money off owning a percentage of the equity in the purposed SEC Network than they can in selling off their unused 2nd tier content.
And I doubt that the SEC or ESPN/CBS cares whether or not games are shown on the SEC Network at the same time that they are showing other games on their main channels. ESPN has always shown SEC multiple games on different channels either at the same time or overlapping times.
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“I think that the theory is that ESPN would believe that they can make more money off owning a percentage of the equity in the purposed SEC Network than they can in selling off their unused 2nd tier content.”
Correct. That said, one of the things Clay Travis and others are failing to recognize is the leverage involved here. If we are talking about a 50 game network, ESPN is providing 72% of the football games through 2024. I have no doubt that they’d make more off of a network than the current syndication deals. But they hold quite a few of the negotiating chips at this point.
“And I doubt that the SEC or ESPN/CBS cares whether or not games are shown on the SEC Network at the same time that they are showing other games on their main channels. ESPN has always shown SEC multiple games on different channels either at the same time or overlapping times.”
It isn’t ESPN. It would be CBS that would potentially care, and I have a feeling they probably do. ABC has historically had window exclusivity in their contracts. For example in the old Big XII, if there was a 2:30 cst ABC game, no other Big XII game could kickoff in the 2:30 to 6:00 p.m. window. Any FSN, ESPN, Versus, or PPV game had to kickoff at 11:00 or after 6:00.
ABC had an exclusive Big Ten 2:30 window up until last year when it was negotiated away with the addition of Nebraska. Any BTN game was limited to noon eastern or later than 7 eastern. Just looking at SEC kickoffs lat year, the only times an ESPN game kicked off in the afternoon was on 9/10 when CBS didn’t show a game, and 11/5 when CBS opted for a night game. So it looks like for at least the primary ESPN cable games, CBS has an exclusive window.
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“The Big Ten Network, while successful, isn’t the best comparison for the SEC Network because most Big Ten schools aren’t the most popular teams in their respective states, the SEC teams are. This means the SEC’s Network is more akin to other regional sports networks like Comcast SportsNet Washington or the New England Sports Network than it is the Big Ten Network”
I take issue with this statement from him.
If he’s only talking college football, the B10 has PA, OH, MI, WI, MN, IA and NE locked, and maybe IL (Is ND more popular in IL than IL?). I think ND wins in IN. That’s most of the B10 teams as the most popular teams in the state.
If he’s talking all sports, the SEC doesn’t win TX, MO, LA, GA or FL due to pro sports and/or other college teams. SC is a toss up. I think the pros win TN, too. I’ll give them MS, AL and KY (hoops over football). The B10 would probably keep NE and IA and that’s it.
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Probably keep Ohio too. Maybe together the Brown and Bengals have more attention, but certainly not separately and I’m not even sure they do together (state wide, obviously they would in Cincinnati and Cleveland).
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It would be close, with the NFL being so much more popular, so I took the conservative position. Regardless, I don’t see how his point is defensible.
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@Brian – I would probably say that UF is the single most popular sports team (college or pro) in Florida, although there’s a lot of competition simply because it’s such a large state with multiple large metros. Atlanta is a horrible, horrific pro sports town but arguably the best college football town of the legitimately large metro areas with its cross-section of SEC alums (plus a lot of ACC alums, too). My impression is that LSU historically rules Louisiana – it’s only been the recent run of success of the Saints that muddies that a little bit. Tennessee is definitely all about the Vols and the SEC – the pro teams there don’t have much history there.
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“the pro teams there don’t have much history there” At first I was like, man, that second “there” was redundant. Then I realized every word in that sentence was essential.
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Frank the Tank,
“@Brian – I would probably say that UF is the single most popular sports team (college or pro) in Florida, although there’s a lot of competition simply because it’s such a large state with multiple large metros.”
I think the Dolphins may well have more total fans, they’re just more concentrated in the southern end. UF might win if it weren’t for FSU and Miami (and USF and UCF to a lesser extent) and AL and UGA stealing chunks of the college fan base. The pros have the advantage of having all the non-CFB fans while also getting CFB fans.
“Atlanta is a horrible, horrific pro sports town but arguably the best college football town of the legitimately large metro areas with its cross-section of SEC alums (plus a lot of ACC alums, too).”
That’s unfair to Atlanta. Atlanta suffers from having so many transplants that loyalties are really divided. There are plenty of pro fans, they just don’t all support the local teams. They also have been burdened with some of the worst franchises in pro sports.
2 hockey teams have failed, but it’s the deep south. That was just dumb on the NHL’s part. The Falcons never had back to back winning seasons until 2008-2011, and never made the playoffs twice in a row until last year. You can’t build a fan base like that. The Hawks have been Dominique Wilkins and a continuous string of bad contracts ever since (Jon “Contract” Koncak, for example), but they still pull a decent crowd. Sure, the crowd usually cheers louder for teams like the Lakers than the Hawks, but that’s the NBA. The Braves were horrible for a long time until the run of 14 straight division titles (ignoring the strike shortened 1994) under Bobby Cox, and even that only produced 1 title. Still, the Braves are in the top half of MLB for attendance, above the Reds and about the same as the Mets.
With all that said, the Falcons win the state over UGA easily. The Braves probably do, too. The Falcons were the only NFL team around for a long time and they have a lot of fans. You can debate the fervor of the fan bases, but the NFL wins for size.
“My impression is that LSU historically rules Louisiana – it’s only been the recent run of success of the Saints that muddies that a little bit.”
But he’s talking about now, and so am I. The Saints clearly have the bigger fan base now, even if a bunch of them are new bandwagon fans.
“Tennessee is definitely all about the Vols and the SEC – the pro teams there don’t have much history there.”
You don’t need history to have fans. The NFL is a lot more popular than CFB, and the Titans have been there for a while now.
What do the TV ratings say about NFL versus CFB in these states? Do UGA, LSU and UT games top Falcons, Saints and Titans games?
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You clearly have never lived in the SEC region. UGA rules the state of Georgia, UT rules the state of Tennessee, and LSU rules the state of Louisiana. This is both historically and presently accurate.
The Big Ten is much more of a pro sports region that the SEC is or ever will be.
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@Brian #2
A Sunday Night regular season game b/w the Saints and the Lions drew better ratings in New Orleans than the BCS National Championship b/w LSU and Alabama a month later.
People can draw their own conclusions from that but I’m not sure I would be throwing around the term “rule”.
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Chicago Mac – In New Orleans, the Saints are certainly more popular than LSU. The Saints have a very loyal fan base in the New Orleans metro area, even during the first 30 years of suckage, the Aints fans showed up, albeit with bags on their heads. North Louisiana is a different story Pre-Katrina, North Louisiana was Cowboys country. With the exception of a very few Tulane ULL, and LaTech fans, the entire state is made up of LSU fans.
If a poll were conducted in Louisiana, asking respondents to name their favorite sports team, I would think LSU Football would have a plurality, followed by the Saints and Cowboys.
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Clay is saying that there are more people in the individual regions in the south that care more about the college football teams than the NFL football teams. Sure a NFL Sunday night game will draw a higher rating than a college game. But that is because there are more people nation wide that care more about the NFL than collge football. But someone would have to show me real numbers by the individual southern states that shows that more people in the state of TN/GA/LA would rather watch the Titans/Falcons/Saints over the Vols/’dogs/Tigers. The cities of Nashville and Atlanta are the only places in the southeast that would cause me some hestiation.
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@Brian – I would agree about the NFL TV ratings being higher everywhere, even in markets where there aren’t NFL teams. The thing is that in terms of evaluating sports TV properties, the NFL is in a category by itself and you pretty much can’t compare them to any other sport at this point. For instance, the Rose Bowl ratings (the most-watched college football game outside of the national championship game) are about the equivalent of the *average* late Sunday afternoon NFL *regular season* game on Fox or CBS. We’re not even talking about the playoffs. At the same time, a potential SEC Network’s real competition would be the other regional sports networks in the Southeast, which don’t have access to any NFL games.
As a result, the real key for a SEC network is whether the SEC schools are more popular than the MLB, NBA and NHL teams in their respective markets/states, and my impression is that those SEC schools generally are more popular across the board. You might have a bandwagon team like the Miami Heat pop up every once in awhile that draws extraordinary interest for a temporary period, but Gator fans are locked-in year-in and year-out. The pro sports loyalties in the Big Ten footprint are as strong as they are in the Northeast (look at Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, the entire state of Wisconsin, etc.) and definitely much more compared to the Southeast. Cable carriers in places such as Atlanta and Nashville absolutely cannot afford to not have the SEC Network, and with that critical mass of interest, the SEC and ESPN can almost name its price in that region. Now, I think the Big Ten Network has more of an advantage getting carriage outside of its home region of the Midwest because Big Ten alums (and Midwestern natives in general) are much more dispersed across the country compared SEC alums and Southerners.
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Brian #2,
“You clearly have never lived in the SEC region.”
Nice guess. Other than about 18 years in GA you’d be right.
“The Big Ten is much more of a pro sports region that the SEC is or ever will be.”
That’s true now and probably always will be, but it’s also completely irrelevant to the discussion. The point under discussion was the number of fans, not their intensity or a regional comparison.
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@bamatab – the regular season nfl game drew better ratings than the BCS National Championship Game within the New Orleans DMA.
@Alan – Everything you say may be true but think of this in the context of what this blogger is saying. If a regular season Saints game outdraws the BCS National Championship game in 25% of the state is it that big of a stretch to think a regular season Saints game might outdraw LSU v. Furman statewide?
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Frank the Tank,
“@Brian – I would agree about the NFL TV ratings being higher everywhere, even in markets where there aren’t NFL teams. The thing is that in terms of evaluating sports TV properties, the NFL is in a category by itself and you pretty much can’t compare them to any other sport at this point. For instance, the Rose Bowl ratings (the most-watched college football game outside of the national championship game) are about the equivalent of the *average* late Sunday afternoon NFL *regular season* game on Fox or CBS. We’re not even talking about the playoffs. At the same time, a potential SEC Network’s real competition would be the other regional sports networks in the Southeast, which don’t have access to any NFL games.”
He’s the one that said the SEC teams were the most popular in their states. That either mean CFB only, in which case he’s obviously wrong because the B10 teams own their states, too, or he meant all sports. The only conclusion I can draw is that he’s claiming the SEC teams have more fans than the NFL teams in FL, GA, LA and TN (TX and MO are clearly lost, SC is split even for CFB, and KY, MS and AL are givens). What basis is there to claim Tigers over Saints, Dawgs over Falcons, Gators over Dolphins (plus the FSU/Miami split hurting them) or Vols over Titans? The SEC fans are more fervent, but all NFL teams have a lot more fans (CFB does relatively poorly with the young and non-college grads).
“As a result, the real key for a SEC network is whether the SEC schools are more popular than the MLB, NBA and NHL teams in their respective markets/states, and my impression is that those SEC schools generally are more popular across the board. You might have a bandwagon team like the Miami Heat pop up every once in awhile that draws extraordinary interest for a temporary period, but Gator fans are locked-in year-in and year-out. The pro sports loyalties in the Big Ten footprint are as strong as they are in the Northeast (look at Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, the entire state of Wisconsin, etc.) and definitely much more compared to the Southeast. Cable carriers in places such as Atlanta and Nashville absolutely cannot afford to not have the SEC Network, and with that critical mass of interest, the SEC and ESPN can almost name its price in that region. Now, I think the Big Ten Network has more of an advantage getting carriage outside of its home region of the Midwest because Big Ten alums (and Midwestern natives in general) are much more dispersed across the country compared SEC alums and Southerners.”
I’m not arguing whether the SEC network would work or not, just his statement that I quoted. SECN would be mandatory in MS, AL, AR, LA, KY, TN and parts of TX, FL, GA and SC. Atlanta (half the population of GA is in the metro area) will be the toughest nut to crack, but Comcast will eventually give in for a reduced rate I think. The large number of transplants will give pushback about having to pay for it, but there are enough southern transplants and locals to carry the day. Comcast is essentially a monopoly provider in Atlanta, though, and they bargain hard. I think nationally the SECN will be thrown on the same sports tier as the BTN and draw the same low rate.
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@ Frank – You are pretty accurate with that accessment. The pro sports teams in GA, FL, LA, and TN don’t really come close to level of passionate following that the college teams do in those states. Granted the Titans have had a pretty good following over the past decade, and due to the Saints’ recent success, they have earned a good following as well. But for the most part, those teams don’t garner the same type of passionate following that the Vols and Tigers garner in those states.
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Quantity and quality are not the same thing. Travis didn’t say anything about more passionate fans, he said more fans. The NFL teams have more fans (look at TV ratings).
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Agree bamatab. After living in both SEC and Big Ten country, I’ve realized it is very difficult for Big Ten fans to understand the overwhelming fan support and passion that exists in the SEC. Pro sports are much more popular in the Big Ten region.
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Born and raised in B1G country, worked in SEC country (OK, not quite, it was Florida. If any of you have ever lived there you know what I mean,) for 7 years and moved back to B1G. I think we are throwing around a lot of generalities here. In my opinion there are major metro areas in B1G country that are more aligned with their pro franchises. I think if you get outside of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, etc folks in the midwestern hinterland are more attuned with the universities. As an example, I think you saw downstate Illinois more excited about the Illini in 2005 then the Bulls even during the Jordan era. Also, there is a general trend of folks moving into SEC country. I think it is easier to grab ahold of a college team than the local pro team. When I was in Florida I started liking the Gators. Never did the ‘Fins. Part of it is that I felt like I could follow the Gators and still like the Illini. Hard to follow the ‘Fins and still like the Colts. Another thing is that the pro franchises are all relatively new in the SouthEast. The only reason I still pay attention to the Cardinals is that I grew up listening to Jack Buck call and Bob Gibson and Lou Brock play. Not many folks can say that about the Marlins. I think the pro allegience gets conferred at a lower age. That all of my amateur sociology for the day. To me the most valid generalization is that fans in SEC country are more intense for football, and B1G for basketball.
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Just looking at attendance, the B10 fares pretty well relative to the SEC. The pro sports competition (not just NFL) certainly hurts yet the B10 still has a rather significant advantage in revenue.
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Regarding Pro versus College, the nearest point of reference I have is the Twin Cities.
Pro sports OWN Minneapolis-St. Paul (even with all the (major) pro teams absolutely sucking right now).
The Twin Cities metro is approx 3.6 million people with all 4 major pro sports represented.
The Vikings are #1 by a MILE… rank will grow bigger with new stadium being built.
The Twins/Wild would be 2/2A. They are both popular and have good attendance.
Gopher hockey/Gopher football/Gopher basketball/the Timberwolves all fall in the 4 thru 7 area, with ranking/popularity based largely on how well each team is doing. Attendance for each is pretty good.
The Gophers football program was pretty dominant pre-Vikings/Twins (1961). The baseball team won titles in 54, 60, and 64. I don’t know if there’s direct correlation between the U’s seeming demise and the arrival of pro sports—but, sure didn’t take the newcomers long to become the dominant teams in the TC’s market…
There’s a lot of competition for the dollar (like other major cities: see Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, Pittsburgh, NYC). By comparison, many college towns do not have direct competition like this…
see Madison, WI; Iowa City, IA; Tuscaloosa, AL; Gainesville, FL; Knoxville, TN; Columbus, OH; Norman, OK; Baton Rouge, LA…….. the list goes on… IMHO, it is no coincidence that the universities sporting teams in cities outside of major metro areas typically fare better than those that are hidden amongst the major metro area pro sports…
I believe a couple of formal “studies” have been done comparing the pro-town schools versus the college-town schools with results equating to my own humble opinion… I believe a school can be successful–just takes a lot more effort/$$$/patience…
GO Gophers! 😉
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“Given that there are presently 112 SEC football games a year — 56 contests between two SEC teams and 56 out of conference games, this means the SEC is prepared to take nearly half of its football inventory and place those games on its own channel.
No Clay these are ESPN’s games. the SEC sold the inventory to them, and they belong to ESPN now through 2024.
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CBS gets 1st choice of games (they get 1 game most weeks, sometimes a 2nd game) then ESPN gets ~3 games a week… That still leaves a lot of games left for the SEC network. With its recent expansion, the SEC has a lot more (okay, a bit more) ‘inventory’ and has more games to air on its SEC Network…
B10 Network operates much like this, ABC gets 1 high profile game (very rarely a 2nd), then ESPN gets 2 B10 games and everything that is left is put on the BTN. B10’s next tv contract will likely give more inventory to ABC/ESPN thanks to the addition of Nebraska, in a 11-team league there wasn’t as much ‘valuable’ inventory when the B10 signed their last deal.
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I’m not saying there isn’t inventory for a network. I’m saying it is ESPN’s inventory. “the SEC has a lot more (okay, a bit more) ‘inventory’ and has more games to air on its SEC Network…” ESPN has more games to air…
The primary difference between the BTN and a potential SEC network is the Big Ten started a network when they had inventory to start a network. Right now the only inventory the SEC has is the 14 school retained games, and you could make an argument that they don’t have those right now as many of the schools are currently contracted to multi-year deals.
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Do we know that the existing contract was written to give ESPN the rights to inventory increases do to the conference expanding? It’s not unreasonable to assume that the number of home games Mizzu and aTm bring are games not contracted for. They would provide increased inventory for a SECN in addition to the 12 games already held.
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We don’t know for certain either way.
“ESPN will have rights to every SEC home football game not on the network package and all league matchups will be shown on some outlet, including at least 20 a year on ESPN or ESPN2. That includes two primetime Thursday night matchups and Saturday night games.”
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=3553033
“t’s not unreasonable to assume that the number of home games Mizzu and aTm bring are games not contracted for.”
It is a bit in this situation in my opinion. ESPN paid the SEC a premium in 2008 to keep Slive from starting an SEC network. It would be a rather foolish oversight on their part to give him an out by expanding. The actual contract more than likely is written similar to the quote in the first article that states the ESPN has the rights to everything except 1 football game retained by each school and the games covered by CBS. What the SEC and ESPN are negotiating right now is the value of those 16 additional games. In Big Ten expansion it wasn’t an issue as Nebraska’s 8 created games went to BTN by default. Typically whoever controls the back half of the deal is going to retain all rights not covered by the primary rights holder. For the SEC this is ESPN. For the new and old Big XII it is Fox. For the Big Ten and now Pac-12 as well it will be the conference networks.
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Nos:
We know there was a premium paid. We don’t know what that was or amounted to, if it was able to be purchased back, if it applied for the full length of the contract, what penalties might be written in if a network was started anyway, etc.
There must be loopholes, or at least leverage, and the potential return on a SECN must be fairly high or Judge Slive and the fleet of conference lawyers wouldn’t be moving as they are.
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ccrider55,
Then we are back to Slive has some mysterious clause in the SEC contract that allows him to essentially tear up the existing contract if the SEC expands. Is that possible? I suppose so. Is it very likely, no…
Occam says the SEC got paid in 2008 to not start a network. Occam also says ESPN isn’t that stupid to go out and pay a premium to keep the SEC from starting a network only to allow the SEC to start a network 4 years into a 15 year deal.
“There must be loopholes, or at least leverage,”
I’m not sure there has to be either to make it happen. I do think the SEC has a little leverage in the since they can go to ESPN and say we have 14 games and are starting a network with them. You can pull your syndication package and join us. The problem is those 14 games aren’t much for starting a network. You are likely looking at a current “SEC Network” type situation where you syndicate on Saturday’s to local ABC, CBS, NBC, affiliates.
Like I said though, I’m not sure either loopholes or leverage need to be had by the SEC to make this happen. ESPN can make money off it, and the SEC will obviously be making money.
“and the potential return on a SECN must be fairly high or Judge Slive and the fleet of conference lawyers wouldn’t be moving as they are.”
It is additional revenue. Of course they are.
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Nostradamus:
I pretty much agree with you except:
1) I expect the additional games for teams 13 and 14 are in play. The inverse question might be: would ESPN be required to increase its payment to keep all the schools whole had they invited Middle Tennessee and Old Dominion? My assumption is the 12 school SEC committed all but 1 home game, but Missouri and aTm weren’t party to that. Since a fair amount of network talk early on came from Mizzu I’d assume they knew/felt their games weren’t being committed in the same way when joining the SEC.
2) We know a premium was paid to the SEC12. We don’t know the details, restrictions, limitations, exceptions, value, etc. Is there a buy out clause? A buy in for ESPN if one is started after some time or changed circumstances allow?
I’m not saying these are the facts, only that we don’t actually know what the facts are.
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As to your inverse question, I think heck no! If that is the case any time a conference is unhappy with their deal they can add North Dakota State as a junior member for two years to reopen the deal. That is why I’ve always said CBS/ESPN are more than likely paying for any additional value that A&M and Missouri add to the existing contracts. For CBS, that may not be much and CBS has publicly stated as much. For ESPN, at the very least you’ve added 16 games to the contract they hold. They’ll have to pay for those games.
” My assumption is the 12 school SEC committed all but 1 home game, but Missouri and aTm weren’t party to that.
They weren’t party to it, because they weren’t members of the conference. Now that they are members, they are subject to the contracts the SEC is currently participating in. The only contract we’ve actually seen was the Conference USA deal and in that contract it stated ESPN would have to pay a fair market value for the addition of any teams. We’ve seen this happen with the Big Ten adding Nebraska, and the ACC for all intents and purposes ended up signing a new contract with ESPN over their additions.
While we don’t know for certain, you are on fairly slim ground if you argue these aren’t ESPN’s games by default (even Clay Travis seems to be acknowledging this). What they pay for them is one of the central issues…….
2) We know a premium was paid to the SEC12. We don’t know the details, restrictions, limitations, exceptions, value, etc. Is there a buy out clause? A buy in for ESPN if one is started after some time or changed circumstances allow?
Again I agree with you here that we don’t know the circumstances for certain. What we do know is that 4 years ago ESPN paid the SEC from keeping them from creating a network. Like I said, it seems rather foolish and short-sighted for ESPN to allow an out 4 years later here. I still think any negotiations here are going to be on ESPN’s terms. These are there games. I understand what you are saying here, but we may have to agree to disagree on this point.
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An ESPN executive stated in an interview that the SEC deal was a “look-in”, not a renegotiation. He described a look-in where they “look” at what they are doing and see if they can do it better. If the SEC AND ESPN can make more money with a network, that’s something they can change and most certainly would change.
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FSU Barron’s outline for Tustee realignment discussion
http://floridastate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1373740
“Florida State President Eric Barron suggested that playing higher profile out of conference football games, winning more in the Atlantic Coast Conference, realigning the ACC divisions and keeping a close eye on the pending BCS playoff format are “keys to success”
“We’re not seeking anything, we are not expecting anything, there are not any conversations are going on.”
“Barron told the trustees that the ACC would not be left out of any four-team playoff format and emphasized the importance of conference champions carrying heavier weight in any playoff format”
“Fan reaction: Barron told the BOT that he has received more than 100 e-mails ranging from individuals with messages ranging from “go (to the Big 12) or be fired” to “I always wanted to attend some away games but I have no intention of traveling to Ames or Lubbock.”
“According to Barron’s outline, one-third of FSU’s alumni base lives outside of the state of Florida. And when analyzing that group, 51 percent lives in an ACC footprint, the highest of any BCS conference.
The lowest was the Big 12’s footprint, which had just 10 percent of FSU’s out-of-state alumni. Outside of Florida, the top six states for FSU alumni are (in no order): Georgia, Texas, California, New York, Virginia and North Carolina. The Big 12 also has the fewest FSU Booster clubs (5) of any BCS Conference footprint. The ACC leads with 20.”
“Academics: Barron wrote that the ACC and Big 10 are the only conferences that have all of its schools ranked among the top 101 nationally. Barron did not specify which publication’s ranking he was referring to for those numbers. He called the Association of American Universities “very important” and noted it was invitation only. The Big 10 has 11 schools that are members of the AAU. The Pac-12 is second among BCS Conferences with seven. The ACC has six members. The Big 12 ranks last with three.”
“Why are we talking about it?
a) Sells newspapers and gets attention to blogs
b) Results in fear that other will leave ACC (or Big 12 or Big East), and a school could be left behind (miss BCS playoff bid or weakened conference)
c) Push more for dollars (especially given weak budgets)”
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Great to read Barron’s comments. Finally, making specific suggestions on actions that FSU and the ACC can take. Stronger OOC scheduling and winning their ACC games puts the responsibility for addressing fans’ expectations back where it belongs: with FSU football (instead of blaming the ACC for their recent poor performance…or suggesting that FSU would be best able to enter the BCS final 4 via the B12).
There are really too many teams in the ACC that can do better with OOC scheduling (UVA, VT, UNC & NCSt especially). It appears that Barron was reading this blog on the need to fix geographic alignment.
The out-of-state alumni numbers were the most interesting tid-bit. The ACC needs to use this advantage to build cohesion.
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The ACC alumni % is kind of misleading. Georgia is the significant state with about 18k. NC, TX, VA are #s2,3 & 4 and are all about 7k. Then it drops down to 3 or 4k and is spread out over a bunch of different states.
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The B12 can invite GT with FSU and eliminate two of Barron’s objections (out of state alumni and AAU). As far as recruits not playing, I am sure A&M and MO will take a forfeit from FL or any other SEC team that refuses to play on the plains. It is just not going to happen. These schools have 7 home games, and if the B12 added two ACC schools they would have 1 or 2 away games on the east coast.
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You still don’t get it. The ACC would have to have a lot of things go its way to get a representative in a 4-team playoff. It’s a conference soon to have five private institutions out of 14, and a majority of ACC schools have a culture where basketball is considered more important than football (other conferences have their Kansas, Indiana or Kentucky, but most are solitary anomalies). See where that philosophy got the Big East.
If ACC revenue from a playoff is equitable with the top four conferences, it may well survive relatively intact. If it isn’t, many of its members will seek higher ground.
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All the ACC really needs is to have their champ above the BEast’s.
If UT continues like the last couple years, an off year by OU, it isn’t at all out of the realm that the ACC champ might be rated above the B12’s.
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The SEC, Big XII, BIG and PAC actually need ACC schools to get an even distribution of BCS funds in order to get the entire proposal passed. The incremental amount of funds given to conferences from the actual 4 participants should not be so large as to drive realignment.
Besides, as Bowden and Swinney have both strongly stated…if the goal is for FSU or Clemson to win the MNC, staying in the ACC is the better option.
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It’s not that difficult for an ACC champ to be ranked higher than a B10, Big XII or Pac 12 champ. It just hasn’t happened lately as FSU & Miami have been underachieving greatly and VT is merely a 2nd tier program that should be playing in Chick-a-fil A bowls instead of BCS bowls…
With the problems in Miami, it doesn’t seem like that program will get back to being a top 10 program. FSU however I expect to be a dominant team in the ACC if Jimbo Fisher is as good as I think he is…
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ACC revenue from the playoff should fall in line with the other conference. Where they will be falling behind is on their tv deals and their bowl deals.
The SEC-Big XII bowl game is a huge windfall for both those conferences and it comes at the expense of mostly the ACC. ACC falling behind in revenue race is imo driving its current stability issues. Big 10 is going to sign a new tier 1/2 deal in a coupe years, Big XIi will sign a tier 1 deal at about the same time, Pac 12 and SEC are creating Networks; these things are likely to create a massive gap in revenue between the four super conferences and the ACC.
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vp19,
“You still don’t get it. The ACC would have to have a lot of things go its way to get a representative in a 4-team playoff.”
I think you are blowing that way out of proportion. The ACC needs what every other conference needs to achieve that – a team with 0 or 1 losses. A 13-0 ACC champ would only trail a 13-0 SEC champ, 13-0 P12 champ, 12-0 B12 champ, 12-0 ND and a 13-0 B10 champ in the polls (depends on the two teams and their schedules – the B10 doesn’t get much respect either). At 12-1, it becomes more dependent on which teams have 1 loss and who they lost to. The ACC’s problem is that their CCG winners have had 4, 2, 2, 4, 2, 2 and 3 losses before the bowls. Almost nobody is making the top 4 with a record like that except in a weird year like 2007 (and the ACC champ was #3 that year at 11-2 behind 11-2 LSU). The ACC’s last 1 loss champ was MD in 2001. It shouldn’t be that difficult for VT or FSU or Clemson to build a program capable of only losing 1 game with an easy ACC schedule providing 8 or 9 wins since everyone else is hoops driven.
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Agreed. I don’t get the presumption that the ACC champ would automatically be behind the other 4 conferences. First off, usually there’s not a dominant team in each conference each year. So it’ll often be that one conference besides the ACC has at least a two loss team (the Big 10 last year, the Big 12 in 2010, the Pac-12 in 2009, etc…). So a 0 or 1 loss ACC would qualify most years. But why is it automatic that a one loss FSU would be heind say a one loss Oklahoma State or a one loss Stanford? In terms of polls, the “name” programs generally rank higher. Even if you factor in SOS, FSU at least used to schedule tough OOC games (and still has Florida)
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Jericho,
It isn’t automatic that a 1 loss FSU would trail a 1 loss B12 team. It would clearly depend on the SOS, the losses and which B12 team it was. That’s why i don’t understand why the ACC people are so worked up. Win some games and you’ll solve your problems.
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It’s still about perception. Any unbeaten or one-less ACC team that isn’t from Florida will get the Okie State treatment in any beauty contest. And with Miami’s program racked with scandal (and an administration that wishes to take the university in a more academic direction), that puts all the pressure on Florida State.
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Oops…one-loss ACC team that isn’t from Florida.
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And how would FSU and/or Clemson to the B12 help either the ACC or the two schools? They can get the Ok St treatment in either conf, plus have the OU/UT hurdle in the B12.
As I mentioned before, when perception starts writing checks, when it manifests itself as reality, then I’ll get worked up about it.
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It isn’t automatic that a 1 loss FSU would trail a 1 loss B12 team. It would clearly depend on the SOS, the losses and which B12 team it was. That’s why i don’t understand why the ACC people are so worked up. Win some games and you’ll solve your problems.
But it would be automatic that a 1-loss Virginia, Maryland or N.C. State would trail almost every 1-loss Big 12 team (with the possible exception of Iowa State). That’s why ACC people are worked up; more than any other conference, it suffers when a non-king is its champion, and with Miami’s scandal-plagued abdication, Florida State is its only king.
The Big Ten is OK with Wisconsin as champion instead of Ohio State, Penn State, Nebraska or Michigan; the Pac can survive Oregon or Stanford as champ rather than Southern Cal; after these recent years of dominance, the SEC wouldn’t really be hurt with Mississippi State as its champion. The ACC lacks that luxury.
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vp19,
“But it would be automatic that a 1-loss Virginia, Maryland or N.C. State would trail almost every 1-loss Big 12 team (with the possible exception of Iowa State).”
No, it wouldn’t be.
ISU, KU, KSU, OkSU, TT and Baylor all get no respect, too. It is not a given that 11-1 KU outranks 12-1 UVA. Who’d they play OOC? Who’d they beat and who beat them? How dominant were they all year? All those factors are important. B12 teams get more credit for the average value of a conference win right now, but the ACC champ will play 10 conference games to the B12 champ’s 9. Many B12 teams also don’t challenge themselves OOC, so an ACC champ could exploit that as well.
“That’s why ACC people are worked up; more than any other conference, it suffers when a non-king is its champion, and with Miami’s scandal-plagued abdication, Florida State is its only king.”
I disagree. I think it is all Chicken Little talk from fans rattled by the temporary brush with conference instability.
“The Big Ten is OK with Wisconsin as champion instead of Ohio State, Penn State, Nebraska or Michigan; the Pac can survive Oregon or Stanford as champ rather than Southern Cal; after these recent years of dominance, the SEC wouldn’t really be hurt with Mississippi State as its champion. The ACC lacks that luxury.”
Facts not in evidence. VT was #3 last year in the coaches poll and #5 in the BCS before the CCG. The ACC would be just fine with a 1-loss prince winning the conference. Their problem is that it’s been over a decade since the ACC champ only had 1 loss.
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@curious2 – I had a discussion with the writer of this article from WarChant on Twitter earlier tonight. He doesn’t see how FSU could realistically withdraw from the ACC by August 15th (which is the deadline) with how much Barron opposes moving from the ACC and the trustees overall really don’t have a consensus opinion (e.g. contrary to what some believe, they aren’t pushing this issue).
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Re: Frank
Thanks. For me, Swinney’s statement along with Barron’s ends any reasonable speculation at this point, unless one believes Swinney is totally clueless. His contract was just extended. Could anything be said plainer?
Pretty clear GT, Miami and VT aren’t going anywhere.
FSU is not going to the Big 12 with UL as its partner in a division with KU, KSU, ISU, WVU where the balance of the conference is in TX and OK. Wow, even thinking about that is …………..
The real question is how detailed and accurate is the information Barron presented to the Board and is using as his assumptions re the Big 12 pending contract and what teams 11-12 might add via a conference playoff and so on.
Next is how the new BCS revenues are split as you have stated several times.
Next is how much additional profit might result from an SEC- Big 12 bowl where the conferences control the revenue. However, that agreement is only for 5 years.
Next, are UT and OK actually going to sign a 13 year GOR upon conclusion of the new Big 12 contract or perhaps are there clauses that extend the 6 year grant either conditionally allowing a school to provide advance notice of withdrawal or is only to be signed shortly before the current 6 year grant expires. I somehow wonder, given all that has happened, whether UT and especially OK want to sign away all options for 13 years.
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http://texas.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1374849
Chip Brown’s thoughts on likely playoff scenarios and realignment.
Thinks it will be 3/1 with a committee in bowls with a bid out championship. (3/1 with a committee, while not totally incompatible, is inconsistent. At least if you want any sort of criteria on the 3 champions like a top 6. 3/1 is basically using some sort of BCS calculation-A committee would only use those things as one piece of information).
Thinks Big 12 is waiting for Notre Dame before deciding on expansion and Notre Dame is waiting on playoff format before deciding.
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The playoff scenario is going to have to come out of a compromise between the Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC positions, so it seems like there would be a selection committee with guidelines that would put heavier weight on conference championships, strength of schedule, margin of victory, and the rest of that.
I agree on the issue of inconsistency there; that seems like an idea that would generate controversy if you combine a selection committee with a 3 champions rule. What happens when the final selection isn’t the top ranked remaining team? Why even have a selection committee if there never would be a difference? Just too much potential for controversy…
If you’re going to go with a selection committee, get rid of all the affiliated polling (BCS/Harris Interactive/Coaches/Computers), and if people want to follow along, they’ll pay attention to the AP poll.
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zeek,
“The playoff scenario is going to have to come out of a compromise between the Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC positions, so it seems like there would be a selection committee with guidelines that would put heavier weight on conference championships, strength of schedule, margin of victory, and the rest of that.”
You are assuming that everyone will compromise rather than at least 1 group holding out rather than give. I expect some brinksmanship from all sides, and eventually one side will cave. That will leave 2 positions to find a compromise between.
“I agree on the issue of inconsistency there; that seems like an idea that would generate controversy if you combine a selection committee with a 3 champions rule. What happens when the final selection isn’t the top ranked remaining team? Why even have a selection committee if there never would be a difference? Just too much potential for controversy…”
Wouldn’t the committee be used to pick the 3? If champs are #1, #4, #5 and #7 in polls, you still need to pick the last 2 (unless you have a top 6 rule). The committee also could pick between #2 and #3 if neither are champs. They wouldn’t be needed every year, which is good, but some years there will be tough choices to make.
“If you’re going to go with a selection committee, get rid of all the affiliated polling (BCS/Harris Interactive/Coaches/Computers), and if people want to follow along, they’ll pay attention to the AP poll.”
You can’t “get rid of” all the other polls because most of them predate the BCS. The don’t need to be official any more, but they won’t all just go away. They serve a business purpose (Coaches poll for the USA Today., etc) just like the AP poll.
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What I meant was, if you have a BCS-style poll; how can you have a committee select #3 over #2 for the 4th slot in your scenario without that generating a lot of controversy. A lot of people will just default to what the BCS ranking say, and I’m not sure it’s a great idea to have those along with a selection committee.
It’s fine to have the AP and Coaches polls floating out there as they historically have done so, but if you have a BCS-style poll that ends up contradicted by a selection committee later, the whole thing is just going to look a lot worse in years where the BCS rankings don’t directly indicate the participants in the system.
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The computer polls were floating out there too, but nobody paid much attention to them before the BCS (except Sagarin). The official BCS rankings will die if they have a committee, and the Harris poll (basically a large selection committee, and look how much it got mocked) with them. I’m sure someone will put together a pseudo-BCS ranking that combines them all again (use AP instead of Harris) and blog it.
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The article makes reference to Notre Dame joining the Big 12 as a non-football member. It’s great for Notre Dame. It’s less great for the Big 12, although promises of up to 6 “conference games” are interesting. What I do not get is why the new playoff format would push Notre Dame anywhere. The article speaks to a conference champ heavy format for football, but then specifically states Notre Dame wouold not join in football? Why would the new playoff format mean anything to Notre Dame’s other sports?
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Agreed. It kind of reads to me like desperate pleas at last call.
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It looks like the ACC doesn’t need 5 steps to save it after all:
http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2012-06-12/clemson-coach-dabo-swinney-says-move-from-acc-to-big-12-would-make-zero-sense
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Interesting article on Slive and Delany and the playoff discussion:
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8036706/mike-slive-jim-delany-done-arguing-playoff-espn-magazine
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http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/62009/3-point-stance-richts-restructured-contract
“2. Let’s all forget my recent prediction that Florida State and Clemson would leave the ACC for the Big 12. Not just because the Big 12 has said it wants to stay at 10 members. From what I’m hearing, recruits in SEC and ACC country have made it clear that they aren’t interested in playing in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, etc.”
An important factor in the decision, I would think. If SE recruits don’t want to play in the plains, FSU and Clemson can’t afford to move. They’ll get more TV money, but they’ll lose more games and the fans will disappear. The local SEC schools would dominate them in state even worse.
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I’d imagine this is a pretty big concern at Clemson given how many of their out-of-state recruits come from Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia and how many games Clemson plays in those states in the ACC (especially with the ACC finally doing the smart thing and putting the CCG in Charlotte, which seems likely to continue).
As for FSU, I’m not really sure how it impacts them, they’re a lot more unique; they have such a great location with respect to recruits in Alabama and Georgia, and they’re never going to have problems getting enough talent that they want out of Florida, so I doubt they’d see much of a downside in terms of recruiting from that move.
But I’m also pretty sure that FSU wouldn’t want to be on an island out in the Southeast with the nearest schools all being a thousand miles away. And any division setup without Clemson just doesn’t sound appetizing to FSU…, so I have a hard time seeing them go anywhere without an ACC school nearby…
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I want to comment on some slightly old news:
http://www.buckeyextra.com/content/stories/2012/06/01/0601-ohio-state-georgia-series.html
OSU and UGA aren’t going to play a home and home after all. They had a MOU to agree to play in 2020-2021 but time ran out on the MOU before they had a contract or set days to play, so there was no penalty. OSU said the problem is the new B10/P12 game. As I feared and predicted, OSU is going to essentially switch from playing a major school from across the nation to just playing their mandatory P12 team. That’s one of the main reasons I was against this agreement for football. It’ll only get worse once they settle the details on how the match-ups will be made and OSU gets undesirable teams part of the time, but probably without enough warning to find a major opponent.
The last major OOC games OSU has scheduled now:
UC – 2014, 2018
UNC – 2015, 2017
OU – 2016, 2017
VT – 2014, 2015
OSU has already said they won’t start the P12 deal until 2018 because of playing OU and UNC in 2017 (maybe OSU can get a 2016, 2018 series with a P12 team – several have openings). I assume the UC game in 2018 will stay since they aren’t a power and the proximity has value. Unless the P12 deal comes with a long lead time in scheduling, I don’t expect to see OSU play another non-P12 power outside of the postseason for a long time. That’s a shame to me, and a negative for OSU.
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This is enough to put me in the camp of not liking the agreement. I would have been fine if we’d also play another major team, but odds were always against that.
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Now with that said, this was in place of going up to 9 conference games. If the Big Ten had done that instead, would Ohio State be dropping all major non-conference games. My guess is no.
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Eric,
“Now with that said, this was in place of going up to 9 conference games. If the Big Ten had done that instead, would Ohio State be dropping all major non-conference games. My guess is no.”
I agree. Everybody was so busy saying they’d rather play USC than MN that they ignored the other implications. OSU was probably going to keep 1 quality OOC game, and now that will almost always be the P12 game. Maybe OSU would have demanded 3 cupcakes every year no matter what, but I doubt it.
So the end result, as predicted, is that OSU will only play P12 teams (only a few of which are interesting) instead of the other kings and princes around the country.
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I agree with you, Brian. I would have preferred the original set up with nine conference games plus three non-conference. While that would realistically cap the number of home games to seven per year, it would also permit Big Ten teams to play through a number of major non-conference opponents in home-and-home series as part of the schedule rotation.
Instead, what we’re seeing is the Big Ten’s non-conference scheduling restricted in a sense because of the agreement with the Pac 12. As a Michigan fan, the fact that Notre Dame was on the schedule ad infinitum meant no other major non-conference teams on the schedule (although there are rare exceptions like this year’s game with Alabama) in the BCS era.
We’ll see what the Big Ten Conference and the ADs do here, but if they’re going to put the conference’s top team together all the time, then you might see some combination of Michigan/Ohio State/Penn State/Nebraska/Wisconsin playing USC/Oregon/Washington/Stanford/California or Utah or UCLA each season.
If the top teams in the two conferences don’t play one another all the time, what happens then? Say Ohio State gets Colorado in a home-and-home series. Do the Buckeyes schedule a second home-and-home series with a program like Oklahoma or Virginia Tech and decide to play just seven home games a season? Does it make sense to “schedule up” when TPTB putting together the post-season don’t formally factor in conference championships, but make that a point of consideration for a committee? Where does strength-of-schedule play into all this?
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cutter,
“We’ll see what the Big Ten Conference and the ADs do here, but if they’re going to put the conference’s top team together all the time, then you might see some combination of Michigan/Ohio State/Penn State/Nebraska/Wisconsin playing USC/Oregon/Washington/Stanford/California or Utah or UCLA each season.
If the top teams in the two conferences don’t play one another all the time, what happens then? Say Ohio State gets Colorado in a home-and-home series. Do the Buckeyes schedule a second home-and-home series with a program like Oklahoma or Virginia Tech and decide to play just seven home games a season? Does it make sense to “schedule up” when TPTB putting together the post-season don’t formally factor in conference championships, but make that a point of consideration for a committee? Where does strength-of-schedule play into all this?”
I think the practical problem will be that scheduling elite teams OOC requires a lot of advanced notice, like 10 years or more. I doubt the B10/P12 deal will be scheduled far enough in advance to let teams schedule another elite OOC team if they’re P12 foe is projected to be average or weak. The ADs will err on the side of caution and schedule middling AQs instead (UNC instead of FSU, Baylor instead of UT, etc).
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Also of interest to me is a quote from Delany I haven’t seen discussed much.
http://www.buckeyextra.com/content/stories/2012/06/05/big-ten-clarifies-playoff-stance.html
“I don’t care whether it occurs in a committee, but I do think the two key issues are honoring champions, honoring strength of schedule, honoring teams and coaches that try to play good schedules, and recognizing teams that play an additional championship game versus one that doesn’t.”
First, that’s clearly more than 2 issues. But I like how it seems that he wants OOC SOS to be a focus (helps P12 a lot, B10 some with the B10/P12 deal, teams with AQ OOC rivals also benefit) since that SOS is up to the scheduler. I also like the focus on champions. I’m guessing the SEC dislikes both of those concepts.
The one I know many fans like but I think is wrong is automatically rewarding team for playing a CCG. It should definitely be a factor in SOS (perhaps even double weighted because of the pressure and what’s riding on the game), but a 12 game schedule can easily be more difficult than a 13 game schedule for comparable leagues (obviously 12-0 in B12 > 13-0 in MAC).
Example:
Compare a 12-0 B12 champ to a 13-0 SEC champ. Both leagues are roughly equal, and both champs play 9 games against conference foes.
The B12 champ plays a round robin, so they are guaranteed to have played all the best and the worst teams in conference. The SEC champ plays 3 games against the other division, missing at least 4 of the other teams (5 if the CCG is a rematch). Last year, the top 3 SEC teams according to polls were in the west and the east champ missed all of them until the CCG. It’s a big advantage to miss 2 of the top 3 teams in your conference, partially balanced by the extra difficulty of winning a CCG.
The other issue is OOC scheduling, where the B12 champ plays 3 games versus 4 for the SEC champ. While some SEC teams challenge themselves OOC (LSU and UGA for example), many do not. Is playing one more Sun Belt team (both conferences default to 1 AQ opponent, 1 low level I-A, and 1 I-AA as a core) a significant hurdle for a top 4 team? Does getting to play a cupcake in November to break up the conference grind make up for any extra difficulty the 13th game imposes?
My point is, you can find a 13 game SEC schedule that is easier than a 12 game B12 schedule in most years. I don’t think the system should focus on the number of games but the cumulative risk of losing one and/or the cumulative quality of wins. Beating 1 AQ on the road is more valuable than beating a I-AA and SB team at home to me.
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I agree. The CCG can add an extra hurdle, but doesn’t imply that having one makes someone’s schedule definitely harder. The SEC champ will actually never have more conference games than the Big 12 champ even with the CCG. I doubt in the end though, playing a CCG officially gives anyone an advantage. Winners will get a little bump up in strength of schedule, but the Big 12 will probably benefit from it more than lose from it (if history is any guide). I don’t have a problem with that though as no one forced the other 5 conferences to go to 12 and no one should force the Big 12 back.
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But how do you measure strength of schedule? Do you put it up to the subjective assessments of Bobby Bowden or Phil Fulmer? Will a committee be working with some sort of actual metric to measure these things? If so, who puts that metric together and how is it actually measured?
The thing I don’t like about a committee is that its has such a subjective nature to it, especially when you’re picking four teams. The other thing I don’t like is that these ex-coaches are going to be accused by bias by any number of fan bases when they make their decisions. It’s not hard to see how problematic this can be.
But if you have to have a selection committee, don’t use ex college coaches. Go to former pro coaches for their assessments. I’m talking about guys like Marty Schottenheimer or Brian Billick or Bill Cowher. They certainly know the game and are as good as any set of coaches on rating teams. The advantage they have over the Barry Switzers or the John Coopers of the world is that they’re not part of the old boys network in college football and are probably less susceptible to biases favoring certain conferences or national regions or even enacting a level of revenge on a program they don’t like (ex. Phil Fulmer and Michigan due to Woodson winning Heisman Trophy and not Manning).
I really would like to see an eight-team playoff with autobids for the five major conferences just to take those perceptions of bias and subjectivity out of the equation. Let the committee select the three at large teams or maybe they can do the seeding. But don’t let them pick all the teams–be it four or eight–because it has the potential to be a big steaming mess.
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cutter,
“But how do you measure strength of schedule? Do you put it up to the subjective assessments of Bobby Bowden or Phil Fulmer? Will a committee be working with some sort of actual metric to measure these things? If so, who puts that metric together and how is it actually measured?”
As you well know, there is no perfect way to measure SOS. The best thing they can do in my opinion is to look at a bunch of metrics and combine that with the eye test. Use a range from RPI to computer polls to expected win systems to achievement formulas like CFN uses to anything else out there. See if a bunch of systems agree that 1 was harder than the other or not. If the numbers vary, then use the eye test instead, paying attention to OOC scheduling, bye weeks, game locations and times, etc.
“The thing I don’t like about a committee is that its has such a subjective nature to it, especially when you’re picking four teams.”
Everything except the computer polls are subjective, and those polls shouldn’t determine the result by themselves. Taking the top 4 of a subjective ranking is no more objective than using a committee. I don’t like a committee mostly because I believe someone will get threatened and maybe even hurt over a decision, and knowing that they will subconsciously favor the team with the most fervent fan base (would you rather anger Stanford fans or AL fans?).
“The other thing I don’t like is that these ex-coaches are going to be accused by bias by any number of fan bases when they make their decisions. It’s not hard to see how problematic this can be.”
The accusations will have some basis, too. How can Bobby Bowden be objective about FSU or AL (his dream job initially)? How about any northern team after he’s been quoted as saying northern teams just can’t keep up with southern speed?
“But if you have to have a selection committee, don’t use ex college coaches. Go to former pro coaches for their assessments. I’m talking about guys like Marty Schottenheimer or Brian Billick or Bill Cowher. They certainly know the game and are as good as any set of coaches on rating teams. The advantage they have over the Barry Switzers or the John Coopers of the world is that they’re not part of the old boys network in college football and are probably less susceptible to biases favoring certain conferences or national regions or even enacting a level of revenge on a program they don’t like (ex. Phil Fulmer and Michigan due to Woodson winning Heisman Trophy and not Manning).”
It’s a good idea if they’re willing to give up lucrative TV gigs to do the work. They have to watch film (not the biased broadcasts) of every game involving a top 25 team every week at least, and maybe a few of lesser teams that played the top 5-8 teams OOC (no skipping P12 games because they start too late, etc). They also need to take notes of each game at that time so at the end of the year they can reconsider the entire body of work and reduce recency bias.
“I really would like to see an eight-team playoff with autobids for the five major conferences just to take those perceptions of bias and subjectivity out of the equation. Let the committee select the three at large teams or maybe they can do the seeding. But don’t let them pick all the teams–be it four or eight–because it has the potential to be a big steaming mess.”
Realistically, they aren’t picking all 4 teams in any system. 2-3 will be mortal locks in almost any season. They’ll need to pick the last 1 or 2 and then seed the teams. As for your plan, you know I’m anti-playoff and think 8 is too large. Why does the ACC get an AQ spot but others don’t? That’s the same BCS subjectivity where 8-4 UConn gets in but 11-1 Boise can’t.
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Just one point I’d like to make about the former pro football coaches. The names I threw out there were representative of a much larger group that might be willing to review the college football season for a sum of money and help make decisions on the final four. I’m not suddenly expecting to see Bill Cowher or Brian Billick leaving their studio jobs.
I also wouldn’t expect any committee to watch film of every Top 25 team through the season. I honestly wouldn’t expect to see them really examining teams in any detail until halfway thru October. I also would expect them to review maybe 10-12 teams maximum at that point because we should have a pretty good vetting six weeks out about what programs are realistically of championship caliber. That’s the same reason why people are saying the polls shouldn’t be published until the games are played–let’s see them play a bit before putting together a pecking order.
As far as the eight-team playoff is concerned, I’ve maintained that if a conference champion isn’t in the top 12 of the rating system involved, then it’s disqualified from getting an autobid and is replaced by an at large team. That’s what would have happened to last season if the BCS rankings were used to ACC champion Clemson.
The more that you can limit the decision making by a committee, the more acceptance there will be of a post-season by the fans and the media. Winning a conference is a milestone that people recognize and would largely accept as a route to get into the playoff. I would also add that most folks would recognize that there are some non-conference winners, like last year’s Alabama team, that should be included. Given the current structure of college football into different sized conferences with different relative strengths and with one of the major ones not having a conference championship game, eight teams gives a large enough sample size to really find out which team is the national champion.
That’s pretty much my last comment on this, so you can save yourself some time and hold off on parsing my statements. I’m sure the board is quite clear on where you stand IRT a college football playoff.
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cutter,
“Just one point I’d like to make about the former pro football coaches. The names I threw out there were representative of a much larger group that might be willing to review the college football season for a sum of money and help make decisions on the final four. I’m not suddenly expecting to see Bill Cowher or Brian Billick leaving their studio jobs.”
I’m just not sure how many of them would be willing to put in the work for a reasonable sum of money. As I said, I like the idea in principle.
“I also wouldn’t expect any committee to watch film of every Top 25 team through the season. I honestly wouldn’t expect to see them really examining teams in any detail until halfway thru October.”
I don’t care when they physically start watching film, but they need to watch the whole season for every relevant team. How else will they know about relative SOS and how well each team played? The bright side is game film goes by much quicker with all the breaks pulled out.
“I also would expect them to review maybe 10-12 teams maximum at that point because we should have a pretty good vetting six weeks out about what programs are realistically of championship caliber.”
My issue with that is they need to also know how good their opponents are. That’s why I said top 25. Maybe they could watch all games for the top 10 and 4-6 of the other 15 so they have a good feel for the quality of those teams. Just seeing the head to head game isn’t enough.
“That’s the same reason why people are saying the polls shouldn’t be published until the games are played–let’s see them play a bit before putting together a pecking order.”
It’ll never happen, but of course a poll would be more accurate if it wasn’t pre-loaded.
“The more that you can limit the decision making by a committee, the more acceptance there will be of a post-season by the fans and the media.”
I don’t think that’s true. Sometimes they want humans involved, other times they don’t. There’s no rhyme or reason. What one year is the wisdom of incorporating intangibles becomes bias the next year.
“Winning a conference is a milestone that people recognize and would largely accept as a route to get into the playoff.”
You say that, but I’ve seen many people say it isn’t true. They just want the “top #.” I think many fans would have preferred #6 AR (3rd in SEC West) last year to #10 WI (B10 champ) in a playoff.
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OK, so a program’s basketball team uses charter planes at the local airport to get to some of their away games. The town your University is in is a couple of hours drive from the nearest large airport, and flights going out of the local airport are kind of rare. The plane is big enough so that even with all the players, coaches, staff etc, there are still a bunch of empty seats in the back. Fans can by tickets to those seats on the plane if they want to travel and go to the road game with the team. The tickets aren’t cheap, but hey, there are a few rich people in town and they like basketball, so they don’t mind paying. One of them owns a local stereo equipment shop in town. He doesn’t go very often. Just 3 or four times over the course of 3 seasons. He also goes to games sometimes. He’s gone to at least 9 games in the last three seasons. He’s done this by getting leftover player tickets. You see, players get a certain number of tickets per game, but sometimes they don’t use their allotment. Those are then open to the public. So this guy ha sit pretty close behind the bench at a few games. He’s a fan. He’s got some money. He wanted good seats. Can you blame him?
But oh wait, he’s now been charged by the FBI as being involved in a cocaine ring. So they do their due diligence, thoroughly investigate major boosters, coaches, players, make sure they didn’t have anything to do with it. Nobody knows anything about it. He’s just some guy that’s gone to some games. One of your players is interviewed by the press and he says “I didn’t really know him. He seemed like a nice guy. He didn’t seem like a criminal or anything. He hid it well. I liked him becuase he loved the team and cheered for us.” So the guy was just a fan who happened to also be an accused criminal.
Then the district attorney comes out with a statement about the fan’s indictment, direct quote: “The indictment makes no allegations whatsoever about the university, the athletic program or coaches and players.”
OK, so say all of this happens. And say you’re someone who at least likes people to think he has some integrity and is somewhat sensible and reasonable. Do you look at this whole story, and you notice that, “wow, that team was Missouri, and I’m a Texas fan, so I hate Missouri” and you somehow conclude that the University of Missouri should be “extremely embarassed” for being involved in cocaine traficking? Do you then post several posts about it in this forum? If so, your name is probably “bullet”.
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bah, some typos in there, and no edit function. wordpress really needs an edit function. I typically type these posts up at 100 wpm and don’t take time to carefully read through them. The idea was I was trying to imaginarily write from bullet’s perspective instead of mine, but the prespectives get crossed a few times with my own. That’s what I get for trying to be clever without being careful.
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Andy-I would be extremely embarrassed if it happened to UT. It doesn’t mean Missouri did anything wrong. He didn’t necessarily do anything wrong on those trips. But it looks really bad. Its a black eye to ALL college sports that these types of characters are that close to college programs. It sullies every college program out there, just Missouri more than others. Defending it just makes it worse. I seriously doubt someone unknown can just buy a ticket on the team plane. If they really can, it means Missouri is really sloppy and probably not paying enough attention to their team’s security. No matter how you spin it, it all looks bad.
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I’m sorry but that’s just stupid. You’re supposed to be able to know every secret about every fan who travels and sees games? How would you propose that should even be done? I mean, the FBI etc spends years trying to catch these guys and they’re spending billions of dollars at it. You expect athletic departments to be able to figure it out before them? He didn’t even have a criminal record. As far as the public (and the athletic department) knew he was a recpected local business owner who liked basketball.
“So close”, huh? Let’s say you own an ice cream shop and one of your thousands of customers just happens to really like your ice cream and comes by regularly and buys ice cream. You take his money and give him the ice cream he paid for. Should you be “very embarassed” if you later find out the guy secretly sells cocaine? Should ice cream stores everywhere be embarassed?
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Andy,
No, I never said “total wins”. You got me. Gold star for you. I said, and this is a direct quote from my first post on the subject: “If you bring those 13 years up to Missouri’s all-time average, then Missouri ranks all time in wins with Florida, Washington, Colorado, and Arkansas.” Yes, rank in all time wins. And every subsequent description included some variation on that. “rank in wins”, “all-time wins” etc.
That post was on June 8 in a thread I never commented in. You never said “rank in wins” and “all-time wins” also only appears once, in a June 8 comment in a thread I wasn’t in. What happened to: “I said multiple times and in every post I’ve talked about this, the all-time ranking metric I was using was total wins, not win %.” As I said, show me where you ever said total wins or anything like it to me.
Missouri claims two national titles in football:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_football_national_championships_in_NCAA_Division_I_FBS#Total_championship_selections_from_major_selectors_by_school
Missouri claims 2, Arkansas claims 2, Clemson claims 1, Washington claims 4, Michigan State claims 6.
Not according to the Missouri Tigers page
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Tigers_football – “Claimed national titles 0”)
nor further down on the page you linked under the heading “National championship claims by school.”
The 2 titles were in 1960 by the Poling System (4 other teams got titles, too, with MN getting the AP, UPI and NFF titles and MS getting the FWAA title – those were the major selectors) and 2007 from the A&H computer poll despite LSU winning the BCS and MO not even making a BCS game. Even MO knows better than to claim those titles as legitimate.
You’re willfully refusing to see my point about continuous strong success interrupted by 13 years of abysmal failure and then a revival being an actual thing.
Apparently everybody else fails to see it too. Probably because it isn’t an “actual thing” to normal people. Every program has down periods, and you aren’t impressing anyone by pretending MO is the only one. I showed you a king that suffered just as much.
On the terms that I laid out, it makes perfect sense and everything I’m saying is true.
In your own mind, that’s probably all true.
Mizzou is one of very, very few schools that was generall successful for a very long stretch of time … And then bam, total collapse.
Except for all the other schools that fit that pattern, yes.
But all that time, nearly for an entire century, Missouri was a top 25-top30 level program.
You used to claim 80 years, now it’s nearly an entire century, and someone demonstrated earlier it was more like 60 years. Facts aren’t your strong suit, are they?
That’s a unique narrative. Very few if any schools have had a narrative that fits that pattern in any way.
Right. Except for all those schools that fit that general pattern.
*SPECIAL NOTE FOR PEOPLE ON THE AUTISTIC SPECTRUM: THESE QUOTES DO NOT INDICATE THAT BRIAN ACTUALLY SAID THESE WORDS OR THAT I AM DIRECTLY QUOTING HIM. I’M QUOTING WHAT HE SHOULD HAVE SAID IF HE WAS BEING HONEST.
I don’t know why you would yell at autistic people. They aren’t deaf and often don’t deal well with loud noises. They probably understand punctuation better than you. The only way your usage of quotation marks is acceptable is if you label your comments as fiction.
It’s not hard to be right when you’re picking your own terms, you see.
The problem is you use regular terms but redefine them in your head to mean something else and expect everyone to agree with you.
Howsabout you call me names some more, maybe it’ll make you feel better. Tool.
It’s pure poetry.
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Yes, at Missouri, a perosn with no criminal record with no known problems can buy a ticket and travel on the plane and go to games. They can also get good tickets to games if they choose to pay to do so. If you read the actual reports people were shocked that he secretly sold drugs. He was a well liked and respected local business owner. There would be zero reason to flag him as a security risk.
And really, that makes sense. Successful drug dealers are people who are going at hiding what they do so that they don’t get caught. He got away with it for years. They also tend to be friendly and personable.
bullet, please complete this sentence: Missouri should be very embarassed because…
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….some of their alumni defend embarrassing actions?
As for the rest, I’ve already explained it and you are Clay Travising about it.
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In other words, bullet’s got nothing and he’s admitting defeat. Thanks.
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There’s no arguing with crazy.
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Hello Brian, care to add to the conversation? Care to offer a single solitary counterargument?
How about you just answer this: Should people who have never been accused of, let alone convicted of, any crime be banned from traveling to basketball games? I guess I’m totally “crazy” for thinking the non-idiot way of answering that quesiton is “no”.
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Andy,
“Hello Brian, care to add to the conversation?”
I did. I explained bullet’s point to you.
“Care to offer a single solitary counterargument?”
You’re a ridiculous homer of a fan, so why bother? You don’t acknowledge reality if it violates your preconceived opinion of MO.
“How about you just answer this: Should people who have never been accused of, let alone convicted of, any crime be banned from traveling to basketball games?”
On the team plane? Yes. If you aren’t on the team or a school employee, find your own ride. Anything else is a stupid policy asking for trouble. You know, like inadvertently giving drug dealers access to your players.
” I guess I’m totally “crazy” for thinking the non-idiot way of answering that quesiton is “no”.”
Pretty much. A NE fan would know better.
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In the Brianictionary: Homer: Definiton: Someone who, due to actually giving a shit about something, actually takes more than 2 seconds to learn about it and is therefore somewhat qualified to talk about it.
The facts: Columbia, MO regional airport within 2 hours drive of campus. They offer direct chartered flights to various localities around the country for a price. The University frequently pays that price to send their coaches and athletes to away games. With the airport being very small, there are only so many planes to choose from. The plane they can choose is big enough for a football team, so a basketball team only takes up a portion of it. There are people with money in Columbia who would like to go to the game who would otherwise have to charter their own plane or drive 2+ hrs to St. Louis or Kansas City to take a commercial flight.
Do you: A) Allow them to buy tickets for some of the many empty seats in the back of your plane, thus significantly decreasing your travel expenses, as long as they’re not known criminals or carrying weapons or bombs, or
B) leave all of those seats empty, basically indireclty pay for all of those seats by not having paying customers’ butts in them, all based on the paranoid fear that one of them might one day be revealed to be a criminal and then idiots on the internet will declare that by them buying a tickets from you then you are somehow complicit in their crimes.
Again, I guess I’m crazy for thinkin the non-idiot answer is A.
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I’m eagerly awaiting one of Brian’s patented point-by-point refutations of my argument. But I suspect it won’t be coming. You see, Brian and bullet are arrogant shit talkers. One’s a Texas fan, one’s an Ohio State fan. They’re two peas in a pod, really, even though their personalities are quite different. They’re both arrogant as all get out. They’re both incredibly judgmental. They’re both hung up on tradition or just plain arrogance biased biases. And they both have extreme difficulty seeing through these biases. And they’re both never wrong. And they’ll both get into extended arguments to prove that they’re not wrong. Unless of course they’re losing. Then they just disappear. Which is what will happen here. Because here is one of the many times when they were talking shit and had absolutely nothing to back it up. And when they were called on it, rather than actually defending their idiotic accusations, all they could do was pull out their ad hominems and straw men (staples fo the message board bully). Nope, we won’t be hearing a single intelligent argument out of either of them on this issue. But the odds of either of them conceding that they are even the slightest bit wrong (even though it’s an easily demonstrable fact that they’re so wrong it’s not even funny) are less than 1%.
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Andy;
I withdraw when people start calling names like stupid, etc., etc. because this board should be civil. Also its not fun and those people are obviously set in their point of view. I suggest you carefully re-read your last post.
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Adam:
I shouldn’t say anything, but I will.
It doesn’t matter how or why an embarrassing event occurs, It is still embarrassing. No more, no less.
I am a long way from being confused with a Longhorn fan (ask bullet) and perhaps a bit closer to the Buckeyes. I have had many disagreements with bullet over UT’s seeming need to control as much as it cam, (OSU to an extent also, but they have multiple counter balancing kings) as well as conference revenue sharing, the value of conference networks vs individual schools, how many sports the richest athletic department sponsors, etc. I may disagree with one or the other at times, but I at least respect that they feel the way they do, and understand that they probably are representive of how many others feel (usually in a reasoned discourse). I have never felt the need to make a personal attack, let alone curse derogatorily at either of them. Please feel free to join a different board where that is the norm.
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Darn it… That was to Andy, although I imagine it was obvious.
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bullet, I honestly didn’t want to call your opinions stupid. But I felt compelled to, because they obviously are. Your basic argument boils down to an insistence that Missouri should leave half of its charter plane empty at all times because it’s way too risky to allow fans with no criminal records and no accusasions against them from riding on the plane because they may some day be revealed to be criminals. And I, as a Missouri fan, should be “very embarassed” because my school chose not to follow this assinine rule that you just made up that has no basis in reality. I’m sorry but that’s just stupid.
Brian is not a civil person in the least. He’s called me names lots of times, including in this thread.
bullet, you may not call names directly, but you definitely thrown around judgemental and dismissive language like its nothing, and you frequenly have little to no justification in doing so. This is a prime example.
I read over my last post very carefully before I posted it. I ended up editing it because I didn’t thik it was strong enough. I made sure to add more indignation and descriptive language.
You two are both so full of yourselves sometimes that I sometimes don’t even want to read this board. But there’s a lot of good stuff here so I keep coming back.
My suggestion to you both (and I’m sorry, bullet, I know you’re not as extreme as Brian so in a way I feel bad lumping you in with him, but then again you kind of deserve it): go get a therapist, tell the therapist that you want to figure out how to be less arrogant, then work with that therapist for a few years. It’s going to be very expensive but I guarantee you that you will be better for having done it.
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ccrider55, yes, I agree that it’s vaguely embarassing. It’s embarassing in the same way stepping in dog shit that was somehow hidden is embarassing. You didn’t see it, it’s not your fault, it doesn’t really hurt you in anyway and overall it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where it would cause you any kind of serious problem. But yeah, it smells bad. So you scrape your shoe off and move on.
You don’t start pointing fingers and saying “oh my God, Missouri stepped in dog shit! Can you believe it? They should be *very* embarassed. They’re besmirching the honor of shoes everywhere! In fact, the very fact that they’re the kind of people who accidentally step into dogshit really says something about them, doesn’t it? Like, maybe they’re made from shit…or something, I won’t bother to explain that. But definitely shame on them. I’m so glad I never step into dogshit.”
Carefully re-read bullet’s 6 or 7 posts so far on this board about this topic. That’s his general tone. And Brian was happy to pile on like usual. And I’m sorry but I have to call it what it is tonight. I’m not in the mood to put up with that kind of nonsense. If they got their feelings hurt tough. Maybe they should watch their mouth next time.
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Andy,
“In the Brianictionary: Homer: Definiton: Someone who, due to actually giving a shit about something, actually takes more than 2 seconds to learn about it and is therefore somewhat qualified to talk about it.”
Yes, because the problem is that I don’t ever bother with facts. I didn’t disagree with a single fact of your case, and I don’t think anyone else has either. It’s your opinion and childish arguments to support it with which people have a problem.
“The facts: Columbia, MO regional airport within 2 hours drive of campus.”
Irrelevant.
“They offer direct chartered flights to various localities around the country for a price.”
Irrelevant.
“The University frequently pays that price to send their coaches and athletes to away games.”
Irrelevant.
“With the airport being very small, there are only so many planes to choose from.”
Not a fact, and also irrelevant. As it turns out, planes from elsewhere can fly into said airport if the planes currently there are not sufficient for a customer’s needs.
“The plane they can choose is big enough for a football team, so a basketball team only takes up a portion of it.”
Irrelevant.
“There are people with money in Columbia who would like to go to the game who would otherwise have to charter their own plane or drive 2+ hrs to St. Louis or Kansas City to take a commercial flight.”
Irrelevant.
None of that matters because bad policy is bad policy. Convenience doesn’t suddenly make it good policy. MO is being penny wise and pound foolish at best.
“Do you: A) Allow them to buy tickets for some of the many empty seats in the back of your plane, thus significantly decreasing your travel expenses, as long as they’re not known criminals or carrying weapons or bombs, or”
No. I ask them to donate money to help pay for plane flights, or encourage them to buy or lease a smaller plane that the school can rent from them for these trips, or something that doesn’t expose the school to PR risk. It’s one thing to let the owner of the plane fly for free while the team gets to use it, it’s another to run Tigers airline.
“B) leave all of those seats empty, basically indireclty pay for all of those seats by not having paying customers’ butts in them, all based on the paranoid fear that one of them might one day be revealed to be a criminal”
1. It isn’t paranoid, obviously, since it happened. That’s the definitional opposite of paranoid. It would be just as bad if one turned out to be an agent or runner, or crazy and caused a plane crash, or even just clumsy and caused an injury to a player. They don’t need to be there, and the MO hoops team doesn’t exist to make profit as an airline. Suck it up and spend some of your TV money to cover the difference. It doesn’t really cost that much. MO had roughly 12 road games last year, so even assuming all of them required a flight that’s only 12 round trips. Say they sell 20 seats at $1000 on each flight, that is only $240,000. That’s round off error in MO’s AD budget.
” and then idiots on the internet will declare that by them buying a tickets from you then you are somehow complicit in their crimes.”
Or idiots on the internet will completely misread what others have written and instead assume that everyone is accusing their precious school of things. Either way, really.
“Again, I guess I’m crazy for thinkin the non-idiot answer is A.”
Short sighted would be a more charitable way to phrase it, but I’m fine with you calling yourself crazy.
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Andy,
“I’m eagerly awaiting one of Brian’s patented point-by-point refutations of my argument.”
Ask and you shall receive. It’s a little difficult when you don’t actually have any points for me to refute, but I did what i could with what you gave me.
“But I suspect it won’t be coming.”
Your impressive streak of being right about things continues.
“They’re two peas in a pod, really, even though their personalities are quite different.”
I don’t think that phrase means what you think it does. We can’t be “two peas in a pod” and be quite different, especially not in the same sentence.
“They’re both arrogant as all get out. They’re both incredibly judgmental.”
I don’t think that’s fair at all. Bullet isn’t arrogant or all that judgmental.
“They’re both hung up on tradition”
In what way, shape or form is this relevant to the point you are trying to make? I’m much more pro-tradition than bullet, just look at our many discussions about bowls and playoffs and expansion over the years.
Do you think we wouldn’t feel the same way if you made all the same points but were an OSU , UT, OU, NE or PSU homer instead? I can’t think of any reason why a UT fans would be anything but indifferent about MO, and certainly OSU fans don’t care about MO. Why would the school factor into whether this is a wise policy or not? Miami was stupid to let Shapiro have so much player access, and it’s likely going to come back to bite them. OSU paid the price for having a booster get too close, too. I’d call Gene Smith all kinds of names if he was doing this.
“or just plain arrogance biased biases.”
Even assuming you meant “based biases” there, that makes no sense. Nobody said it was dumb because MO did it. They said it was dumb because it was done.
“And they both have extreme difficulty seeing through these biases.”
Yes, because all of us are biased against MO all the time on every topic because MO is so important to CFB and everything else we discuss here. It couldn’t possibly be that you are seeing things in a slanted view on every single topic that might concern MO.
“And they’re both never wrong.”
Not true at all. Bullet’s wrong quite frequently and I tell him so. And I know I had at least one fact wrong a few weeks ago in a post I made, but someone was nice enough to point it out and I agreed whole-heartedly that it was wrong.
“And they’ll both get into extended arguments to prove that they’re not wrong.”
Yes, I posted all of one time on this topic before you objected. That’s clearly a protracted argument from me.
“Unless of course they’re losing. Then they just disappear.”
Yes, I’m renowned for not posting enough outside of the weeks when WordPress ate all my posts. I’m pretty sure you’re the first one that has ever accused me of not debating a topic enough on here. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess most other people here would disagree with you about that.
I’d also like to examine the ideas you just espoused. First, you accuse me of arguing too much, then say I leave early if I’m losing. If you are correct, then that by definition means any argument I keep posting in is one I’m winning. The only way for you or anyone else to win is to stop posting first, or I just have to keep answering you to automatically win. That seems pretty win-win to me.
“Which is what will happen here. Because here is one of the many times when they were talking shit and had absolutely nothing to back it up.”
As opposed to all the relevant facts you brought to bear. This is an opinion argument about a policy, not a data based discussion.
“And when they were called on it, rather than actually defending their idiotic accusations,”
What were my accusations again? I simply re-phrased bullet’s last comment in order to make it easier for you to parse.
“all they could do was pull out their ad hominems and straw men (staples fo the message board bully).”
I wouldn’t know. I don’t post on message boards and never have. I didn’t present a straw man or an ad hominem attack, however. I translated someone else’s comment into a simpler form. I think I kept the essence of it, though.
“Nope, we won’t be hearing a single intelligent argument out of either of them on this issue.”
You won’t, but that’s because you cover your ears and say “la-la-la-la-la” whenever anyone says something non-complimentary about MO even when it is supported by hard data.
“But the odds of either of them conceding that they are even the slightest bit wrong (even though it’s an easily demonstrable fact that they’re so wrong it’s not even funny) are less than 1%.”
I’d say they asymptotically approach zero in this case, even though I didn’t state an opinion anywhere in this discussion until you chose to demand an opinion from me. I’d love for you to easily demonstrate the fact that we are wrong in this case. I’ll nominate Richard as a neutral judge that has absolutely no tendency to favor me over anyone else here and I doubt a NW guy has any reason to be too tradition bound or anti-MO to be objective.
.
Richard:
Has Andy established the fact that bullet and I are wrong, and was it easily demonstrable? I contend this is an opinion based argument and that there are no facts too prove either side wrong.
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Your school: Ohio State. Athletic Budget: $126.5M
My school: Missouri. Athletic Budget: $58.9M
Your school’s athletics budget is 2.15 times higher than my school’s athletics budget. No doubt your school has lots of generous boosters who can spend all kinds of money buying private jets for your teams, as you suggested. My school is not at that level.
You can sit on your high and mighty buckeye perch and look down your noses at other schools who don’t have private jets and have to actually work at it to make their budgets work. But I assure you Missouri is right smack in the middle as far as money troubles in college sports. Ohio State and Texas are the exceptions. The way that Missouri does things is the normal way of doing things. If the way Missouri does things is somehow grossly irresponsible, then the entire system is.
Nothing of any practical consequence happened. This guy didn’t actually do anything to the team or players. He only went to a few games and his drug dealing was completely seperate from basketball. No players or coaches or administrators are implicated as involved in any way. Missouri’s basketball team doesn’t have any kind of a drug problem. They’ve investigated and this guy had very little if any interactions with anybody in the program. He just rode on the plane and went to the games. Anyone trying to make an issue of this in any way either misunderstands the situation severely or they’re just trying to talk shit about another program.
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Andy,
“bullet, I honestly didn’t want to call your opinions stupid. But I felt compelled to, because they obviously are.”
I didn’t want to do it, but the power of the internet made me. Nice. Assuming you are anywhere close to adulthood, you should be capable of not calling things idiotic that you don’t want to call idiotic.
“Your basic argument boils down to an insistence that Missouri should leave half of its charter plane empty at all times because it’s way too risky to allow fans with no criminal records and no accusasions against them from riding on the plane because they may some day be revealed to be criminals. And I, as a Missouri fan, should be “very embarassed” because my school chose not to follow this assinine rule that you just made up that has no basis in reality. I’m sorry but that’s just stupid.”
Quite the logical argument. Perhaps you should add, “So there!” next time, and then stick your tongue out at him.
“Brian is not a civil person in the least. He’s called me names lots of times, including in this thread.”
I’m happy to do it again if it makes you feel better.
“bullet, you may not call names directly, but you definitely thrown around judgemental and dismissive language like its nothing, and you frequenly have little to no justification in doing so. This is a prime example.”
So you’re using the two wrongs make a right argument here? Yes, quite adult and logical.
“You two are both so full of yourselves sometimes that I sometimes don’t even want to read this board.”
It would be a great loss to us all. Perhaps you aren’t aware but you have the ability to not read anything bullet or I write on here. I realize it requires some will power and that isn’t your strong suit (see not being able to not call bullet’s opinions stupid despite not wanting to do it), but maybe if you work at it you will develop the ability. I almost never bother to read anything you write because the few times I do it’s almost always some drivel in an embarrassingly bad argument about how great MO is in one way or another.
“But there’s a lot of good stuff here so I keep coming back.”
You also have the ability to not respond to bullet or me even if you feel compelled to read what we write.
“and I’m sorry, bullet, I know you’re not as extreme as Brian so in a way I feel bad lumping you in with him, but then again you kind of deserve it”
WOO HOO! I’m #1. I’m #1. Suck it bullet, I’m much more extreme than you. OSU rulez and UT sux!!!1!!!1!!
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*Brian, thank you for responding. I predicted that yo would not to goad you into doing so. It worked.
*”Two peas in a pod yet quite different” works here, because you’re both extremely arrogant, but he’s not as much of a jerk as you so in that sense he’s different.
*bullet is definitely arrogant and judgemental. I’ve been on this forum for a couple of years now and I’ve seen it many times. Today was the last straw. I had my last straw with you a long time ago and I largely avoid talking to you because you’re insufferable. But bullet I was still trying to tolerate. Now I’ve basically lost my patience with him.
*You read it wrong, maybe because of my typo: it’s “tradition or arrogance based biases”. As in two different kinds of biases. As in both of you are very wrapped up in your self identity as fans of traditional power schools (Texas and Ohio State) and you’re arrogantly biased against those who don’t measure up to those standards. For instance, your dismissive attitude toward programs who can’t afford to buy their own private jets.
*This has nothing to do with it being Missouri. I’m sure as an OSU fan you couldn’t care less about Missouri. Texas fans probably don’t care that much, although I’m sure they hate it that Missouri beat them in football, twice in basketball, and 3 times in baseball this year. And we badmouthed them considerably as we left their conference for the SEC. But other than that I doubt Texas fans care that much. That was part of the problem of the SWC schools joining the Big 8. We just didn’t really care that much about them, and they didn’t care about us. No, this isn’t about Missouri. This is about being an upstart. Missouri hasn’t been kept in “thier place” of late. They’ve been winning too many games (9.5 wins per year over the last 5 years), they thought of themselves as worthy of joining the Big Ten and then they got themselves into the SEC. It just doesn’t seem right to the arrogant, traditional powers. Your general attitude is “who does Missouri think they are? They’re nobodies. Why should they be in the news so much? They don’t deserve the attention”. Just try to deny that. I’ve seen both of you say as much more than once. So no, it’s nothing to do with Missouri and everything to do with your mindset of only certain schools “mattering” and Missouri isn’t on the list and shouldn’t be on the list and screw them if they think they are.
*Yeah, see, you’re never wrong. Like I said.
*I said you’d disappear to goad you. I wanted a thorough response and I thought you’d respond thoroughly to a challenge. I was right.
*Your accusations are that Missouri is irresponsible for flying their team to games on the same plane as commercial passengers. That is idiotic. It’s easily disprovable because you contend that only schools that spend extra money to buy up entire planes whenever they travel are responsible. Clearly this is a minority view as most of the 300+ NCAA division 1 teams do not do this. It is a result of your arrongant worldview from the perspective of an extremely wealthy athletic program.
*I still haven’t seen an intelligent argument from you, and I’m looking. I haven’t covered my ears or said la-la-la yet.
*You should admit you’re wrong, but you won’t.
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* No, I swear, I tried to not call his opinion idiotic. But it was honestly the nicest thing I could think of to say about it. And I didn’t want to say nothing, so…
* Yes, it was a pretty convincing argument if I do say so. Sometimes the word “stupid” really fits.
* “two wrongs make a right?” Clearly I think it’s right to call his opinion stupid, so I don’t really think it’s a wrong making a right since it’s already right.
* Sure, I could not read you and bullets stupid arguments and not respond to them. I’ve done that lots of times. But the way this started was bullet made a taunting and stupid post about Missouri, and then somebody else chimed in and said that “Andy” needs to come in and say something. So at that point I was invited. So I give some input and then bullet digs himself deeper and deeper into stupidity on the argument, and then you piled on, and here we are. SO how far do you want to go with this?
*Yes, Brian, you’re the #1 tool on this website. Your legendary toolishness echoes throughout comentsland and the twitterverse. Congrats.
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Andy,
“Your school: Ohio State. Athletic Budget: $126.5M
My school: Missouri. Athletic Budget: $58.9M
Your school’s athletics budget is 2.15 times higher than my school’s athletics budget. No doubt your school has lots of generous boosters who can spend all kinds of money buying private jets for your teams, as you suggested. My school is not at that level.”
OSU’s number of varsity sports – 39 (870 separate athletes, 1003 spots)
MO’s number of varsity sports – 18 (536 separate athletes, 536 spots)
OSU’s 2009-10 travel expenses – $5.1M (all sports combined)
MO’s 2009-10 travel expenses – $3.65M (all sports combined)
OSU’s travel expenses per team (average) = $131k
MO’s travel expenses per team (average) = $192k
Yes, clearly it’s only the size of OSU’s budget that’s important. There couldn’t possibly be other factors to consider like the number of teams.
“You can sit on your high and mighty buckeye perch and look down your noses at other schools who don’t have private jets and have to actually work at it to make their budgets work.”
OSU worked hard to get where it is, but that’s beside the point. MO is already paying for the flights, and it only adds up to $3.65M for the whole AD combined. Men’s hoops is a fraction of that, more like $250-300k.
“The way that Missouri does things is the normal way of doing things.”
According to whom? Have you surveyed all the ADs to see who shares MO’s policy of letting anyone buy a ticket on the team plane?
“Nothing of any practical consequence happened. This guy didn’t actually do anything to the team or players. He only went to a few games and his drug dealing was completely seperate from basketball. No players or coaches or administrators are implicated as involved in any way. Missouri’s basketball team doesn’t have any kind of a drug problem. They’ve investigated and this guy had very little if any interactions with anybody in the program. He just rode on the plane and went to the games. Anyone trying to make an issue of this in any way either misunderstands the situation severely or they’re just trying to talk shit about another program.”
I never said anything did happen or that he did anything too/with the team or players. As usual, you are fabricating a position and assigning it to me.
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Brian,
*I don’t know much about OSU, but it’s not just a matter of operating budget. It’s a matter of capital investment. Based on what you’re saying, presumably OSU has their own jet(s).
*Any policy that affects one sport likely affects multiple sports. So isoliting this to just basketball doesn’t work. If you allow people to buy their way on to the plane in men’s basketball then you can do it in other sports as well. That can add up to quite a bit of money, not just $300k.
*No, I haven’t done a survey. Have you? If doing a survey is the criteria for being able to discuss this, then your entire accusation is forfeit, because I’m pretty sure you haven’t done a survey either.
*I didn’t say you had said there were practical consequences. Bullet suggested it. He suggested that the guy was riding around on the team plane to do drug deals. But even though you haven’t said there were practical consequences, you haven’t said there were not practical consequences, and you’re making an issue out of this, which would indicate that you think it’s some how worthy of negative attention. Perhaps you make a habit of giving negative attention to things that had no practical negative consequences. Which kind of leads back to the whole “stupid” thing I was talking about before.
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Andy,
“*I don’t know much about OSU, but it’s not just a matter of operating budget. It’s a matter of capital investment. Based on what you’re saying, presumably OSU has their own jet(s).”
No, OSU charters planes (they have access to small planes of course, so coaches can recruit and such, but that’s different). I hope they don’t try to run their own airline by selling seats to boosters, though. I’ve certainly never heard of the opportunity to buy a seat on a team flight.
“*Any policy that affects one sport likely affects multiple sports. So isoliting this to just basketball doesn’t work. If you allow people to buy their way on to the plane in men’s basketball then you can do it in other sports as well. That can add up to quite a bit of money, not just $300k.”
First, you’ve provided no evidence that it does happen in other sports. How much are boosters really willing to pay to fly with the golf team to OkSU? Even if it does happen, no other sports are revenue generators like FB and MBB that attract all the media scrutiny and potential for problems. There’s a reason why compliance departments focus so much on FB and MBB and not women’s lacrosse. It’s still an ill-advised policy and not worth the risk.
“*No, I haven’t done a survey. Have you?”
No, but I didn’t make a quantitative claim about the frequency of the practice. You claimed it is “normal,” which requires knowledge of the practices at many other schools to be accurate. Otherwise, you are talking out of your ass.
“If doing a survey is the criteria for being able to discuss this, then your entire accusation is forfeit, because I’m pretty sure you haven’t done a survey either.”
Having facts is a requirement for making a quantitative claim, which is what you did. I didn’t do that, so I don’t need that data.
“*I didn’t say you had said there were practical consequences.”
You implied it by putting a whole paragraph about it in a response to me. If we both agree I said nothing about practical consequences, how was that paragraph relevant?
“Bullet suggested it.”
No, he didn’t. He suggested that there could have been practical consequences.
“He suggested that the guy was riding around on the team plane to do drug deals.”
He may have been. None of us knows what all he did at those other locations.
“But even though you haven’t said there were practical consequences, you haven’t said there were not practical consequences,”
Really? I now have to explicitly state every opinion I don’t have? That would tend to make for very long comments I would think.
“and you’re making an issue out of this,”
No, I’m not. I made 1 whole comment before you went off the deep end again. You are the one making an issue of this.
“which would indicate that you think it’s some how worthy of negative attention.”
It made the news, so it already has negative attention. My pointing out that I think it’s bad policy is unlikely to draw any measurable amount of additional attention. A crazy homer fan going on repeated tirades on the subject, leading to long threads on the topic on a reasonably popular blog is more likely to draw negative attention.
“Perhaps you make a habit of giving negative attention to things that had no practical negative consequences.”
All normal people do. I stop blind people from crossing the street into traffic, too. The goal is to prevent the practical negative consequences. Perhaps you prefer to let bad things happen first and then point out how dumb they were for doing it.
“Which kind of leads back to the whole “stupid” thing I was talking about before.”
Don’t get down on yourself, maybe you’re just uneducated.
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Andy,
“*Brian, thank you for responding. I predicted that yo would not to goad you into doing so. It worked.”
No, it actually didn’t. I had already hit reply before I read that line. I’m not sure how proud you should be about getting someone to respond to a comment, either, since it is the general purpose of this blog.
“*”Two peas in a pod yet quite different” works here, because you’re both extremely arrogant, but he’s not as much of a jerk as you so in that sense he’s different.”
No, it really doesn’t. The idiom is used to say two things are practically identical.
“I had my last straw with you a long time ago and I largely avoid talking to you because you’re insufferable.”
Such a shame. Feel free to try harder in the future.
“Now I’ve basically lost my patience with him.”
I’m sure he’s crushed.
“As in both of you are very wrapped up in your self identity as fans of traditional power schools (Texas and Ohio State) and you’re arrogantly biased against those who don’t measure up to those standards.”
Or you have an inferiority complex because you want MO to be like UT or OSU or AL or … and get angry when anybody points out that it isn’t. Your choice to take everything said about MO in the most negative way possible and turn it into a personal attack on you is not a bias from us. It’s a persecution complex on your part.
It isn’t arrogance to point out that king programs are different from other programs. They have more wins, more conference titles, more major bowls and more national titles. They get more coverage and make more money. That doesn’t make this year’s team any better, but we never claim that it does. We are both blessed with having roots in a king CFB program, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be proud about their accomplishments.
“For instance, your dismissive attitude toward programs who can’t afford to buy their own private jets.”
And again, you ignore what i actually say and give me a different position that better suits your neuroses. OSU doesn’t own a fleet of jets just waiting to transport the teams. I dismissed the concept of an AQ program pinching pennies by selling seats on a team charter flight to boosters/fans. In the relative scheme of things, MO is a have in CFB. No matter how much you cry poverty, I doubt many non-AQs sympathize.
“This is about being an upstart. Missouri hasn’t been kept in “thier place” of late.”
You give MO too much credit. Boise is an upstart, winning a ton of games as a non-AQ and winning some BCS games. MO is an above average FB team of late, nothing more. They are members of a power conference and haven’t won a conference title in forever. They haven’t made the BCS, That isn’t an upstart.
As for “their place,” why would anybody outside of the B12 care? MO hasn’t made a BCS bowl, so they’ve been a non-factor nationally. MO is traditionally a top 30-40 type of team, better in some periods and worse in others. MO is on an uptick lately, but
“They’ve been winning too many games (9.5 wins per year over the last 5 years),”
MO has the #19 winning percentage over the past 5 years. That’s nice for them, but hardly something to shake the FB world. 5 teams now in the B12 are above them. So are 3 SEC, 3 B10, 3 P12, 2 BE, 1 ACC and 1 independent. Why would anyone be upset about that? MO is basically the B12’s version of MSU right now. MO is a prince right now, and that’s nice, but that’s hardly going to anger TPTB. Someone has to be at the prince level. It used to be TT in the B12, so maybe they are mad.
“they thought of themselves as worthy of joining the Big Ten”
That didn’t anger anyone. They were a reasonable candidate. An extreme homer fan claiming they were the greatest thing since sliced bread might have been annoying, and the governor said a few regrettable things, but MO didn’t upset anyone by thinking they were a B10 candidate.
“and then they got themselves into the SEC.”
I don’t think that angered anyone but WV fans and some SEC fans that wanted someone else.
“It just doesn’t seem right to the arrogant, traditional powers.”
I wouldn’t know about the arrogant ones, but in general the traditional powers really couldn’t care less which conference MO is in. The B12 powers probably worried about it a little last year because of the ripple effect, but the GOR has them sleeping peacefully now.
“Your general attitude is “who does Missouri think they are?”
No, it’s more like: Who does Andy think MO is? Because your view of them seems detached from the reality the rest of us know.
“They’re nobodies.”
No, they’re somebodies that want to be bigger somebodies.
“Why should they be in the news so much?”
They really haven’t been in the news that much IMO. It certainly hasn’t jumped out at me, anyway. Of course, I’m here reading a blog that has focused on conference expansion so my exposure to CFB news is skewed.
“They don’t deserve the attention”
What attention? I haven’t seen a story about them in months.
“Just try to deny that.”
I’ll not only try, I will flatly deny it.
“I’ve seen both of you say as much more than once.”
No, you haven’t. You’ve misrepresented our words to pretend that’s what we said because it better fits your paranoid inferiority complex.
“So no, it’s nothing to do with Missouri and everything to do with your mindset of only certain schools “mattering””
On almost every mode of consideration, only certain schools matter. Depending on what you’re discussing, that set of schools changes. Rarely on a national scale does MO matter significantly. They weren’t a B12 power in a revenue sport, and aren’t likely to be in the SEC either. They aren’t an academically elite school either. MO is solidly above average in both ways, and that and $5 will get you a cup of coffee.
“and Missouri isn’t on the list and shouldn’t be on the list and screw them if they think they are.”
No, there is no value in should. Schools either are on the list or they aren’t. Most fans don’t think ND should be on the list for FB, but they clearly are and that’s what matters. MO isn’t on the list, but I don’t think they think they are on it either. Only certain deranged fans think that, and I have little regard for their opinions.
“*Yeah, see, you’re never wrong. Like I said.”
Whoosh!
That was the sound of something going over your head.
“*I said you’d disappear to goad you. I wanted a thorough response and I thought you’d respond thoroughly to a challenge. I was right.”
Again, your “challenge” was irrelevant. I would have responded the same way without it.
“*Your accusations are that Missouri is irresponsible for flying their team to games on the same plane as commercial passengers.”
No, I didn’t say that. I said it was bad policy to sell seats on their charter flights to boosters. They can send the team commercially and I wouldn’t bat an eye.
“It’s easily disprovable because … Clearly this is a minority view”
Being a minority view is not proof of incorrectness. Otherwise, being anti-slavery was wrong. Thinking women should be able to vote was wrong. Thinking the earth revolved around the sun was wrong. You may fall prey to the fly diet argument, but it holds no logical weight.
“as most of the 300+ NCAA division 1 teams do not do this.”
Evidence?
“*I still haven’t seen an intelligent argument from you”
It takes intelligence to recognize intelligence.
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Andy,
“* No, I swear, I tried to not call his opinion idiotic. But it was honestly the nicest thing I could think of to say about it. And I didn’t want to say nothing, so…”
So you have no self-control and a very limited vocabulary. Still a teenager by any chance?
“* Yes, it was a pretty convincing argument if I do say so. Sometimes the word “stupid” really fits.”
Only you would say so.
“* “two wrongs make a right?” Clearly I think it’s right to call his opinion stupid, so I don’t really think it’s a wrong making a right since it’s already right.”
I think that stands all on its own. Bullet is stupid and offensive for thinking a policy is wrong, but calling him stupid is fine. OK.
“SO how far do you want to go with this?”
I’ll let you express your crazy for as long as you want. I’ve got time.
“*Yes, Brian, you’re the #1 tool on this website. Your legendary toolishness echoes throughout comentsland and the twitterverse. Congrats.”
I’m #1! I’m #1! Woot.
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*So let me get this straight… it’s fine for you and bullet to claim that Missouri is doing something embarassingly unwise by allowing non-staff on their flights to away games without providing any proof that this isn’t common practice, but it’s not fine for me to point out that its not uncommon without taking a survey. Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty? How about you provide evidence that its uncommon since you’re the accuser, and I’ll just wait. You admit you don’t even know if OSU does it themselves. Hilarous. Why don’t you at least call them and ask and then get back to me. And no, being in the minority view doesn’t automatically make you wrong, but if this sort of thing is common practice and is maybe even done by Ohio State, then your concerns don’t really hold much water, especially since this is the first time I can recall anyone ever worrying about this issue. AND nothing of any practical consequence even happened as a result of it.
*Non-revenue sports do matter. If you ban all non-staff from riding on the plane you’re constantly limiting what you can do with half or more of your plane. There could be all sorts of reasons, revenue generating and non-revenue generating, for wanting to allow non-players and non-staff to ride on the plane. And there’s little practical reason to forbid it. This is such a phoney made up issue it’s amazing. It’s basically an excuse for you and bullet to sanctamoneously waggle your finger at Missouri (without even knowing if your own school does it), and little else.
*You didn’t initially make an issue of this. But bullet sure did. He posted about it several times unprompted, trying to make sure he got a response. This wasn’t me being paranoid. It’s clear as day. One guy even called him a “doofus” because his accusations were so off base. Then you chimed in and endorsed him. And in doing so you took ownership of the issue he had made with it. So basically you’re endorsing making an issue out of something that you refuse to acknowledge even had any practical negative consequences. Unless your claim is that it has negative consequences because people can make a phoney issue out of it, but that’s kind of circular, don’t you think?
*So you start by saying you’re not arrogantly dismissive of programs that don’t fit OSU and Texas’s profile, and then you go on in detai for about a thousand words about how Missouri shouldn’t be paid attention to becauase they’re only a prince, not a king. And you probably don’t even see the contradiction, amazing.
*No Missouri hasn’t been in the news much in the last couple of months. It’s June. There’s not really much to talk about. But they were in the news almost constantly for a good chunk of the last year, first for conference expansion, then for having a top 5 basketball team. This forum saw an abundance of snide remarks and antipathy against Missouri during that time, including several from you. People didn’t like it, and went out of their way to repeatedly point out Missouri’s non-King status. Maybe you don’t remember, but it happened.
*I have never once claimed Missouri is a king or the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have claimed that Missouri was a good expansion candidate for multiple reasons. For this I was called crazy, stupid, and worse by you and several others. This has been going on on this board for about 2 years. You’ve done it lots of times. In the end, the SEC took Missouri happily. I was assured by several people on here that this wouldn’t happen. I don’t recall if you were one of them. Their arrogance turned out to be unfounded. So actually, it’s not me having an inferiority complex. It’s me accurately assessing my school’s place in the sports world, and a lot of other people shitting on me for it. Not a single person has ever been able to point to me making a claim about Missouri that was inflated or untrue. And yet they get so stirred up when I make accurate statements. And I’m the “crazy” one? Who said anything about Missouri being a king or winning on the level of Boise State? I sure didn’t.
*I’m guessing that you’re trying to be funny by calling me offensive while also calling me names in the same post.
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A couple of definitional things:
several-per Webster’s “more than two, but not many.” So two posts does not count as several.
message board-where people discuss things and post news items unprompted.
And in discussing North Carolina’s scandal (which I also posted unprompted), it might come up that there have been other scandals, of which I named several.
Its a good thing you aren’t a Notre Dame fan. There’s a school that gets lots of abuse.
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bullet, I’m not going to go through this unweildy forum interface and try to count up the number of times you’ve posted about this, but I’m pretty sure this most recent one brings you well past a dozen.
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Andy,
“*So let me get this straight… it’s fine for you and bullet to claim that Missouri is doing something embarassingly unwise”
Wrong. I never said anything about embarrassment. I said it was unwise.
“without providing any proof that this isn’t common practice,”
It doesn’t matter if it is a common practice for our position. Bad policy is bad policy no matter how common it is.
“but it’s not fine for me to point out that its not uncommon without taking a survey.”
You can’t know if it’s uncommon without actually knowing how other schools deal with it. Most non-AQs would probably just drive to the bigger airport rather than charter a plane of the wrong size.
“How about you provide evidence that its uncommon since you’re the accuser, and I’ll just wait.”
If I needed that info to support my side of the argument, I would try to find out. Since it is irrelevant to my position but not yours, you should find out.
“You admit you don’t even know if OSU does it themselves.”
I don’t know for sure, no. I’ve never heard of the possibility of buying a seat on an OSU MBB team charter, and fans would tend to discuss that option if it existed, but I can’t definitively say it is impossible.
“And no, being in the minority view doesn’t automatically make you wrong,”
Then you shouldn’t have trotted out such a pathetic argument.
“but if this sort of thing is common practice and is maybe even done by Ohio State, then your concerns don’t really hold much water,”
Again, that’s all irrelevant. Unlike you, I’m willing to accuse my alma mater of making bad decisions. I understand that my fandom doesn’t make them perfect.
“especially since this is the first time I can recall anyone ever worrying about this issue.”
Plenty of bad policies have been commonplace before people recognized the problem. That doesn’t make them good policies. Providing inside access to boosters has been a known issue for a while.
“AND nothing of any practical consequence even happened as a result of it.”
Nothing of any practical consequence happens most times when people drink and drive, and that used to be very common before the last 10-20 years (and is still way too common today). It was a bad decision 50 years ago to drink and drive and its still a bad decision.
“*Non-revenue sports do matter.”
Not to the extent of CFB and MBB. How many boosters are giving $100 handshakes to field hockey players? Revenue sports draw a fringe element that other sports don’t, and they also draw a lot more attention from the NCAA and most compliance departments. They are different, and should be treated as such.
“If you ban all non-staff from riding on the plane you’re constantly limiting what you can do with half or more of your plane.”
So? Get a smaller plane or suck up the cost. It’s like an SUV owner bitching about the cost of gas.
“There could be all sorts of reasons, revenue generating and non-revenue generating, for wanting to allow non-players and non-staff to ride on the plane.”
There could be, and I wouldn’t object if they were doing a Life Flight. But you said they sell tickets to generate revenue, and I took you at your word.
“And there’s little practical reason to forbid it.”
It’s insurance. Buy it or don’t.
“It’s basically an excuse for you and bullet to sanctamoneously waggle your finger at Missouri (without even knowing if your own school does it), and little else.”
I don’t need to know if OSU does it because I’m saying it is universally a bad policy. It’s bad if MO does it, and just as bad if OSU does it. I didn’t condemn MO, I condemned the policy.
“This wasn’t me being paranoid. It’s clear as day.”
In your mind, maybe.
“One guy even called him a “doofus” because his accusations were so off base.”
Oh, well if a random comment on the internet says bullet’s a doofus then clearly you are totally right. That changes everything.
“Then you chimed in and endorsed him.”
I didn’t endorse him, I restated his comment to make sure you could understand it. You often seem to have reading comprehension difficulties. I happen to agree with his basic opinion of the policy, and with his opinion of you, but I didn’t state either of those things before you got in a huff.
“And in doing so you took ownership of the issue he had made with it.”
No, that’s not how it works. I don’t become responsible for everything bullet does or writes because I agree with his opinion.
“So basically you’re endorsing making an issue out of something that you refuse to acknowledge even had any practical negative consequences.”
So you want me to say that it did have practical negative consequences? That seems odd, especially since neither bullet nor I think that it necessarily did.
“Unless your claim is that it has negative consequences because people can make a phoney issue out of it, but that’s kind of circular, don’t you think?”
1. It isn’t my claim.
2. You don’t get to determine whether or not an issue is phoney.
“*So you start by saying you’re not arrogantly dismissive of programs that don’t fit OSU and Texas’s profile,”
Not by any standard definition of arrogantly dismissive, no.
“and then you go on in detai for about a thousand words about how Missouri shouldn’t be paid attention to becauase they’re only a prince, not a king. And you probably don’t even see the contradiction, amazing.”
I didn’t count my words, but 1000 seems like an exaggeration. I also never said people shouldn’t pay attention to princes. Only you could make MO being called a prince an insult.
“*No Missouri hasn’t been in the news much in the last couple of months. It’s June. There’s not really much to talk about.”
So why would anybody be upset about the constantly being in the news, to paraphrase you?
“But they were in the news almost constantly for a good chunk of the last year, first for conference expansion, then for having a top 5 basketball team.”
I think you’ll find news is largely local. I don’t live near MO nor do I follow MO or the B12 closely. Expansion was news, so of course MO got mentioned a lot. Why would anyone get mad at coverage of actual news? Certainly it was nowhere near enough coverage to be annoying.
“This forum saw an abundance of snide remarks and antipathy against Missouri during that time, including several from you.”
It wasn’t antipathy about MO. Nobody had strong feelings about MO. They learned to have antipathy towards you pretty quickly, but most of us try not to hold you against MO.
“People didn’t like it, and went out of their way to repeatedly point out Missouri’s non-King status.”
People didn’t like that MO went to the SEC? I know WV fans were upset, and some SEC fans wanted a bigger name and/or an ACC team. B10 fans here couldn’t care less whether MO stayed in the B12 or went to the SEC unless it impacted ND or led to a P16.
Our lack of interest is not the same as negative feelings. Just because you were giddy as a school girl doesn’t mean we all needed to be.
And no matter how much you don’t like it, MO isn’t a king. That’s always relevant because you keep comparing MO to NE. You did it before and you do it now.
“*I have never once claimed Missouri is a king or the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have claimed that Missouri was a good expansion candidate for multiple reasons.”
I guess we all misunderstood you when you were explaining how MO was just as good as NE and ND in football and was a better expansion candidate than NE but they turned the B10 down, then.
“For this I was called crazy, stupid, and worse by you and several others.”
Probably because we think your arguments are usually crazy, stupid and/or factually wrong.
“In the end, the SEC took Missouri happily. I was assured by several people on here that this wouldn’t happen. I don’t recall if you were one of them. Their arrogance turned out to be unfounded.”
So naturally you’ll just go ahead and blame me because someone else said something. that makes perfect sense.
“So actually, it’s not me having an inferiority complex. It’s me accurately assessing my school’s place in the sports world, and a lot of other people shitting on me for it.”
Yes, because you are the unbiased arbiter of MO’s place in the sports world. Large numbers of people with varying fandoms all thinking you are wrong must be a conspiracy by the man to keep you down.
“Not a single person has ever been able to point to me making a claim about Missouri that was inflated or untrue.”
You mean except for all the times they have pointed out glaring factual errors and deliberate cherry picking of data and blatant spin?
“Who said anything about Missouri being a king or winning on the level of Boise State? I sure didn’t.”
I didn’t say you claimed MO won as much as Boise. I used Boise as an actual example of an upstart to counter your claim that MO is one. An average AQ team becoming an above average team is not an upstart.
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Brian, I think you just like to hear yourself talk. I’m starting to realize you don’t even care about what you’re saying. As long as there’s an argument to be had, and you get to be on the other side of it, you’re happy.
As I understand it your contention seems to be that it doesn’t matter if it’s common or not. It’s just a bad idea. But it’s not embarassing. Just unwise. The wise thing to do would be to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in lost revenue to ensure that there’s zero chance that anybody who was secretly unseemly will be found to have ever flown on the same flying vehicle as your players. The reason for this of course is all of those countless times teams have gotten themselves into all kinds of trouble by riding on planes with people that weren’t working for their program who were secretly involved in seemly things. I mean, it seems like you hear about that kind of thing every day, right? It’s not just some weird phoney issue that came out of nowhere that a tiny amount of people (2 so far, maybe more somewhere?) are having fun with even though there isn’t a single known case that they can point to of it ever causing any problems.
OK, so that’s your opinion. It’s a stupid one, but you’re free to it. But the trouble with you and bullet and others is when you trot out these stupid opinions, you don’t treat them like opinions. You act like they should be considered obvious facts to the outside world. But we had to go through about 10,000 words of nonsense before I could even figure out what you were actually talking about. Now that I kind of understand it, it’s not as dumb as I originally thought, but it certainly is pointless. Which makes me think you’re just yanking my chain and dicking around for fun on this issue. I’m going to be charitable in my interpretation of you and choose to not take you seriously. You’re not an idiot, just a clown.
As for peoples’ issue toward Missouri: 1) I never said Missouri was as good as Nebraska as far as football. I said that if you factor in academics, population footprint, basketball, geography, etc, then Missouri can make up the difference as an expansion candidate for their lesser status in football. Nobody can point to a single time I’ve ever claimed Missouri was any better than, say, a Michigan State at football. 2) I don’t expect people to feel positively about Missouri. I do object when they say unneccessarily negative things about Missouri. This happens surprisingly often in this forum. Maybe it’s not because they’ve been in the news so much. That was just a theory. Maybe it would have happened anyway. I don’t know. 3) The greatest antipathy on this forum came whenever I suggested (as I have many times on here over the last two and a half years) that Missouri was a candidate for the Big Ten. Many on here hated that idea, and badmouthed Missouri considerably using all kinds of half truths and arrogant dismissiveness. If you don’t remember this happening then you have a short memory. You can pretend like it didn’t happen but it did.
You love to say things like “your arguments are usually crazy, stupid and/or factually wrong”, but like the others you just throw those words out there without justifying them at all. You think if you use them enough that will smear enough mud on me that you’ll somehow come out looking better. And I’m sure it works to some extent with those who don’t pay much attention. But when you look at what’s going on in a conversation like this one, I’m stupid, crazy, and factually wrong for not thinking all schools should implement “insurance policy” rules against allowing anyone from traveling on a plane with their team, because just having them on that plane somehow taints the team and the program with anything they do in their personal life for the rest of time.
Nobody has ever caught me cherry picking data or spinning. Maybe they thought they did, but they didn’t. If ever I picked a range of years that was favorable to Missouri, for example, I was up front about it. There was never anything deceptive in the way I conveyed my information. Of course I’m going to say things positive about my teams when I get the chance, but its only spin if it isn’t true.
Missouri went from 3 wins per year not long ago to 9.5 wins per year. They’ve more than trippled their average wins. That counts as an upstart. And they didn’t do it in the WAC either.
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Andy,
“Brian, I think you just like to hear yourself talk.”
Says the author of an 800 word comment.
“As long as there’s an argument to be had, and you get to be on the other side of it, you’re happy.”
No, only when I get to be on the correct side. You’ve never seen me argue for a playoff when another traditionalist was against it, for example.
“As I understand it your contention seems to be that it doesn’t matter if it’s common or not. It’s just a bad idea. But it’s not embarassing. Just unwise.”
The policy isn’t embarrassing, no. Getting caught transporting a drug dealer is. So would several other potential outcomes. Not rectifying a bad policy once it is brought to your attention would be, too.
“The wise thing to do would be to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in lost revenue to ensure that there’s zero chance that anybody who was secretly unseemly will be found to have ever flown on the same flying vehicle as your players.”
Insurance costs money, and usually it’s a terrible investment. The one time something bad is prevented, it suddenly becomes well worth it.
“The reason for this of course is all of those countless times teams have gotten themselves into all kinds of trouble by riding on planes with people that weren’t working for their program who were secretly involved in seemly things. I mean, it seems like you hear about that kind of thing every day, right?”
I’ve heard about it on boats, in cars, in homes, in restaurants, in bars and a bunch of other locations. The school providing the access that leads to the problems looks worse.
“But the trouble with you and bullet and others is when you trot out these stupid opinions, you don’t treat them like opinions.”
i said it was bad policy. How can that be anything but an opinion? There’s a difference between treating opinions as fact and treating them as correct. You should learn it.
“But we had to go through about 10,000 words of nonsense before I could even figure out what you were actually talking about.”
From my first 2nd post in this thread (not even to 150 words yet)
“How about you just answer this: Should people who have never been accused of, let alone convicted of, any crime be banned from traveling to basketball games?”
On the team plane? Yes. If you aren’t on the team or a school employee, find your own ride. Anything else is a stupid policy asking for trouble. You know, like inadvertently giving drug dealers access to your players.
If you can’t figure out what I was talking about from that, you don’t read at a high school level.
“Now that I kind of understand it, it’s not as dumb as I originally thought,”
So that’s an apology for repeatedly calling it stupid?
“As for peoples’ issue toward Missouri: 1) I never said Missouri was as good as Nebraska as far as football.”
Re-read that earlier thread. You did compare them. You also compared them overall.
“I said that if you factor in academics, population footprint, basketball, geography, etc, then Missouri can make up the difference as an expansion candidate for their lesser status in football.”
You said MO was a better candidate and NE was a second choice, but whatever. That doesn’t change the fact that you also compared the football teams.
“Nobody can point to a single time I’ve ever claimed Missouri was any better than, say, a Michigan State at football.”
I’m not going to bother to search to find one, but somebody may remember one.
” 2) I don’t expect people to feel positively about Missouri. I do object when they say unneccessarily negative things about Missouri. This happens surprisingly often in this forum.”
Yes, I called them a prince. Apparently that was a terrible slander. I believe I also said they were a solid candidate, above average in almost everyway but not outstanding in any of them. How can I be so cruel?
“Maybe it’s not because they’ve been in the news so much. That was just a theory. Maybe it would have happened anyway. I don’t know.”
Perhaps you should present it as a theory, then.
“3) The greatest antipathy on this forum came whenever I suggested (as I have many times on here over the last two and a half years) that Missouri was a candidate for the Big Ten. Many on here hated that idea, and badmouthed Missouri considerably using all kinds of half truths and arrogant dismissiveness.”
I don’t remember any hatred of that idea, or even much doubt that MO was a candidate. I know I posted several times with data supporting their potential candidacy (mostly based on BTN subscribers). Frank’s first expansion post in 12/2009 listed MO as a contender candidate, with the 5th highest score after TX, ND, Syracuse and NE (https://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/the-big-ten-expansion-index-a-different-shade-of-orange/). You are just manufacturing this derision in your head.
“If you don’t remember this happening then you have a short memory. You can pretend like it didn’t happen but it did.”
I remember you and your childish arguments being derided, but that wasn’t directed at MO.
“You love to say things like “your arguments are usually crazy, stupid and/or factually wrong”, but like the others you just throw those words out there without justifying them at all.”
In an earlier thread, you got caught falsely claiming MO was top 25 nationally in merchandise sales IIRC.
“Nobody has ever caught me cherry picking data or spinning. Maybe they thought they did, but they didn’t.”
Oh, OK. If you say so, it must be true.
“Missouri went from 3 wins per year not long ago to 9.5 wins per year. They’ve more than trippled their average wins.”
They went a whole 13 years or so winning 3 per year. That’s just a slump, not the standard state of the program. Similarly, the past 5 years aren’t representative either. That may be the new level for MO, but 5 years isn’t long enough to establish a baseline.
“That counts as an upstart. And they didn’t do it in the WAC either.”
No, it doesn’t count. AQ teams are expected to have cycles of success. Maybe when a perennial cellar dweller (Duke, IN, NW, etc) jumps up to lead the conference for a few years, but not a traditionally mid-pack team moving to above average.
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Brian, you can deny it all you want, but there has been a lot of negatively on this board toward Missouri. Saying it didn’t happen is simply false. Maybe you weren’t doing it as much back in 2010, I honestly don’t remember. But you’ve certainly done it lately. And so have several others.
I guess I still don’t understand your stance on people flying on planes for teams. First it seemed like you were saying Missouri should be embarassed, then you said they shouldn’t be, now you’re back to should. You’re not being very clear.
If you’ve heard so much about this sort of thing causing problems for teams, feel free to point to some examples. And please don’t point to people who actually had close involvement with teams or players. It needs to be on the level of someone who sits in the back of the plane with a bunch of other people and has no direct access to players (at least, no more than any other random individual who goes to games).
Also, I don’t make up numbers. The link I brought in ranking apparel sales didn’t mention that they left out a few schools. Even if you bring in those schools that were left out Missouri still ranks in the top 25, just not as high.
Missouri has two seperate tradiitons, neither of which is “middle of the pack”. From the 40s through 70s Misouri was #3 in the Big 8 behind Nebraska and Oklahoma. Throught the 80s and 90s they fell to 8th place in the Big 8. No, 5 years isn’t long enough to establish a new baseline. Over the last 5 years Missouri averaged 9.6 wins per season. In the 5 years before that it was 6.6 (10 year average: 8.1 wins). The 5 years before that: 5.2 wins. The 5 years before that: 3.2 wins. The 12 years befoe that: 3.1 wins. In the 30 years before that, Missouri was averaging around 7 or 8 wins per season, and this was when the regular season was 10 games instead of 12.
So yeah, if you average all of that together, Missouri is middle of the pack. But it’s more accurate to say they went through the whole prince and the pauper story. First they were a prince, then a pauper, now a prince again.
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Now here’s something I am guilty of and I won’t deny it. I type up these posts real fast and I don’t look over them closely enough and I make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes make Missouri look better. Sometimes, like right now, they make Missouri look worse:
“The 5 years before that: 3.2 wins. The 12 years befoe that: 3.1 wins.” Those two should have been merged into 12 years. It doesn’t represent a 17 year span, just a 12 year span. My trouble is I’m multitasking. I’m doing other stuff while writing these posts, and sometimes I screw them up.
If you notice I fix them when I catch them. And yeah, I’ve been caught with mistakes plenty of times unfortunately. But that’s not spin or lying or anything else, and it’s not right to claim that it is.
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Andy,
“Brian, you can deny it all you want, but there has been a lot of negatively on this board toward Missouri.”
Yes, I can. Especially since Frank started his expansion coverage by including MO as a contender for membership and he wasn’t shouted down. Some people disagreed, but that isn’t automatically negativity. Some preferred to stay at 11. Some wanted to wait for ND. Some thought MO would be expansion for a money grab from the CCG and wasn’t worth playing each other less. Some had other preferred candidates. Some wanted to go beyond 12 with an eastern block or a southern block or a western block.
“But you’ve certainly done it lately. And so have several others.”
Telling the truth about MO isn’t negativity. Just because we don’t wear Tiger print glasses doesn’t make us negative. Sometimes the truth hurts.
“I guess I still don’t understand your stance on people flying on planes for teams.”
I’m shocked, shocked I say, at your lack of basic comprehension skills.
“Also, I don’t make up numbers. The link I brought in ranking apparel sales didn’t mention that they left out a few schools. Even if you bring in those schools that were left out Missouri still ranks in the top 25, just not as high.”
Things you have been factually wrong about in this post of Frank’s after a quick scan:
MO being offered a B10 spot
NE being a junior member
PSU being a junior member
MO’s rank in apparel sales
When Frank moved NE to lock status (and you told him he was wrong)
I’m sure others could add more to the list.
“Missouri has two seperate tradiitons, neither of which is “middle of the pack”. From the 40s through 70s Misouri was #3 in the Big 8 behind Nebraska and Oklahoma.”
It wasn’t the Big 8 until 1957, but anyway #3 of 8 is middle of the pack.
“Throught the 80s and 90s they fell to 8th place in the Big 8.”
From 1980-1995 (end of the Big 8), MO was #6 of 8 above ISU and KSU. #6 of 8 is also midpack.
“So yeah, if you average all of that together, Missouri is middle of the pack. But it’s more accurate to say they went through the whole prince and the pauper story. First they were a prince, then a pauper, now a prince again.”
Every team has ups and downs. That’s normal. That’s why people look over a longer time span, and MO has been midpack. Sometimes they are closer to the top, and other times closer to the bottom, but midpack overall.
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Brian:
I wasn’t paying attention to anything on this thread besides baseball. What’s going on?
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OK, I skimmed through the manure-throwing (and skipped about 90%). Anyway, since you ask, my thoughts:
Selling tickets on school-chartered flights is stupid. If you don’t want to let seats go to waste (and for some strange reason can’t charter smaller planes), then schedule your swimming or wrestling teams to visit the same schools your bball team visits & put them on the same flight.
Defending that policy makes you look bad. I’m sure you’ll protest, but, trust me, it’ll just make you look worse.
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Brian, you deny that people are being negative about Missouri. And then for the next few sentences you detail how people have been negative about Missouri, but it’s ok because it’s the “truth”.
I can read you just fine. You wiggle around and changes your stance from post to post. First it’s embarassing. Then it’s not embarassing. Then it’s embarassing.
My supposed factual inaccuracies:
“MO being offered a B10 spot” – I said they were in discussions and recieved a proposal for membership terms. This is true.
“NE being a junior member” – they didn’t have voting rights this year and they get a substantially lower payout for 7 years. Call it whatever you want.
“PSU being a junior member” – several people have said that they were. I brought this up. I have looked long and hard to find proof one way or the other. Feel free to find evidence that they weren’t. If you can do this, I’ll give you this one. But I don’t think you can and I think this one is true just based on who said it and the fact that they generally know what they’re talking about.
“MO’s rank in apparel sales” – I just linked to an article that ranked apparel sales for last year. Apparently there are a few major schools that weren’t included like Notre Dame and USC. That would bump Missouri down a few spots, but still well within the top 25, so this wasn’t inaccurate at all.
“When Frank moved NE to lock status” – I was somewhat wrong, but not totally. I said that he had blogged about that late in the process. It wasn’t as late as I had remembered. It was something like 6 months in instead of 8 months in like I had thought. When he pointed it out I corrected myself. I don’t have a complete calendar memory of all of Frank’s articles. But I was close enough to where my general point was still valid: for the majority of the time of expansion Nebraska was not thought of as the leading candidate for the spot. Whether it was 6 months in or 8 months in doesn’t make that much difference to my point. And Frank was way ahead of the curve on it anyway. He was suggesting Nebraska before most of the rest of the media and fans were thinking about it.
So you’re 0.5 for 5. Nice job.
The Big 8 has has Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kansas State, and Iowa State since 1919. If you want to invalidate all of Mizzou’s successes dating before Okie State and Colorado joined, feel free to do that. But that’s kind of stupid, don’t you think?
3rd out of 8 isn’t middle of the pack. It’s upper half. And Missouri was famous for scheduling extremely difficult non-conference schedules. Frequently playing Notre Dame, Ohio State, USC, Michigan, etc. They won a lot of those games as well.
What Missouri went through was not normal. If you can find one other school that went from several decades of top 20 finishes to 15 years of 1, 2, and 3 win seasons, and then back to another decade of top 20 finishes then I swear I’ll concede that you’re right on this and apologize. But you won’t find it because there’s no other school that has done this. It’s not just unusual, it’s unique.
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Richard, I won’t protest, I’ve done that plenty already. I’ll just ask you the same question that I repeatedly asked bullet and Brian (and neither of them even tried to answer it):
Since you think it’s such a bad idea, can you please cite examples of when selling tickets on a school charted flight have ever led to any problems for a school. And not phoney problems like people on the internet talking shit about it. I mean actual problems, like something actually happening in the real world.
Thanks in advance. I look forward to your response.
Oh, and by the way, if anyone can answer this question satisfactorily I promise to admit I was wrong about the whole thing and apologize for saying that this opinion is stupid.
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Brian, I’ll help you out with your research. Here’s Missouri’s bowl and ranking history. Please find one other school who was consistently successful for four decades, and then suddenly completely fall apart for 15 years, only to recover to a similar level of success to before they had the downturn. You said this was “normal”.
2011 bowl
2010 bowl and ranked 18th
2009 bowl
2008 bowl and ranked 19th
2007 bowl and ranked 4th
2006 bowl
2005 bowl
2003 bow
1998 bowl and ranked 21st
1997 bowl and ranked 23rd
1984-1995 average wins per year: 3.1. Number of seasons with more than 3 wins: 2 out of 12. 0 winning seasons. Blowouts by 60 or more points: many.
1983 bowl
1981 bowl and ranked 19th
1980 bowl
1979 bowl
1978 bowl and ranked 15th
1973 bowl and ranked 17th
1972 bowl
1969 BCS level bowl and ranked 6th
1968 bowl and ranked 9th
1965 BCS level bowl and ranked 6th
1962 bowl and ranked 12th
1961 bowl and ranked 11th
1960 BCS level bowl and ranked 6th
1959 BCS level bowl and ranked 18th
1948 ranked 20th
1948 bowl
1945 BCS level Bowl
1941 BCS level bowl and ranked 7th
1939 BCS-level bowl and ranked 6th
1924 BCS-level bowl
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Brian, feel free to do your own research. For some reason you’ve convinced yourself that I’m some sort of “crazy” liar who just makes up numbers (even though I’ve never done this). So go ahead and dig into the archives and check for yourself.
But what my searching found is that, I found that Missouri had a pretty decent to good season about 50% of the time from 1939-1983 They also had 9 conference titles prior to 1939 when bowl games weren’t common to the pre-Big 8 conference that included Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kansas State, and Iowa State, so you could actually extend this era of success back to the turn of the century. So for going on 80 years Missouri was putting up “prince” level numbers. Going to bowls regularly, winning the conference 15 times, ranked in the top 20 fairly frequently, even the top 10 sometimes. This went on for 80 years, and then the success suddenly vanished. Not just for a short time either. For well over a decade. Football tickets in Columbia that were once hard to get were suddenly given away for free. Attendance eventually dropped by 50%. First Nebraska and Oklahoma started beating Missouri by 50 or 60 points, then Colorado and Kansas started getting in on the act. It was a catastrophe. Then in the late 90s things gradually started to return to normal. Now they’re averaging 9.6 wins over the last 5 years.
Now, I looked around the archives, scrolling through the win totals and bowl histories of various seemingly comparable programs. I didn’t find anything like it. Schools that are middle of the pack now were typically always middle of the pack. They’ll go to bowls about a fourth of the time with consistency dating back for decades. Other schools that are highly successful now were always highly successful, going to bowls frequently dating back decades. There are some upstarts like Boise State, Virginia Tech, and Florida State who used to not go to bowls or win much and now they do.
But for the life of me I couldn’t find a single school that used to be successful, but then went through an extended period of being terrible, and then went back to being good.
It seems Missouri is the only example of this.
But what am I talking about, you said this is “normal”. Surely I must be lying. Or crazy.
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So what does this mean? Well, like I’ve said before, and you dismissed so readily as false, is that really you have two stories here. You don’t have a consistent story that can be averaged over time. If you did average it out, Missouri is sitting at 34th all time in wins down by Boston College, Virginia and Rutgers. If you were to apply their average wins based on their down period they’d be down with Wake Forest, Indiana, and Kansas State. If you apply Missouri’s normal level of success on those lost 15 years, Missouri’s win total moves into the top 20 and ranks alongside Florida, Colorado, Washington, and Clemson. Their number of bowl games would be similar to those teams as well.
So what Missouri has is about 8 decades of being a Florida, Colorado, Washington, or Clemson, and about 2 decades of being a Wake Forest, Indiana, or Kansas State.
Merge those two together and you can equate Missouri to Boston College or Rutgers. But that doesn’t accurately tell the story.
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Andy,
“Brian, you deny that people are being negative about Missouri. And then for the next few sentences you detail how people have been negative about Missouri, but it’s ok because it’s the “truth”.”
Telling the truth isn’t being negative. Facts are neutral. If you don’t like the truth, that’s your problem.
““MO being offered a B10 spot” – I said they were in discussions and recieved a proposal for membership terms. This is true.”
No, you said they had an offer. It was quoted back to you earlier when you denied it before.
““NE being a junior member” – they didn’t have voting rights this year and they get a substantially lower payout for 7 years. Call it whatever you want.”
They had voting rights the minute they joined the conference officially, and were in all the meetings and given a voice after they agreed to join (TO has said so). As was repeatedly explained to you, NE gets less in cash in part because they are also being paid in BTN equity. They aren’t making less than they were in the B12, and the figure grows substantially each year.
““PSU being a junior member” – several people have said that they were. I brought this up. I have looked long and hard to find proof one way or the other. Feel free to find evidence that they weren’t. If you can do this, I’ll give you this one. But I don’t think you can and I think this one is true just based on who said it and the fact that they generally know what they’re talking about.”
The B10 has members, period. Everyone has the same voting power and rights. Since you always refused to define “junior membership” I don’t think it’s possible to disprove it. PSU, like MSU before them, joined and then took several years to transition all their teams into playing in the conference. How about this for evidence?
http://www.blackshoediaries.com/2010/6/22/1523717/penn-state-history-joining-the-big
It’s a PSU blog post that details all the turmoil of PSU joining the B10 and all the negative things that happened. At no point do they mention junior membership or a lack of rights in any way, just a lack of respect from coaches and fans. If anyone would remember a lesser status and complain about it, it would be them.
““MO’s rank in apparel sales” – I just linked to an article that ranked apparel sales for last year. Apparently there are a few major schools that weren’t included like Notre Dame and USC. That would bump Missouri down a few spots, but still well within the top 25, so this wasn’t inaccurate at all.”
You gave a specific ranking for them (18th), and it wasn’t true as you now admit. The article clearly said it was IMG’s list of top sellers (through CLC), not a national list. Apparently it didn’t seem at all odd to you that teams like OSU, USC and Oregon were outsold by MO and deserved a further look. They listed the top 75 after all. Most people would note the absence of some kings from that list and know that it wasn’t a national list.
““When Frank moved NE to lock status” – I was somewhat wrong, but not totally.”
Wrong is like pregnant, you either are or you aren’t. You claimed it was 2 weeks before (IIRC) and accused Frank of being wrong about when he made the change until he provided the link to you.
“I don’t have a complete calendar memory of all of Frank’s articles.”
This blog does. It’s called an archive. You can find the link on the left side of the page. It would be different if you just remembered incorrectly, which can be an innocent mistake, but you explicitly told Frank he was wrong about when he posted it. If you call someone a liar, you should have some proof.
“But I was close enough to where my general point was still valid: for the majority of the time of expansion Nebraska was not thought of as the leading candidate for the spot.”
In 12/2009 Frank named NE the 4th best candidate, behind UT, ND and Syracuse. UT and ND didn’t want to join, and SU lost standing when they bailed from the AAU. That made NE the best candidate. Nobody knew who was the most likely to join since Delany does everything in secret. Many people didn’t think NE was available, so they didn’t become the obvious leader. If anybody had told the media that the B12 would splinter and NE was willing to leave OU, they all would have made NE the obvious choice.
“Whether it was 6 months in or 8 months in doesn’t make that much difference to my point.”
It did when you told Frank he was wrong about when he did it. And while you keep trying to spin it as 6 months versus 8 months now, at the time you framed it as 2 weeks before versus 2 months before. That makes it a 300% error not a 33% one.
“And Frank was way ahead of the curve on it anyway. He was suggesting Nebraska before most of the rest of the media and fans were thinking about it.”
You told him he was wrong about when he posted something. The curve is irrelevant to that.
If you want another error, you have the self-sustaining AD that got $2.6M in institutional support. You then dismissed that as an insignificant sum, but proceeded to argue later that MO can’t afford not to sell seats on their MBB charter flights that cost on order of magnitude less than that.
“The Big 8 has has Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kansas State, and Iowa State since 1919. If you want to invalidate all of Mizzou’s successes dating before Okie State and Colorado joined, feel free to do that. But that’s kind of stupid, don’t you think?”
You mentioned their Big 8 success from the 40s – 70s. I pointed out that the Big 8 didn’t exist until 1957 because being 3rd in the Big 6 is a little different from being 3rd in the Big 8. MO was 3rd from 1940-1979 and from 1957-1979, so it didn’t change anything in terms of ranking. Nothing from 1919-1939 should be relevant because you chose the time periods, so I guess it was stupid of you to exclude it.
“3rd out of 8 isn’t middle of the pack. It’s upper half.”
It’s both. They aren’t mutually exclusive. There is a top (2), a middle (4) and a bottom (2) much like a bell curve. If the natural groupings of winning percentage call for it the splits may vary. In this case, I think it’s reasonable to say the top was OU and NE.
“And Missouri was famous for scheduling extremely difficult non-conference schedules. Frequently playing Notre Dame, Ohio State, USC, Michigan, etc. They won a lot of those games as well.”
1. I don’t think you know the meaning of famous.
2. From 1940-1979 (40 years), MO’s top OOC opponents:
19 SMU
9 IL, OSU
8 MN
6 MD, Cal, AF
5 St. Louis
That’s not exactly overloaded with powerhouses.
3. From 1940-1979 (40 years), MO’s king OOC opponents:
OSU 1-7-1
MI 2-2
PSU 1-2
UT 0-3
AL 2-1
ND 2-1
USC 1-1
Total 9-17-1
That’s not terrible, but forgive an OSU fan for not being overly impressed either. Winning 1/3 of the time is what a weak prince should do.
“What Missouri went through was not normal. If you can find one other school that went from several decades of top 20 finishes to 15 years of 1, 2, and 3 win seasons, and then back to another decade of top 20 finishes then I swear I’ll concede that you’re right on this and apologize.”
NE:
Pre-1940 W% = 73.0% (#9 nationally)
1940-1959 W% = 39.0% (#123 nationally) ave = 3.5 W per year
1960-1999 W% = 81.3% (#1 nationally)
Other B10 teams to follow a similar pattern of being good, then having a dry spell, then returning to success include IA, NW and WI (MSU is on track for it, too).
“But you won’t find it because there’s no other school that has done this. It’s not just unusual, it’s unique.”
OK.
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Truth can be negative. So your claim that it can’t be is wrong. On top of that, people frequently used untruths to be negative about Missouri as well.
Multiple reports and even Nebraska fans have said that Nebraska didn’t get voting rights initially. If this somehow changed later, I haven’t seen anything about it. Things do change sometimes, so I won’t difinitively say you’re wrong, but just because people changed their minds about something doesn’t mean I’m making things up.
Nebraska made $14M from the Big Ten this year. Everyone else got $24M+. Again, call it whatever you want. “Junior membership” is just a term lots of people use for it. You don’t like the term. But that doesn’t mean I’m lying or wrong.
Yeah, I read that PSU article already. It doesn’t prove or disprove what I’m saying. Here: I’ll define junior membership: a school that has less rights and/or revenues than the rest of the league for a period of time. I’ve heard multiple people I respect say that PSU went through a period of this.
I posted an article with apparel rankings. I noted Missouri’s ranking in that article. I didn’t go into detail about the article. I didn’t even read it that closely. So you can throw in a few more schools. Maybe Missouri drops to 22 or 23. It doesn’t at all affect my central point which is that Missouri is a top 25 program right now (that was the argument at the time). You can nitpick me all day long. I admit I don’t spend a lot of time on my posts so sometimes there are minor mistakes. Let me know when you find something that was fundamentally wrong rather than slightly off due to sloppiness and not taking enough time with something. For instance, if I was making things up or lying to try to prove a point. You can’t because I don’t do this.
No, wrong isn’t like being pregnant. And maybe that’s the fundamental flaw in the way you operate. Maybe you’re one of those creepy black and white thinkers that everyone finds so irritating. That would explain a lot actually. I’ve met people like that. They suck. No actually you can be right about your central point, and a little off on the details because you choose not to spend hours of time researching to get every single detail precisely correct. You’re right about your point, a little off on the details. that’s what happened when I was talking about Frank. He pointed out that I got the date wrong. I admitted it and corrected myself. But even after the correction, my central point was still completely valid. Anyone who doesn’t have the ability to see the difference between that and being actually wrong about something probably has some sort of mental issue. Maybe aspergers? Just a guess.
Yeah, sorry, I’m not going to do a bunch of resaearch going through all of Frank’s old articles to find the exact date of something so that I can make a throwaway comment in this forum to prove a minor point. If you want to waste your life doing that more power to you. But if you think you’re scoring points by ridiculing me for not doing it you’re only making yourself look like a complete tool.
In the next paragraph you confirm that my point was correct. Most people including Frank didn’t consider Nebraska to be the top candidatefor the first 6 months.
I’m not spinning on 2 weeks before vs 2 months before. The key date wasn’t the end date, it was the start date. My key point was that it was long after the start date that Nebraska was finally considered the leader. You’re the one spinning, like usual.
Yeah, I told him he was wrong, and I corrected myself a few minutes later. So what? If I had told him he was wrong and then stubbornly stuck to it for days on end (which is your pattern) then maybe you’d have a point.
On the self-sustaining thing, Missouri has had off and on sucess with that. It’s a priority for them to do this. They don’t always succeed. Apparently somebody found a year where they didn’t succeed. I don’t keep track of every single year of Missouri’s AD budget. I don’t work there. Apparently they sometimes get a small 2 or 3% supplement. Not directed at any of the actual programs, but some category called “miscelaneous”. Maybe building maintenance? Academic support? I don’t know. Again this is a matter of nitpicking tiny details and getting bent out of shape about them. It’s aspergers, right? I guessed it.
You saying the Big 8 started in 1959 when Okie State and CU joined is similar to saying the SEC started in 1991 when Arkansas and South Carolina joined. It makes just as much sense.
If 3rd place is middle of the pack then Nebraska, Wisconsin and Penn State are middle of the pack in the Big Ten. I guess if you want to define it that way you can, but it’s misleading. When you think middle of the pack you think Purdue, Michigan State, Iowa, maybe Illinois. you don’t think Nebraska, Wisconsin, Penn state. Again with the black and white thinking. You really have trouble with this, don’t you? To you you’re either a king, or you’re one of hte others.
Looks like you left out Mizzou’s bowl opponents in your list but fair enough. I didn’t bother to add up all the totals like you did. Thanks for that. Weak prince sounds about right.
I don’t think you can seriously compare Nebraska’s situation to Missouri’s. They were very good in the pre-war era. Then in the 40s and 50s they struggled. Then they’ve been good pretty much non-stop throughout the modern ear. I don’t see that narrative as matching Missouri’s much at all.
Iowa doesn’t work. They barely had any success pre-1981. Just a few scattered winning seasons and only 2 bowl games between 1889 and 1980. Northwestern has been to 10 total bowl games. Missouri has been to 29. They are not comparable.
Wisconsin went through some rough patches here and there, but none as long or as deep as Missouri’s. There’s was the best example you came up with. Not a perfect match but sort of similar. So I’ll concede that Wisconsin’s history is sort of similar to Missouri’s. Except they’ve had more success and less failure.
So I admit I was wrong on this. Missouri’s history isn’t totally and completely unique. Missouri had a long period of being pretty good, then a period of being very bad, and then a return to being pretty good. Wisconsin has vassilated between being very good and very bad for 8 to 10 year stretches. Not the same exact pattern, but the same kind of thing. So yes, there are 2 programs who have done this sort of thing. Missouri is not completely unique, but you were also wrong by calling it “common”.
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Quick note on your analysis of Missouri’s OOC.
I looked closer and it looks like you did include bowls. See, when I figure out a mistake, I admit it.
As for the most common opponents. You have to remember that SMU used to be a real power back then. SMU was sometimes ranked in the top 5 in the country when Missouri played them. And they played them 19 times. Also, Minnesota was very good at football back then. They played Minnesota 8 times. Missouri also had a few other scattered good wins in there, Florida, Auburn, Alabama, etc. They typically tried to play somebody good every year, and yeah, 33% sounds about right for the win total. But if you take out that 1-7-1 record against Ohio State that percent goes up by a lot. The thing with OSU is Missouri agreed to play those games year after year in Columbus. I think OSU has played Missouri something like 12 times total, and only once or twice in Columbia. All of the rest of the games were in Columbus. OSU paid Mizzou hansomely to keep all of those games at the horseshoe. If OSU had come to Columbia more often that series record may have been a little better.
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Brian, just to clarify things regarding Maryland when it was a semi-regular Missouri foe (and never lost to the Tigers): It was the Jim Tatum era at College Park, when Maryland was a legitimate national powerhouse, as close to a king as it would ever be — three unbeaten regular seasons (1951, ’53, ’55), a national title in ’53 (though if today’s criteria was used, the title would have been in ’51, when the Terrapins beat national champ Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl; the ’53 team lost to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, the same fate that befell the ’55 team).
Maryland and Clemson were the prime forces behind the creation of the ACC, as both defied the Southern Conference’s no-bowl policy in 1951 and thus were ruled ineligible for the conference title (or even facing its teams, except against each other), The dissenters got together in April 1953 to form the ACC — and since West Virginia and Virginia Tech voted to ban Maryland and Clemson from playing a SC schedule in ’52, neither was invited to the new league. It took Tech 52 years and some political trade-offs to join, while WVU.has looked south (Southern Conference), northeast (Big East) and now west (Big 12) for a conference home.
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Andy,
“Truth can be negative.”
No, it can’t. Feelings about the truth can be negative. The truth can be used in a negative way. The truth just is.
“On top of that, people frequently used untruths to be negative about Missouri as well.”
Untruths, or opinions?
“Multiple reports and even Nebraska fans have said that Nebraska didn’t get voting rights initially.”
NE got voting rights the moment they officially joined. That happened well after they agreed to join, obviously, because they weren’t a member yet. Perhaps that is what has you confused.
“Nebraska made $14M from the Big Ten this year. Everyone else got $24M+. Again, call it whatever you want.”
I call it the contractually obligated payment. NE didn’t get less than they would have in the B12, and part of their 1/12th went into BTN equity.
” “Junior membership” is just a term lots of people use for it.”
Who are these lots of people? You are the only one I’ve seen use it.
“You don’t like the term.”
It’s an inaccurate description of the situation. It implies that they have lesser rights than the other 11, and that isn’t true.
“Here: I’ll define junior membership: a school that has less rights and/or revenues than the rest of the league for a period of time. I’ve heard multiple people I respect say that PSU went through a period of this.”
You seem to hear lots of things. PSU couldn’t get full revenue until they fully joined the B10, so I’m sure there was a transition period from 1990 (when the school joined) to 1993 (the first year PSU played football in the B10). They may not have had voting rights on things related to a sport that hadn’t yet joined the conference (I’ve never heard that they didn’t have full voting rights, but it’s possible). I’ve neither seen nor heard any evidence that PSU didn’t have full revenue and voting rights from 1993 on. I don’t call that junior membership.
Nobody is disputing that NE is currently being paid less. What we dispute is how much less because they are also getting equity in the B10 and that has tangible value. The other schools refused to take a pay cut in order to pay NE equally, just like every other league.
“I posted an article with apparel rankings. I noted Missouri’s ranking in that article.”
No, you said it was their national ranking.
“No, wrong isn’t like being pregnant.”
Yes, it is. Right/wrong, true/false, etc. It’s binary. The size of the error can be bigger or smaller obviously, but both are still wrong.
“No actually you can be right about your central point, and a little off on the details because you choose not to spend hours of time researching to get every single detail precisely correct.”
Yes, it’s called being wrong. Details matter. If they don’t, then don’t use them and you’ll reduce your chance of being wrong. You had a factual dispute with Frank, and you were just plain wrong.
“He pointed out that I got the date wrong. I admitted it and corrected myself.”
I believe you are leaving out the part where you argued with him about it, but go on.
“But even after the correction, my central point was still completely valid.”
No, it wasn’t. 2 weeks versus 2 months is an important difference.
“Yeah, sorry, I’m not going to do a bunch of research going through all of Frank’s old articles to find the exact date of something so that I can make a throwaway comment in this forum to prove a minor point.”
They’re grouped by month. You thought you knew exactly when he said it, and he only posts 3-4 time s a month generally. How hard is to skim a couple of posts to see that you were wrong?
“In the next paragraph you confirm that my point was correct. Most people including Frank didn’t consider Nebraska to be the top candidatefor the first 6 months.”
No, because you tangled your point with MO being the top candidate. Nobody argued NE was always the #1 candidate. ND is always the first candidate and they always say no. UT was next but was always highly unlikely, too. It was only after CO left and MO was running it’s mouth that B12 teams started to seem like prime candidates, and even then many thought NE wanted to stay with OU.
“On the self-sustaining thing, Missouri has had off and on sucess with that. It’s a priority for them to do this. They don’t always succeed. Apparently somebody found a year where they didn’t succeed.”
I believe they quoted the numbers from the most recent year available in the source that they linked.
“Again this is a matter of nitpicking tiny details and getting bent out of shape about them.”
This tiny detail is $2.6M, but you complained about how MO couldn’t swallow $300k in airplane seats. You can’t have it both ways. If $300k is important, then so is $2.6M.
“You saying the Big 8 started in 1959 when Okie State and CU joined is similar to saying the SEC started in 1991 when Arkansas and South Carolina joined. It makes just as much sense.”
It is important if you say you were #10 in the SEC whether you mean before or after they went to 12. Similarly, #3 of 6 is different from #3 of 8. I still used the data from the whole period since you specified a time period.
“If 3rd place is middle of the pack then Nebraska, Wisconsin and Penn State are middle of the pack in the Big Ten.”
12 > 8. 4th of 12 is more like 3rd of 8. Winning percentage and brand name make the B10 top be OSU, MI, NE and PSU, but WI is closing on PSU in winning percentage and PSU’s brand is weakening for now. The next group is WI, MSU and IA, followed by NW and PU, with IL, MN and IN in the rear. So if you want 3 groups, its a 4-5-3.
“Looks like you left out Mizzou’s bowl opponents in your list but fair enough.”
As you later noted, no I didn’t.
“I don’t think you can seriously compare Nebraska’s situation to Missouri’s. They were very good in the pre-war era. Then in the 40s and 50s they struggled. Then they’ve been good pretty much non-stop throughout the modern ear. I don’t see that narrative as matching Missouri’s much at all.”
So this is the apology and admittance of being wrong you promised?
Combine that paragraph with this later sentence:
“Missouri had a long period of being pretty good, then a period of being very bad, and then a return to being pretty good.”
I don’t know what I was thinking, How could I possibly compare those two? NE went from being even better, to just as bad, to even better.
“Iowa doesn’t work. They barely had any success pre-1981. Just a few scattered winning seasons and only 2 bowl games between 1889 and 1980.”
They averaged 7.5-1.5 from 1956-1960. I know you like 5 year periods. The only bowl available was the Rose, though.
“Northwestern has been to 10 total bowl games. Missouri has been to 29. They are not comparable.”
What you don’t seem to know is that B10 teams could only go to the Rose Bowl until 1975 (and no back to back bowls until 1971 except when OSU said no to the Rose in 1961). No other bowls were allowed. Bowls were generally not allowed before 1946 either (OSU has 1, for example). That’s why all B10 teams have lower bowl totals than comparable teams.
NW won 4 B10 titles in 11 years from 1926-1936 and was also decent in the 50s and 60s. They were the worst team in CFB from 1972-1994, so they missed 20 years of the expanded bowl choices.
“Wisconsin went through some rough patches here and there, but none as long or as deep as Missouri’s.”
WI averaged 3.25 wins per year from 1933-1948 and 2.7 wins from 1964-1973.
“So I admit I was wrong on this.”
Was that so difficult?
“but you were also wrong”
You can’t even admit you’re wrong and apologize as you promised without trying to spin it.
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Andy,
“As for the most common opponents. You have to remember that SMU used to be a real power back then. SMU was sometimes ranked in the top 5 in the country when Missouri played them. And they played them 19 times.”
Not for most of it they weren’t. SMU was a power in the early 80s. They only finished in the AP poll 6 times from 1940-1979. They won less than 47% of their games over that period (#93 nationally), on par with KU. Was Kansas a power, too?
“Also, Minnesota was very good at football back then. They played Minnesota 8 times.”
MN won 54% of their games (#59) and finished in the AP poll 10 times over those 30 years. Their best years were 1936-1941, with a brief revival in1960-1.
“But if you take out that 1-7-1 record against Ohio State that percent goes up by a lot.”
Yes, taking out losses does generally help the winning percentage.
“The thing with OSU is Missouri agreed to play those games year after year in Columbus. I think OSU has played Missouri something like 12 times total, and only once or twice in Columbia. All of the rest of the games were in Columbus.”
They have played 12 times, including 2 at MO. They played in 1939, 1941, 1943-9, 1976, and then the recent series in 1997-8. The games at MO were actually bigger OSU wins (39-8 average) than the games at OSU (25-11 average).
“OSU paid Mizzou hansomely to keep all of those games at the horseshoe.”
I doubt OSU forked out too much cash in the 40s since there was no TV money.
“If OSU had come to Columbia more often that series record may have been a little better.”
Not based on the 2 games at MO, but normally that would be the expectation.
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vp19, I hadn’t heard that story. So the Southern Conference banned teams from bowl games? Why?
Missouri had the opposite issue during the Dan Devine period. Two or three times when Missouri lost out on getting a bid to one of the big bowls (Orange, Sugar, Cotton), they actually turned down invites from the Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston and chose to not go to any bowl at all. I don’t understand the thinking behind that. I guess it was just a different era.
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OK, sure, the truth can be used in a negative way. And it has been used in a negative way against Missouri lots of times on here, frequently mixed in with untrhtus to add spice. Opinions too. All three all mixed together for maximum negative potency. Not sure how this is even debatable, but I think you could debate a rock if you wanted to.
I don’t follow Nebraska much anymore. I followed them before they joined somewhat and that’s when I heard about it.
You can call it whatever you want. I didn’t invent the term junior member. Google nebraska “junior membership” big ten. over 13000 hits. Lots of people use the phrase. It’s a loaded phrase meant to insult Nebraska, yes, so you won’t see it used in mainstream stories. But people all over the country are calling it that in blogs and in forums.
I’ll just agree to concede that neither of us knows for sure what happened with PSU. There’s just no readily available info to prove one way or the other.
With the apparel thing, I read the headline, looked at it for 5 seconds, and then posted it with a very brief description. That’s not a lie, that’s just a lack of attention to detail. And again, even if you correct it for absolute accuracy it didn’t even undermine the point I was trying to support by linking to the article. That’s what you call a “no big deal” minor point due to doing things quickly.
Details do matter, but not in a binary way. Some details matter a lot, some don’t matter much at all. If I mispell a word I’m wrong in my spelling, but if you know what word I was trying to spell then it doesn’t matter. If you don’t know what wor it was supposed to be then it does matter. If I’m making a point about a 9 month process and I’m off by 6 weeks, then yes it matters, but only if the point I was making required for it to be precisely calculated. It did not, thus I didn’t bother. As long as I’m generally correct that for the majority of the process Nebraska wasn’t considered the leading candidate, then my point was correct. Who cares if my guess was a few weeks off. Sure, it’s a “gotcha” to point out that my guess was wrong, but does it defeat my central point? Not at all. But if pointing out minor mistakes in my posts is fun for you have at it. It doesn’t make me a liar and it doesn’t make you right, but I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.
Yeah, I argued with Frank, then I saw that he was right, then I corrected myself. That’s what I do when I find a mistake. I don’t see how you can find fault in that.
You can assert that 2 weeks vs 2 months is an important difference, but unless you say why then that statement is basically useless. I don’t really see how it makes much difference. My point was that Nebraska wasn’t seen as the leading candidate for most of the process. They came in late. Whether it was the last 2 weeks or the last 2 months doesn’t really change anything.
I’ve never looked at Frank’s archives, and I don’t plan to. I feel comfortable going by memory and if somebody points out that I misremembered I’m perfectly willing to admit it and correct myself. I think this is sufficient for me, personally. You can feel free to handle it however you want for yourself.
I never said MO was thought of as the #1 candidate. I did say that they were mentioned as one of the top candidates from the start, while Nebraska was hardly considered until late. This is true. And it was a minor point in a larger discussion anyway. You’re digging around in the weeds trying to grasp at some place where I might have lied or something and you’re finding nothing.
Yeah, OK, so they found the most recent year of budget. Here’s my connection to Missouri. I’m a booster who lives several states away. I know other boosters. We talk. I hear things. But I don’t follow every annual budget to determine everything that’s going on. When I say something like “Missouri tries hard to be self sustaining and is one of just a few universities to actually do it”, that doesn’t mean I know for sure that they always succeed. So they came up a little short last year. Ok. Sue me.
The 300k vs. 2.6M thing actually supports what I’ve been saying. Mizzou does everything they can to be self sustaining. Including selling plane tickets. They also balked at junior membership in the Big Ten. They’re very worried about budget. The fact that they went $2.6M over budget last year only puts more pressure on them to find new ways to raise revenue. Joining the SEC should help with that.
The whole Big 8 vs Big 6 thing is another one of your nitpicky non-issues. The point is up until 1984, Missouri was the clear number 3 among the 8 Big 8 schools. Yes, CU and Okie State didn’t join until 59, but once they did join Missouri dominated them. Missouri held lopsided series leads 5 out of the other 7 Big 8 schools as of 1984. Also, their series record vs Nebraska was respectable. Then after that they lost to pretty much everybody all the time for 15 years or so. So my whole 3rd place in the Big 8 isn’t really that big of a stretch. OU and NU were kings, MU was the prince, the rest were behidn those three. Then Missouri’s refusal to fund football sent them straight to the bottom of the standings.
Oh, you’re right Brian. Missouri’s history is exactly like Nebraska’s. How could I have missed that? The similarities are so clear. Wow. I mean, whenever somebody thinks Nebraska football they think “aren’t they that program who’s history is pretty much the same as Missouri’s?” This is what I mean about you being a clown. You’re just arguing to argue. You don’t even care. No way you think this is legit. No, Missouri and Nebraska do not have similar histories. Nebraska is one of the winningest programs in history. So they had some down years in the leather helmet days, so what? There’s no confusion whatsoever about Nebraska’s place in the football world. Missouri on the other hand is a confusing story. They’ve had a lot of success, but plenty of people have an extended living memory of them being terrible. I mean, if you’re 40 years old, then from the time you were 13 to the time you were 26 Missouri football was as bad as Duke football is now, maybe worse. Nebraska’s embarassing days are only remembered by people in their 70s, and they’ve more than made up for them by now.
Your defense of the Iowa example was pretty weak, but you knew that.
You also confirmed that Northwestern is a bad example because they’ve only had a fraction of the amount of success as Missouri.
On Wisconsin, you didn’t really find something that fit my request, but you were close enough (not that close, but close enough) that I’ll give you a “I was wrong” but not an apology. Had you found a closer match I would have apologized.
And you were wrong. It’s not common. The best you could find was one other school that was maybe a 40% match.
I don’t know the detailed history of SMU or Minnesota. I just know by looking at their rankings during games when they played Missouri they were sometimes ranked pretty high, so I assumed they were strong programs back then.
When Missouri built Memorial Stadium they agreed to play a ton of road games for large payouts to pay for the construction. This included games at OSU, USC, ND, etc. That was the point. I don’t know what the exact dollar amount was.
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Andy says:
June 15, 2012 at 2:17 pm
“OK, sure, the truth can be used in a negative way.”
In other words, I was right.
“I don’t follow Nebraska much anymore. I followed them before they joined somewhat and that’s when I heard about it.”
In other words, I was right.
“You can call it whatever you want. I didn’t invent the term junior member. Google nebraska “junior membership” big ten. over 13000 hits. Lots of people use the phrase. It’s a loaded phrase meant to insult Nebraska, yes, so you won’t see it used in mainstream stories. But people all over the country are calling it that in blogs and in forums.”
12,500. Add “-missouri” and it drops to 11,200 and the first page contains nothing related to NE being a junior member of the B10. Maybe it’s just Missouri/B12 people that use it which is why you see it a lot and I don’t.
“I’ll just agree to concede that neither of us knows for sure what happened with PSU. There’s just no readily available info to prove one way or the other.”
You don’t get to concede for me. You made the claim, so you need the proof. I’ve never seen a PSU alum or fan claim they didn’t have voting rights, and they should know better than anyone. I used to see PSU called the junior member, but that was in terms of being the newest member, not a lesser member.
“Yeah, I argued with Frank, then I saw that he was right, then I corrected myself. That’s what I do when I find a mistake. I don’t see how you can find fault in that.”
You argued with someone about when he did something without having any evidence he was wrong. How could I not find fault with that?
“You can assert that 2 weeks vs 2 months is an important difference, but unless you say why then that statement is basically useless.”
How’s this for why? This was you earlier:
I mean who was even talking about Nebraska joining the Big Ten more than a few days before it happened? If you remember, it basically came out of nowhere.
2 weeks might be a few days, but 2 months definitely isn’t.
And to answer your question, here’s a link from 12/2009:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/stewart_mandel/12/15/bigten-expansion/index.html
Stewart Mandel named NE as the top choice days after Delany said the B10 was considering expansion. He dismissed MO as a viable option in the same piece.
“I never said MO was thought of as the #1 candidate.”
You said they were offered a spot and turned it down before the B10 turned to NE. How is being offered the spot not being the top candidate? They couldn’t take 2.
“I did say that they were mentioned as one of the top candidates from the start, while Nebraska was hardly considered until late.”
Who named MO a top candidate for the 12th and only spot and when? I saw them mentioned a lot for going to 14 or 16, but who said they were a top choice to be the only addition?
NE didn’t get mentioned a ton early because nobody thought they were available. It’s rare for a conference to lose a king. Once NE indicated they might be available, they became the top candidate.
“Yeah, OK, so they found the most recent year of budget.”
That’s a little different than your claim that they hunted for a year when MO didn’t break even.
“Here’s my connection to Missouri. I’m a booster who lives several states away. I know other boosters. We talk. I hear things. But I don’t follow every annual budget to determine everything that’s going on. When I say something like “Missouri tries hard to be self sustaining and is one of just a few universities to actually do it”, that doesn’t mean I know for sure that they always succeed. So they came up a little short last year. Ok. Sue me.”
There’s this thing called the internet. It lets you access things like USA Today’s database of AD budgets for the past few years (where they got the data I assume). You can also use the DOE’s data cutting tool for mandatory reporting data.
“The 300k vs. 2.6M thing actually supports what I’ve been saying.”
No, it doesn’t. You dismissed the $2.6M as too small an amount to worry about. Then you worried about $300k.
“The whole Big 8 vs Big 6 thing is another one of your nitpicky non-issues. The point is up until 1984, Missouri was the clear number 3 among the 8 Big 8 schools.”
Being #3 of 6 and being #3 of 8 are different. The more teams there are, the more being #3 means.
“So my whole 3rd place in the Big 8 isn’t really that big of a stretch.”
I didn’t say it was. I explicitly agreed with you that MO was #3 over the time period you mentioned. This is what I mean about your reading comprehension problem.
“Oh, you’re right Brian.”
It’s about time you admitted it.
“Missouri’s history is exactly like Nebraska’s. How could I have missed that? The similarities are so clear.”
You asked for one example of a team that was good for a long time, then really bad for a while, then really good again. I gave you one that was great, then bad, and then great again. It’s the exact same pattern, and in the same conference, but with higher highs. How does that not match your request?
“No, Missouri and Nebraska do not have similar histories. Nebraska is one of the winningest programs in history. So they had some down years in the leather helmet days, so what?”
They matched your request. I didn’t see any restrictions that the bad years couldn’t be in the 40s and 50s instead of the 80s and 90s.
“Your defense of the Iowa example was pretty weak, but you knew that.”
Iowa also generally matched your profile of good then bad then good. I only needed 1 example, and NE came to mind first. I knew IA had a bad period, too, so I mentioned them.
“You also confirmed that Northwestern is a bad example because they’ve only had a fraction of the amount of success as Missouri.”
NW, like IA, matched the basic pattern of good then bad then good, and that’s what I said was common. Many teams have followed that pattern. I found 4 or 5 in the B10.
“I don’t know the detailed history of SMU or Minnesota. I just know by looking at their rankings during games when they played Missouri they were sometimes ranked pretty high, so I assumed they were strong programs back then.”
Assumptions make an ass out of you. Check your facts or don’t make claims that are easily verifiable.
“When Missouri built Memorial Stadium they agreed to play a ton of road games for large payouts to pay for the construction.”
Define large roughly ($1k, $10k, $100k, $1M, etc). Clearly nobody had the sort of money they do now. Also, the stadium opened in 1926. MO didn’t play OSU until the 40s. That seems a little late to be paying it off with road games.
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vp19, I hadn’t heard that story. So the Southern Conference banned teams from bowl games? Why?
The Southern Conference in 1951 was a motley mix of large southern state universities (Maryland, North Carolina, West Virginia) and really small private schools (Washington & Lee, Davidson), as well as Virginia Military, which spent more than 80 years in the SC before defecting to the Big South a few years back. Scheduling was haphazard, and some of the smaller schools — perhaps thinking about the point-shaving basketball scandals earlier in the year — were against bowl games.
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Brian, you take little out of context snippets from people’s posts, and then you say “In other words, I was right”, and then you giggle to yourself and think about how clever you are. No, that doesn’t make you clever, it makes you a tool. You should go find a job making 30 second political attack ads, it would suit you.
Plenty of people have said negative things about Missouri on here. Some of it was true. Some of it wasn’t true. Some of it was opinions. Some of it was fact. Where it was untrue or a misguided opinion I sometimes objected to it. What are you arguing with about that? How are you right again? I don’t think you even know anymore.
Re: the whole PSU thing, neither of us knows what happened because we can’t find the information anywhere. Maybe a PSU person might remember. I sure don’t. I just know that some people I respect say that’s how it happened, so I choose to go with what they said until proven otherwise.
Yeah, I briefly thought Frank was wrong and corrected myself shortly after, and you’re still talking about it weeks later. And I’m supposed to be the crazy one?
With Missouri and the Big Ten, here’s the deal: there are multiple Missouri curators who are saying that Missouri was in talks with the Big Ten deep enough that they were discussing the terms of membership. I called it an offer at one point but then I quickly corrected myself because I realized that wasn’t the word I was told. The word they used was “proposal”. They’ve told this to some boosters and some respected journalists off the record. It’s talked about among boosters but there aren’t any mainstream articles about it. What I don’t know are the exact details of why it didn’t happen. The story they give is that Missouri wasn’t happy with the terms in the proposal, and the Big Ten stopped talking to Missouri and moved on. I’m pretty sure there was more to it than that but I don’t know what it was. And those curators aren’t going to say anything that makes themselves look bad.
As for Nebraska, I stand by my point that hardly anybody was talking about them as a major candidate. I hadn’t seen teh Stewart Mandel article, but it doesnt’ surprise me. He doesn’t seem to like Missouri very much. I’m not sure why. He had an article within the last year bashing Missouri to the SEC. It doesn’t surprise me that hew as against Missouri to the Big Ten as well. It also doesn’t surprise me that Frank was ahead of the curve a bit on predicting Nebraska to the Big Ten. But the large majority of articles and fan talk back then was not about Nebraska. I’m not saying they werent’ a decent candidate. All things considered (goegraphy, population, academics, football, basketball, etc) I think they’re about even with Missouri. Their loss of AAU status is regretable, but they’re really good at football. Or at least they used to be. But they werent’ some kind of obvious #1 choice candidate. They just weren’t. Whether they were available or not. Why not? Well, Nebraska as a state only has 1.8M people. They don’t have any major metro areas. Their population isn’t exactly growing, it’s pretty stagnant. Their university itself is small, one of the smallest in the Big Ten. Their academcis are mediocre. They were on notice from the AAU and were later booted. Their basketball tradition is abysmal. There’s lots of reasons to say they are a less than ideal candidate for the Big Ten.
Yeah, I don’t spend a lot of time studying AD budgets. Apparently you do. Good for you.
2.6M vs 300k… Well, seeing as how they want that 2.6M to be 0, and if you take away the 300k then the 2.6M becomes 2.9M, then you could see how they are not mutually excusive ideas.
Nebraska doesn’t match because the thing to match was a school that on average was mediocre but that was because of averaging good and bad stretches. Nebraska’s average isn’t mediocre, it’s top 5 all time.
Iowa doesn’t work because they didn’t have any prolonged period of being good in the past. Neither did Northwestern. They both had multiple brief periods of being good, but that’s not the same thing at all. Wisconsin worked ok. So I give you that one. So 1, not “4 or 5”.
As for the part about paying for the stadium, straight from mutigers.com:
“Coach Don Faurot’s powerhouse Split “T” teams in the late ‘30’s and ‘40’s helped pay off the stadium bonds – along the Faurot’s brave scheduling of Ohio State for nine straight years at Columbus, and big paydays from games with NYU and Fordham back east.”
http://www.mutigers.com/facilities/fac-mem-faurot-fb.html
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The SMU and Minnesota thing, I was just looking through lists of games vs ranked teams for Missouri and noticed those teams were ranked sometimes when Missouri played them.
I was looking at the ranking of the wins vs top 25 teams. Outside of their down period, Missouri typically beat a top 25 team at least once every other year. During their 13 year down period they had zero victories vs ranked teams. Had they not had their down period, they’d be in the top 25 in this category too. Instead they’re down at 29th. So again, it’s that down period knocking Missouri out of the all-time top 25 numbers. Other than that 13 year stretch, Missouri has been a top 25 program nationally. I’m not saying the down period didn’t happen or shouldn’t count, I’m just saying typically outside of that one bad stretch, Missouri is a top 25 program by pretty much all the measurables. Here are the rankings of the top 50:
School, wins vs teams that finished in the top 25:
1. Notre Dame 130
2. Alabama 119
3. USC 118
4. Oklahoma 114
5. Michigan 109
6. Texas 108
7. Florida 104
8. Ohio St. 99
9. Tennessee 98
10. Miami (FL) 95
11. Penn St. 93
12. Nebraska 92
13. LSU 87
14. Auburn 86
15. Florida St. 81
16. UCLA 75
17. Georgia Tech 73
18. Georgia 71
19. Michigan St. 64
20. Washington 62
21. Arkansas 58
22. Iowa 55
23. Texas A&M 53
24. Colorado 52
t24. Mississippi 52
26. Pittsburgh 51
27. Illinois 48
28. Wisconsin 47
29. Missouri 44
t29. Stanford 44
31. Purdue 42
32. North Carolina 38
t32. Clemson 38
t32. Syracuse 38
35, Oregon 37
36. Northwestern 36
t36. Minnesota 36
38. Texas Tech 35
39. Virginia Tech 34
t39. Maryland 34
41. TCU 33
42. Mississippi St. 31
t42. Navy 31
44. N.C. State 30
t44. West Virginia 30
t44. Houston 30
47. Arizona 28
t47. Oregon St. 28
t47. California 28
t47. Kentucky 28
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Andy:
Sure, Mizzou just had a charged drug dealer on their plane. Evidently, he got comp tickets from players as well.
Hard for me to see how this isn’t a negative for the school.
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Richard, a couple things wrong with that.
One, he wasn’t a charged drug dealer when he was on the plane. At that point he had never been charged or convicted of any crime. Nobody but the FBI knew there was anything up with the guy.
Two, yes, a couple of years ago he 9 times got tickets that were allotted to players. However, they did a thorough investigation and found no connection between the players and the guy, no evidence or accusation of the guy giving anything to players for tickets. On top of that, at Missouri when players don’t use their tickets they make their way into public hands. I don’t know specifically how it works, but I do know people who don’t know and have no connection to players who get those tickets regularly. I assume they buy them somehow. Anyway, it’s not so simple to figure out how he got those tickets. It wasn’t necessarily from the players. But more importantly, this all happened several months ago, it’s been thoroughly investigated, and no wrongdoing was found and there have been no allegations whatsoever against anyone at MU. The University brought in independent investigators to look into everything and that came out clear. And the FBI has been following this guy and wiretapping him for a long time, and they’ve said that there was no allegations of wrongdoing whatsoever against anyone at MU.
So again, I ask, do you have any examples of anything actually happening in real life (not imaginary what ifs) associated with letting people with no prior criminal records or accusations against them ride on a plane with a team?
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Uh, Andy, I just gave you one.
Letting a guy with no prior criminal records or accusations against him ride on the plane who later is charged with being a drug dealer is an “example of anything actually happening in real life associated with letting people with no prior criminal records or accusations against them ride on a plane with a team”.
I’m wondering what the confusion is here. Something actually happened. The guy was charged with dealing drugs. Was it known when he was on the plane? No. But it still reflects badly on Mizzou. When Mizzou was letting schmoes who are friends of boosters to ride on its plane, it either did not consider that they could be associating with unsavory characters & letting those unsavory characters access to its student-athletes (which reflects badly on Mizzou) or it did consider that possibility and took the risk anyway (which also reflects badly on Mizzou).
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So in other words, no, you don’t have what I’m asking for. I was asking for anything that actually happened in real life, not something that abstractly “reflects badly” (meaning people on the internet can talk shit). No, nothing actually happened. It had zero actual practical consequences outside of people talking about it.
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ccrider: “. I have had many disagreements with bullet over UT’s seeming need to control as much as it cam, (OSU to an extent also, but they have multiple counter balancing kings)”
—Could you cite an example of OSU trying to ‘control as much as it can’?
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So out of boredom I decided to look up the conference win% (and where it ranks with the other conference teams) for Big 8 members by decade…
10’s Missouri .581 4th – Nebraska .900 1st (No Colorado or Okie St)
20’s Missouri .698 2nd – Nebraska .826 1st (No Colorado or Okie St)
30’s Missouri .380 5th – Nebraska .820 1st (No Colorado or Okie St)
40’s Missouri .760 2nd – Nebraska .519 4th (No Okie St)
50’s Missouri .550 2nd – Nebraska .450 4th (No Okie St)
60’s Missouri .736 1st – Nebraska .671 3rd
70’s Missouri .429 5th – Nebraska .789 2nd
80’s Missouri .393 5th – Nebraska .900 1st
90’s Missouri .324 6th – Nebraska .890 1st (Not counting former SWC teams)
00’s Missouri .463 5th – Nebraska .573 2nd (Not counting former SWC teams)
Could someone please direct me to the 80 years of Missouri’s consistent success?
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When was Missouri consistently good? You mean other than averaging a 2.4 place finish in the Big 6/8 in the 50 years from 1920-1969? (Nebraska averaged 2.6). Yeah, I guess Missouri’s conference win % started to trail off in the 70s before taking a complete nosedive in the 80s. But Missouri’s record in the 70s was propped up by their strong showing in non-conference games. They had 7 winning seasons in the 70s. They also had a lot of big wins against ranked teams:
wins over ranked teams in the 1970s:
1970 #19 Colorado
1972 @#8 Notre Dame, #12 Iowa State
1973 @#19 SMU, #2 Nebraska, Auburn in Sun Bowl
1974 #7 Arizona State, @#12 Nebraska
1975 #15 Oklahoma State
1976 @#8USC, @#2Ohio State, @#3Nebraska, #14 Colorado
1977 @#20 Arizona State, @#15Colorado
1978 @#5 Notre Dame, #20 Iowa State, @#2 Nebraska, LSU in Liberty Bowl
1979 #16 South Carolina in Liberty Bowl
So that’s 60 of relatively consistent and relatively high success. Also, Missouri had 6 conference titles that predate 1920, so it’s not like they were slouches back then either. I didn’t bother to do the math but it looked like they were fairly successful back then. It looks like the 1910s weren’t so great. 1890s and 00s look better, I guess.
Anyway, go ahead and nitpick, but 60 years of relative success is plenty to validate the point I was making. And for 50 of them Missouri averaged a better finish in the Big 6/8 than Nebraska, and in the final 10 of that stretch, Missouri played them pretty much even head-to-head and scored several big upsets against them when they were reanked near the top of the national rankings.
As for the 2000s, Missouri’s run didn’t really start until 2003, so that hurts their standing a bit. Their finishes since 2003 has been 4th out of 12, behind Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Texas (three kings). Again, I’ve never claimed Missouri is a king. I’m claiming Missouri has been a prince on par with Washington, Clemson, and Arkansas for most of their history, outside of the 80s and 90s. It’s factually true, and the numbers you just posted only confirm that.
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Andy,
“Brian, you take little out of context snippets from people’s posts, and then you say “In other words, I was right”,”
There was no relevant context missing. You changed your terminology to match what I said was correct, which is an implicit admission that I was correct.
“Plenty of people have said negative things about Missouri on here. Some of it was true. Some of it wasn’t true. Some of it was opinions. Some of it was fact. Where it was untrue or a misguided opinion I sometimes objected to it. What are you arguing with about that?”
I’m arguing several things relative to that:
1. People telling the truth and presenting facts aren’t saying negative things. You may perceive them to be negative, but the truth is always neutral.
2. Some/much of what you claim is untrue ends up being proven to be accurate. You cry “wolf” a lot.
3. You determine that all opinions in regards to MO are “misguided” if they don’t portray MO in the most positive light. That’s a completely unrealistic standard for people being negative.
4. In other words, you seem to get bent out of shape a lot over nothing.
“Re: the whole PSU thing, neither of us knows what happened because we can’t find the information anywhere. Maybe a PSU person might remember.”
The fact that there is no evidence of a PSU person saying it happened is somewhat telling. Fans are renowned for bitching about every little piece of possible disrespect their school has ever received (case in point – you), and in all the years of blogs, message boards and other forums, you can’t find 1 mention of this. Of course it is completely logical to then assume that your claim is correct.
“I just know that some people I respect say that’s how it happened, so I choose to go with what they said until proven otherwise.”
You hear a lot of crap from a lot of people, apparently. Nobody believes the other crap you claimed to hear, either. Evidence or STFU.
“With Missouri and the Big Ten, here’s the deal: there are multiple Missouri curators who are saying that Missouri was in talks with the Big Ten deep enough that they were discussing the terms of membership.”
Evidence?
“I called it an offer at one point but then I quickly corrected myself”
I yield to the people you argued with for multiple posts about this topic to decide whether or not you corrected yourself “quickly.”
“They’ve told this to some boosters and some respected journalists off the record. It’s talked about among boosters but there aren’t any mainstream articles about it.”
Oh, well how could I doubt a rumor that boosters talk about that happens to put their school in the most positive light?
“As for Nebraska, I stand by my point that hardly anybody was talking about them as a major candidate.”
Right. The fact that I showed a semi-prominent blogger that you admit to following at the time and a national columnist for the premier sports magazine’s website in the country doing it clearly shows that almost nobody was talking about it.
“I hadn’t seen teh Stewart Mandel article, but it doesnt’ surprise me. He doesn’t seem to like Missouri very much.”
And here come the claims of bias and negativity again. He said something you didn’t want to hear so he hates MO.
“But the large majority of articles and fan talk back then was not about Nebraska.”
You don’t seem to understand why that is. It was because many people brought them up and then said it would be impossible to steal a king from a major conference. It wasn’t that NE wasn’t a great candidate, it was that they were too good of a candidate to be possible. The general process was to say this:
1. The top candidate is ND, but they aren’t joining a conference.
2. The next mentioned were UT and NE, but they were also considered untouchable until the P16 rumors started, and then UT became more possible.
3. Everyone settled on the next tier of teams as the most realistic candidates, and mentioned Pitt, Syracuse, Rutgers and Missouri.
Here’s an example:
http://collegefootball.about.com/b/2009/12/16/five-questions-and-answers-about-big-ten-expansion.htm
“I’m not saying they werent’ a decent candidate. All things considered (goegraphy, population, academics, football, basketball, etc) I think they’re about even with Missouri.”
Of course you do. Have you even considered the possibility that you might be the biased one on that topic, not the national columnist (nor blogger, nor blog comment posters) with no particular allegiance to either school? It’s very big of you to admit that a football king that got admitted to the B10 was a decent candidate.
“But they werent’ some kind of obvious #1 choice candidate. They just weren’t. Whether they were available or not.”
Nobody claimed they were the #1 choice all along. Until ND joins a conference, they will always be mentioned as the #1 option. UT generally came up next as an impossible get but great addition. NE was the third mention, as a better fit than UT but not bringing as much $$$ to the table. Only after dismissing these kings as options did people mention schools like Pitt and MO.
“Yeah, I don’t spend a lot of time studying AD budgets.”
Then perhaps you should stop making budgetary claims if you are too lazy to do some research.
“2.6M vs 300k… Well, seeing as how they want that 2.6M to be 0, and if you take away the 300k then the 2.6M becomes 2.9M, then you could see how they are not mutually excusive ideas.”
No, I can’t see that because you dismissed $2.6M as unimportant, but later claimed $300k was incredibly important to the same budget. Those two thoughts are mutually exclusive.
“Nebraska doesn’t match because the thing to match was a school that on average was mediocre but that was because of averaging good and bad stretches. Nebraska’s average isn’t mediocre, it’s top 5 all time.”
No, NE is more like top 10 all time. It’s good to see you decided MO is mediocre. That means you won’t complain if everyone else calls them that, correct?
I gave you IA, but you decided they weren’t good enough. I gave you NW, and they weren’t good enough. I gave you WI, and they didn’t match close enough. I gave you MSU as well, but apparently they haven’t been good long enough to count either. That’s 5 schools from 1 conference of 12 that generally matched your pattern, but you continue to redefine it tighter and tighter to make sure it only applies to MO.
How about TCU, the team with the next best all time winning percentage after MO? They were a power in the 20s and 30s in the SWC and won 2 national titles. They averaged 3 wins per year in the 70s and 80s (3.6 from 1960-1997). They’ve been a power again since 1998, having the #5 winning percentage. Let me guess, there’s some reason why they don’t count either.
“As for the part about paying for the stadium, straight from mutigers.com:
“Coach Don Faurot’s powerhouse Split “T” teams in the late ‘30’s and ‘40’s helped pay off the stadium bonds – along the Faurot’s brave scheduling of Ohio State for nine straight years at Columbus, and big paydays from games with NYU and Fordham back east.”
That says the big paydays came from the eastern schools, not the kings. Those payday games happened before most of the OSU games, too (1930-1941).
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Andy,
“I was looking at the ranking of the wins vs top 25 teams. Outside of their down period, Missouri typically beat a top 25 team at least once every other year. During their 13 year down period they had zero victories vs ranked teams. Had they not had their down period, they’d be in the top 25 in this category too. Instead they’re down at 29th. So again, it’s that down period knocking Missouri out of the all-time top 25 numbers.”
So you mean that it’s all those losses that kept them from winning more? How is that different from everyone else, exactly? I find OSU won almost all of the games they didn’t lose, too. Every program looks better if you take out their bad years. That’s not how life works, though.
“Other than that 13 year stretch, Missouri has been a top 25 program nationally. I’m not saying the down period didn’t happen or shouldn’t count,”
Yes you are, and have been ever since you started posting here. You throw a fit every time MO isn’t treated like a top 25 program.
“Here are the rankings of the top 50:
School, wins vs teams that finished in the top 25:
1. Notre Dame 130
2. Alabama 119
3. USC 118
4. Oklahoma 114
5. Michigan 109
6. Texas 108
7. Florida 104
8. Ohio St. 99
9. Tennessee 98
10. Miami (FL) 95
11. Penn St. 93
12. Nebraska 92
13. LSU 87
14. Auburn 86
15. Florida St. 81
16. UCLA 75
17. Georgia Tech 73
18. Georgia 71
19. Michigan St. 64
20. Washington 62
21. Arkansas 58
22. Iowa 55
23. Texas A&M 53
24. Colorado 52
t24. Mississippi 52
26. Pittsburgh 51
27. Illinois 48
28. Wisconsin 47
29. Missouri 44
t29. Stanford 44”
I left most of those in because it’s interesting and because they prove some things.
1. You say MO average 1 win every 2 years over a top 25 team outside of the bad 13 years. That means they missed out on 7 wins. 44 + 7 = 51, which would only tie for 26th not top 25 like you just claimed. In addition, do all the other teams get to drop their worst 13 years and boost their totals? I’m guessing most of them would make a similar jump.
2. There’s a pretty steep slope to that list. #1 leads #2 by 11. 2-5 = 10. 5-8 = 10. 8-13 = 12. 13-16 = 12. 16-19 = 11. 19-23 = 11. 23-29 (MO) = 9.
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Andy,
“Again, I’ve never claimed Missouri is a king. I’m claiming Missouri has been a prince on par with Washington, Clemson, and Arkansas for most of their history, outside of the 80s and 90s. It’s factually true, and the numbers you just posted only confirm that.”
That isn’t what you’ve claimed, but that isn’t important right now. Let’s look at your new claim:
MO is on par with UW, Clemson and AR if MO could drop the 80s and 90s.
Overall
18. UW 672-416-50 (0.615)
26. AR 679-454-39 (0.596)
30. Clemson 657-448-45 (0.591)
55. MO 628-522-52 (0.544)
To be on par with the other 3, MO would need to be about 695-455-52 (0.600) in those same 1202 games. That’s gaining 67 wins over the bad 20 years, or 3.35 games per year.
Plausible?
Bad 20 years for MO = 88-131-7 (0.405) – 1980-1999
New record in bad years = 155-64-7 (0.701)
Overall record without those years = 540-391-45 (0.555)
MO would have had to play well above their traditional level to make the significant increase in their overall winning percentage to match the three teams you named even without those other teams dropping their worst years. In other words, you are off by quite a bit.
MO’s new and improved record would be more on par with the teams just ahead of them in the original all time rankings, like Toledo, AF, Navy, OR, WMU, MS and TT.
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*Brian, more unfounded claims. I don’t get bent out of shape every time someone says something negative about Missouri. Just when it’s misguided. Which, admittedly, seems to be a high percentage of the time. But that’s not my fault.
*The whole PSU thing happened a long time ago. It’s not sureprising tha they’re not talking about it anymore.
*There’s no evidence to present, no way I can present it, and that’s just the way it is. There’s nothing I can do about it. But it’s true. Deal with it. It’s not like it even matters at this poitn anyway, so you’re probably best off just letting it go, because you can deny it until the end of time and it’ll still be true. I’m not lying aobut any of it. I told you everything I know.
*Quickly in forum like this = a fraction of a day. These things can drag on for much longer than that.
*Yeah, almost nobody was talking about it. I read dozens of articles about the topic at the time. I was following with great interest. I was keeping score. Nebraska was hardly mentoned until relatively late in the process.
*Stewart Mandel writes articles explicitly against MU. Here’s one:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/stewart_mandel/11/06/sec-lsu-alabama-missouri/index.html
Go ahead and read that article. You’ll like it. He goes on for paragraph after paragraph about how the SEC shouldn’t add Mizzou because Mizzou sucks and doesn’t deserve it. I’m not exaggerating at all.
*I went over why NEbraska wasn’t a perfect candidate for the Big Ten, you skipped over all of the reasons I listed, so I guess you dont’ care.
*OK, sounds like TCU’s a decent example. I looked around and coundn’t find any good examples. Wisconsin was about a 40% match. The others you listed just weren’t matches and youc an bitch about it if you want but really, they weren’t good matches. Sounds like TCU’s a decent match. More extreme than Missouri, I guess. They went from being really, really good to bad for r40 years to really, really good again. So they average out as mediocre. Missouri went from pretty good to very bad for 15 years to pretty good again, with a mediocre all time average. So not a total match, but at least it’s the same pattern and the same result. So I apologize and admit I was wrong. There is another example like Missouri and it is TCU (and to a lesser extent Wisconsin). You get full credit for proving me wrong, congrats.
*With the OSU/MU games, it’s part of the lore at Missouri that the stadium expansion was paid for partly by playing at OSU 9 straight years. If you want to dispute that, feel free. Perhaps its an urban legend. It happened before I was born. But I’m just saying that’s the way people at Missouri tell the story and I have no reason to think it’s a lie.
*You’re asking me how taking out the negative period makes sense, well, first of all, it doesn’t, at least not officially. Officially I’m not suggesting that that bad period shouldn’t count. But when trying to understand Missouri’s place in football, it’s instructive to look at how they’ve done when they were well funded and functional (which was through most of their history) vs that period when they got their funding cut severely and they fell into complete disfunction.
*what your fancy math is trying to prove is kind of a fail, because rankings only started in 1936. And you didn’t read me carefully, I said “at least” once every other year. 1936-2011 = 75 years – 13 bad years = 62 years, 44 top 25 wins / 62 years = .71 wins over top 25 teams per year. That’s 9.23 extra top 25 wins, or 53.2 total which would rank Missouri 23rd all time. I guess I should have put all my math in there considering what an anally retentive weirdo you are, but I guess I just thought you’d let it go, but since you didn’t, there you are. I was right, all of your efforts were for naught. But thanks for trying.
*I said multiple times and in every post I’ve talked about this, the all-time ranking metric I was using was total wins, not win %. With that metric, Missouri could catch up to those schools by winning an extra 40 games over 20 years. That’s just 2 extra wins per year, and well within Mizzou’s win % in other decades. Missouri is much lower on the overall win % list than they are on the overall total wins list, so they’d have a lot farther to climb to catch up to Clemson, Arkansas or Washington. No, they couldn’t do that by takign out those twenty years, but then I never claimed that they could. Nice try though. See, you almost caught me twice. You got me with TCU thing, good job. But you wiffed on the other two.
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Andy:
“I was asking for anything that actually happened in real life, not something that abstractly “reflects badly”
To me, Mizzou taking a hit to its reputation is something that “actually happened in real life”. If you want to believe that that isn’t the case (or want to redefine what “real life” is or want to argue that this does nothing to Mizzou’s reputation), hey, far be it from me to keep you from your delusions.
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Rich, here’s how I see it: if something actually happened in real life, like a rule was broken and the NCAA got involved, or a player was found to be involved in drugs, or, I don’t know, some other crazy bad thing, then Missouri would take an actual hit to its reputation.
With something like this, where nothing actually happened, any hit to Missouri’s reputation will be fleeting, as in forgotten long before the season even starts. So is that worth re-writing the rules over or making a big deal out of? Not really. I mean, you have to do the investigations to cover your ass and make sure it’s not any worse than it seems, but after that you’re pretty much fine. This is a pretty unusual thing. I’ve never heard of anything like it.
What you’re suggesting reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons when bears got into Homer’s garbage. It was the first bear sighting in decades in Springfield, but the townsfolk all got together and decided something must be done. So they bought a bunch of anti-bear tanks and fighter jets. But then then the city went bankrupt because they spent their entire budget preventing bear attacks. Yeah, it’s ridiculous. But so is your suggestion that boosters shouldn’t be allowed to fly on the back of the team’s plane just because one guy one time turned out to be a drug dealer (and nothing else happened).
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Andy,
“*Brian, more unfounded claims. I don’t get bent out of shape every time someone says something negative about Missouri. Just when it’s misguided. Which, admittedly, seems to be a high percentage of the time. But that’s not my fault.”
Yes, everybody is always misguided when talking about MO. How convenient for you.
“*The whole PSU thing happened a long time ago. It’s not sureprising tha they’re not talking about it anymore.”
It’s only been 20 years. Plenty of people are still around that were fans then. Not all of us are know-nothing 20 year olds. Some people actually know their history, and some younger fans learn from the older ones about the past, especially of their school. As much as PSU fans have been known to bitch about the B10, this issue would have come up.
“*There’s no evidence to present, no way I can present it, and that’s just the way it is.”
Then stop making claims you can’t back up.
“But it’s true.”
No, it isn’t. You have rumors of something from 20 years ago and nothing else. Not even any PSU-based rumors support you. If you can’t even find a rumor to support you on the internet, then you are wrong.
“It’s not like it even matters at this poitn anyway, so you’re probably best off just letting it go, because you can deny it until the end of time and it’ll still be true. I’m not lying aobut any of it. I told you everything I know.”
What you actually know would fit in a thimble. What you claim to know would fill an ocean.
“*Quickly in forum like this = a fraction of a day. These things can drag on for much longer than that.”
It’s nice to see you are now in charge of the English language, too. Or did you hear that from somebody, too?
“*Yeah, almost nobody was talking about it. I read dozens of articles about the topic at the time. I was following with great interest. I was keeping score. Nebraska was hardly mentoned until relatively late in the process.”
Gee, a MO fan read dozens of articles and a rival wasn’t mentioned much as a candidate. Shocking. I bet all the message boards you read trumpeted MO, though. Amazing how that works.
“*Stewart Mandel writes articles explicitly against MU. Here’s one:
Go ahead and read that article. You’ll like it. He goes on for paragraph after paragraph about how the SEC shouldn’t add Mizzou because Mizzou sucks and doesn’t deserve it. I’m not exaggerating at all.”
The first 4 paragraphs are about LSU/AL. #5 and 6 were about the SEC in general. #7 quoted FL’s president about adding MO and what a good school MO is.
#8 is where he says MO’s athletics aren’t as great as Machen says. He points out MO has not won a FB conference title since 1969 despite only playing with 2 powers in their conference (OU/NE, then OU/TX), and the SEC has 5. Is any part of that untrue?
In #9, he says that Machen’s line about similar cultures is also wrong. Is he wrong?
#10 is where he says the SEC diluted itself with this addition. “At its core, the charm of the SEC was that it really was one of the last conferences in which all 12 schools were geographically and culturally similar.” Is that unfair or untrue? He also said the SEC fans weren’t happy on the Paul Finebaum show or at the tailgate. True or false?
In #11 he lumps MO and TAMU together and compares them to SC and AR when they were added. Since you compared MO to AR earlier, that can’t be seen as negative.
In #12 he says the SEC will lose a little charm the first time SC and MO play. That’s an opinion that many people share, including many SEC fans, but no one expects you to share his opinion. That doesn’t make it anti-MO. It’s anti-expansion.
In #13, he contrasted the game (everything good about the SEC’s present) and the expansion announcement (everything awkward about the league’s future). Expansion has proven awkward in several ways, like football scheduling and locked rivals, so he was right.
That’s page 1 of 4, but the end of the part about MO and the SEC. Only a misguided MO homer would see that as MO sucks and the SEC shouldn’t add them.
“*I went over why NEbraska wasn’t a perfect candidate for the Big Ten, you skipped over all of the reasons I listed, so I guess you dont’ care.”
No, I really don’t care about your opinions. Your facts are already mostly opinion.
“*OK, sounds like TCU’s a decent example. I looked around and coundn’t find any good examples.”
Did you even try? I looked at 5 B10 teams off the top of my head that might match, then looked at the all time rankings and saw TCU right next to MO. Somehow you claimed MO was unique when I could find examples relatively easily.
“Sounds like TCU’s a decent match. More extreme than Missouri, I guess. They went from being really, really good to bad for r40 years to really, really good again. So they average out as mediocre. Missouri went from pretty good to very bad for 15 years to pretty good again, with a mediocre all time average. So not a total match, but at least it’s the same pattern and the same result.”
I knew you’d find something to bitch about with TCU.
“So I apologize and admit I was wrong. There is another example like Missouri and it is TCU (and to a lesser extent Wisconsin). You get full credit for proving me wrong, congrats.”
Was that really so hard?
“*With the OSU/MU games, it’s part of the lore at Missouri that the stadium expansion was paid for partly by playing at OSU 9 straight years. If you want to dispute that, feel free. Perhaps its an urban legend.”
I’m just telling you what the quote you provided as evidence said.
“But I’m just saying that’s the way people at Missouri tell the story and I have no reason to think it’s a lie.”
You here a lot of stories about MO and you believe all of them. How come none of them seem to end up with supporting evidence? I thought MO was the Show Me state, not the Gullible state.
“*You’re asking me how taking out the negative period makes sense, well, first of all, it doesn’t, at least not officially. Officially I’m not suggesting that that bad period shouldn’t count. But when trying to understand Missouri’s place in football, it’s instructive to look at how they’ve done when they were well funded and functional (which was through most of their history) vs that period when they got their funding cut severely and they fell into complete disfunction.”
That would only make sense if you do it for every school. They all have periods with similar excuses, but their reputation includes everything and so should MO’s.
“*what your fancy math is trying to prove is kind of a fail, because rankings only started in 1936.”
My math wasn’t fancy at all, and the year the AP started wasn’t a factor.
” And you didn’t read me carefully, I said “at least” once every other year.”
You said “typically at least once every other year” actually. Since you didn’t provide a source for your data, I couldn’t check the pattern to see how clustered it might be. So I took the simple route of using once every other year as an estimate based on your words. Also, I notice you completely skipped over allowing the other schools to blot out a 13 year bad period from their records. What are the odds none of them would gain a win or two by using their average pace instead of what actually happened for 13 years?
“*I said multiple times and in every post I’ve talked about this, the all-time ranking metric I was using was total wins, not win %.”
No you haven’t. You haven’t mentioned that at all when responding to me.
In addition, total wins is a stupid way to rank teams because teams differ wildly in total number of games played. 14 schools have played 1200+ games, and other major schools haven’t even hit 1000 yet. That spread makes ranking by wins intentionally biased towards the teams that have played more games. What a shock that you chose that method with MO at #12 in games played. That’s a convenient way to jump over many teams that beat MO in W%.
“With that metric, Missouri could catch up to those schools by winning an extra 40 games over 20 years. That’s just 2 extra wins per year, and well within Mizzou’s win % in other decades.”
Those 3 teams average 669 wins, so MO would need 41 more wins. That means being 669-481-52 (0.578) which would jump MO to #36 by all time W%. As it turns out, their average W% in the other years would not have been sufficient to generate 41 more wins. It would have been close, though, so you are better off just claiming Clemson since they are lowest in total wins of those 3 by a substantial amount.
Of course, Clemson had a 13 year period (1964-1976) when they went 57-77-3 (0.427) compared to their all-time 657-448-45 (0.591). Without those years, they were 600-371-42 (0.613). Over those 13 years, that would have been 82-52-3. That makes their new total 682 wins, well above MO’s adjusted total. It’s a two way street if you want to erase down periods.
“Missouri is much lower on the overall win % list than they are on the overall total wins list, so they’d have a lot farther to climb to catch up to Clemson, Arkansas or Washington.”
Yes, because they have played a lot more games. That’s why you chose total wins, because it put MO in the most favorable light.
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“Yes, everybody is always misguided when talking about MO. How convenient for you.”
Not everyone, but you sure are.
I’m well over 20, but I’m not from PSU country and have known very few PSU fans. I do know that sports journalists were talking about it on a paywall site earlier this year, and others commented about it and talked about it as if they knew it was true. Maybe all of those people were completely mixed up, but I doubt it.
Oh, so you get to tell me what I can and can’t say? I don’t need to post a link to an official press release for something to be true. Just because your aspergery brain short circuits at the thought doesn’t change outside realities one bit. You’re just going to have to learn to deal with things like this. Sometimes there are truths that exist outside of the internet and hyperlinks. Sorry.
As far as articles, I read all the mainstream sites: ESPN, CBS, NBC, Fox, Sportingnews, CNNSI, even bleacherreport, as well as blogs. Lots of newspapers too. I frequently went to Google News and searched “Big Ten expansion”and just went through whatever articles came up. I was interested and my reading was pretty thorough. And I kept track. Missouri was mentioned almost always. Nebraska was mentioned just a fraction of the time. That’s how it was, you can swear up and down until the end of time that it wasn’t that way and you’ll still be wrong.
The whole Mandel article thing is the perfect illustration of how disengenously contrarian you are. I give you a link to an article that clearly and thoroughly criticizes Missouri and says that the SEC shouldn’t invite them. You then go on to tell me up is down and the sky is green and that article wasn’t criticizing Missouri because he was right anyway. It would be funny if it wasn’t possible that you’re actually serious.
As far as Nebraska, none of the reasons I listed were even remotely debatable. Thir population? Their markets? Their loss of AAU? Their abysmal basketball history? How are those opinions? You are a tool.
As for looking for teams, yes I tried, I looked through the middle of the pack schools of every major conference and didn’t find any fits. I didn’t htink to look at TCU because they’ve been in so many different conferences so I overlooked them. Your “5” big ten examples (Iowa, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Nebraska…I only see 4) were weak. Northwestern is well below Missouri. Not a good match. Iowa has had a ton of success in the last 30 yars but were largely terrible before that except for a few bursts of winning here and there. Not a good match. Nebraska is one of the winningest programs of all time. Not a good match. Wisconsin sort of works, although they’ve been off and on over and over again for decaades so it’s different, but at least it’s the same sort of Jekkyl and Hyde thing. TCU works because they had a golden age that they are returning to. If I want to be picky I could say that it’s not a super good fit because their down period was 3 times longer than Missouri’s, but I’ll take pitty on you and give it to you. You got one decently good match.
The whole thing about OSU games paying for the stadium construction, that’s not me “hearing things”, that’s been written in the game programs i’ve been getting at games since I was a kid. That’s something that’s routinely written in articles, it’s on their websites, they talked about it a lot when Missouri had their series with OSU back in the 90s. THis is kind of a big deal, not just something I heard on the wind. But you seem to think you know more than anyone in the world, so feel free to dismiss it. I mean, I typed it so it must be a lie, right? Tool.
I’m not saying Missouri should be allowed to take out their down period. But I don’t think all schools have similar excuses. By similar I mean a long, sustained period of success interrupted by a complete reversal and collapse into abject failure for more than a decade in the modern era, followed by a revival. I looked and looked for an example and couldn’t find one. You found one in TCU (I hadn’t looked at previously non-BCS schools). SO yes, there’s one example, although their down period was so long it likely had different causes.
Why does this matter? Well, it shows that Missouri as an instituion, as a fanbase, as a state, as a program has a normal level of success that is in the realm of about 7 games per year (at least given the modern 12 game schedule), sometimes higher, sometimes lower, plenty of bowl games, sometimes contending for the conference title, sometimes going to BCS level games, sometimes having losing seasons. Similar to an Arkansas or a Clemson. But for a while there they were like Indiana or Wake Forest or Duke. Like, really really bad. And that’s not indicative.
Well considering it’s impossible to beat a ranked team before 1936 since no teams were ranked before that year, your sample set is kind of nonsensical, dont’ you think? But feel free to keep acting like you’re right when you’re wrong as hell. That’s what you do best.
“total wins is a stupid way to rank teams because teams differ wildly in total number of games played”
You’re free to feel that way, but I always said the metric I was using was total wins. If you don’t like it make your own list.
And yeah, if you scrub all down periods everyone would go up. I never said otherwise. I wasn’t trying to re-write the history books. I just made a simple point, several days ago, which is perfectly true: outside of Missouri’s down period of 13 years from 1984-1996 they’ve been more on the level of a school like Clemson, Michigan State or Arkansas rather than a school like Virginia, Iowa, or Purdue. All the nitpicking in the world won’t make that statement basically true.
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**All the nitpicking in the world won’t make that statement basically untrue.**
Obviously I’m typing too fast. A lot of typos in my posts. And no edit option.
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As for your clemson example, with 13 years taken out from 64-76, I’m not seeing how that’s equivalent. Within those 13 years Clemson had the following win totals:
3, 2, 7, 5, 4, 5, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 5, 3
Missouri’s down period had these win totals:
5, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 2, 3, 5, 3, 1, 3
So the thing about the Clemson down period is it wasn’t even really that bad. You look at their scores during those seasons, they were losing close games. They were competitive. They had some winning seasons during that stretch too. Then you look at Missouri’s scores, they were getting blown out right and left by as much as 70 points. They were not competitve at all. No winning seasons either. Clemson’s is a period with a team that was slightly down for a while. Missouri had some breif stretches like that here or there. What I’m singling out that’s extremely rare is a case of a top 25ish/top30ish program that completely collapsed into bottom feeder status for awhile, and then recovered. Clemson never did this.
And again, I’m not saying they should change the record books. I’m just saying it should be kept in mind when looking at Missouri’s numbers. They fell so far down that it tanked their averages and its misleading to thin that their averages reflect how they typically do in any given year.
It’s a completely fair point and the fact that you keep arguing against it only shows bad faith on your part. Not that bad faith on your part is surprising to anyone who has read any of your posts on here.
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To further put to rest the “junior membership” claims. Here is an article from 6/14/10:
Nebraska doesn’t become a full voting member of the Big Ten until July, 1, 2011, at which time chancellor Harvey Perlman will have a seat on the Big Ten’s Council of Presidents/Chancellors.
http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/23184/note-on-nebraskas-big-ten-voting-situation
Nebraska didn’t get voting rights until they actually joined to conference. They were, however, included in meetings.
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Andy,
I’m well over 20, but I’m not from PSU country and have known very few PSU fans. I do know that sports journalists were talking about it on a paywall site earlier this year, and others commented about it and talked about it as if they knew it was true. Maybe all of those people were completely mixed up, but I doubt it.
And yet, like always, you can’t provide any evidence to back up your claims.
As far as articles, I read all the mainstream sites: ESPN, CBS, NBC, Fox, Sportingnews, CNNSI, even bleacherreport, as well as blogs. Lots of newspapers too. I frequently went to Google News and searched “Big Ten expansion”and just went through whatever articles came up. I was interested and my reading was pretty thorough.
And yet Stewart Mandel’s column was new to you. Despite him being their most prominent columnist and you reading so many articles so thoroughly.
And I kept track.
And we all know how good you are with facts about MO.
Missouri was mentioned almost always. Nebraska was mentioned just a fraction of the time. That’s how it was, you can swear up and down until the end of time that it wasn’t that way and you’ll still be wrong.
I don’t think anyone said that wasn’t true. Most people assumed NE was untouchable, so they mentioned them once and then never again until the B12 started to crumble. MO got mentioned a lot because they were on the level of school that is assumed to be able to be taken from another conference. How many of these mentions claimed MO was the top choice?
The whole Mandel article thing is the perfect illustration of how disengenously contrarian you are. I give you a link to an article that clearly and thoroughly criticizes Missouri and says that the SEC shouldn’t invite them.
I’m amazed you’ve made it this far in life with those blinders on. I would have thought you’d be hit by traffic by now since you can’t see the real world.
As for looking for teams, yes I tried, I looked through the middle of the pack schools of every major conference and didn’t find any fits.
I’m sure you did, in your imaginary world where every other team was either too good or not good enough to be a fit.
I mean, I typed it so it must be a lie, right?
At this point, that seems to be a reasonably accurate characterization. And that opinon seems to be shared by many people with allegiances to a variety of schools on here. I’m sure we’re all just MO haters, though, because it couldn’t possibly be you.
I’m not saying Missouri should be allowed to take out their down period. But I don’t think all schools have similar excuses.
I’m sure you don’t. Of course, you also seem to define similar to mean “exactly the same” despite it’s actual defintion and usage by speakers of English the world over.
“total wins is a stupid way to rank teams because teams differ wildly in total number of games played”
You’re free to feel that way, but I always said the metric I was using was total wins. If you don’t like it make your own list.
I notice you completely avoided my question about when you ever said that to me. The first time you used the phrase “total wins” in this entire post by Frank was last night, in fact, when you claimed you’ve said multiple times in every comment that you were using total wins as the metric of comparison (June 16, 2012 at 11:04 pm). That means you haven’t made that claim in over two weeks. In other words, you are blatantly lying again.
And yeah, if you scrub all down periods everyone would go up. I never said otherwise. I wasn’t trying to re-write the history books.
Yes you have. You keep trying to compare MO without their worst period to other schools with their worst periods. That’s a ridiculous comparison. Every school has bad periods, and they are part of what makes the school’s reputation what it is. Maybe NW can make a csae for moving up if they take out their down time because nobody else has been that bad for that long. Even if everybody took out their worst stretch, NW would improve in the rankings. MO was bad for a few years, but not significantly more so than most other schools at their level.
I just made a simple point, several days ago, which is perfectly true: outside of Missouri’s down period of 13 years from 1984-1996 they’ve been more on the level of a school like Clemson, Michigan State or Arkansas rather than a school like Virginia, Iowa, or Purdue.
Except that level you claim for theose other schools is inclusive of down periods like the one you want to exempt MO from. In addition, MO was never at their level. Clemson, MSU and AR all claim national titles. Based on they way you use similar, you need to find teams that have never won a title to compare MO to instead.
All the nitpicking in the world won’t make that statement basically true.
Freudian slip?
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Andy,
“As for your clemson example, with 13 years taken out from 64-76, I’m not seeing how that’s equivalent.”
I’m again shocked at your lack of comprehension.
” Within those 13 years Clemson had the following win totals:
3, 2, 7, 5, 4, 5, 3, 4, 4, 6, 6, 5, 3
Missouri’s down period had these win totals:
5, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 2, 3, 5, 3, 1, 3
So the thing about the Clemson down period is it wasn’t even really that bad.”
And yet, if they get to remove it like you want to do with MO, they still stay way ahead of MO in total wins. You know, like Clemson has been a better program overall despite your desperate attempts to say MO is their peer.
“I’m just saying it should be kept in mind when looking at Missouri’s numbers.”
But nobody else should get that same consideration, right?
“It’s a completely fair point”
It’s not in the same ZIP code as fair.
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There’s not much to respond here. Through most of these posts you just go through my post and call me names and act like an asshole. This isn’t even a discussion anymore. I’ve just proven you wrong so many times that you hate me.
No, I never said “total wins”. You got me. Gold star for you. I said, and this is a direct quote from my first post on the subject: “If you bring those 13 years up to Missouri’s all-time average, then Missouri ranks all time in wins with Florida, Washington, Colorado, and Arkansas.” Yes, rank in all time wins. And every subsequent description included some variation on that. “rank in wins”, “all-time wins” etc.
Missouri claims two national titles in football:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_football_national_championships_in_NCAA_Division_I_FBS#Total_championship_selections_from_major_selectors_by_school
Missouri claims 2, Arkansas claims 2, Clemson claims 1, Washington claims 4, Michigan State claims 6. So yeah, I guess Michigan State is far ahead of Missouri in this new category you just brought up, but the others aren’t.
You’re willfully refusing to see my point about continuous strong success interrupted by 13 years of abysmal failure and then a revival being an actual thing. Sure, you can find failure in the histories of most every program of varying shapes and sizes. But I’ve communicated my point on this repeatedly and you keep pretending to not even undestrand it on the most basic level. You could just be legit and straight with me and say: yeah I get it, I just don’t like it, and therefore I don’t think you should say it. Something like that. But for some reason you keep trying to simultaneously argue with me on my own terms and then pretend like you don’t understand what those terms are so that you can undermine me.
On the terms that I laid out, it makes perfect sense and everything I’m saying is true. Mizzou is one of very, very few schools that was generall successful for a very long stretch of time: 1890s, 1900s, brief dip in the 1910s, then very strong in the 1920s-1960s, 1970s were moderately strong up until 1983. And then bam, total collapse. But all that time, nearly for an entire century, Missouri was a top 25-top30 level program. Then they fall down to maybe 90th or 100th place and stay there for 13 yeras. Then they gradually climb out for the last 15 years to where they are today, which is again a top 25-30ish program. That’s a unique narrative. Very few if any schools have had a narrative that fits that pattern in any way. That’s all I’m saying. It’s not a huge point. But it is a true point.
The only valid coutnerargument available to you is, “yeah, ok, so what? I don’t care. Your team sucked in the 80s and 90s therefore your history is medicore. So what if they were good before that. I don’t give a shit”*
*SPECIAL NOTE FOR PEOPLE ON THE AUTISTIC SPECTRUM: THESE QUOTES DO NOT INDICATE THAT BRIAN ACTUALLY SAID THESE WORDS OR THAT I AM DIRECTLY QUOTING HIM. I’M QUOTING WHAT HE SHOULD HAVE SAID IF HE WAS BEING HONEST.
But that’s not what you said. Instead you tried to play games with me, trying to defeat me within the ideas of my own theory. You tried to prove with facts that my theory isn’t even possible. And you failed over and over and over and over again. Because given what I’m actually saying, I’m right. It’s not hard to be right when you’re picking your own terms, you see. So I’m right on those terms. The only way around it is to dispute the terms. You grant that, yes, I’m right on my terms, but you don’t like my terms, so you don’t care. But you’re allergic to admitting I’m right about anything, ever, apparently. So it was just too heavy a lift for you. And so here we are, at an impasse. Howsabout you call me names some more, maybe it’ll make you feel better. Tool.
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Wow, he’s still talking.
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^^That was for the thread below.
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Andy,
You must have missed my response to your last post in this thread where I show how wrong you are about national titles (June 18, 2012 at 4:34 pm). I moved up and responded to a post one layer earlier to reduce how much scrolling is needed to get back to a reply link. This thread is way too long.
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“You see, players get a certain number of tickets per game, but sometimes they don’t use their allotment. Those are then open to the public.”
—Having players leave tickets specifically under your name isn’t exactly ‘open to the public’.
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“They can also get good tickets to games if they choose to pay to do so.”
—-What is the usual price for COMPLIMENTARY tickets? While this story is probably much adieu about nothing your constant inability to give an honest & accurate summation of events is why people constantly question your credibility.
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I know people who get these tickets regularly who don’t know any of the players. I don’t know specifically how it works, but I do know that it doesn’t always involve the players themselves. I assume they pay but I don’t really know the specifics.
I haven’t said a single dishonest thing on this forum ever. If ever I said anything that was wrong it was an honest mistake.
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I probably should have stated ‘and/OR accurate’ as I did not mean to imply that what comes across as an habitual creative interpretation of facts was intentional.
The news stories claim that Missouri BB players were leaving complimentary (ie free) tickets for Cooley by name. Yet in your posts you state that he merely bought tickets that were available to anyone off the street. Those are two very different scenarios.
Let’s not forget that Ed Rife had no official connection with Ohio State and was not a booster yet history shows that players having personal dealings with a criminal who is a fan of but not affiliated with the school they play for can have disastrous results
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OK, I’ll try to be more clear. The report is that a couple of years ago this Levi Cooley guy went to 9 games using player tickets.
What I was pointing out is that just because he was using player tickets doesn’t mean he got them from players. I know boosters at Missouri who get extra player tickets when the players don’t use them. They don’t know these players at all and yet somehow they get the tickets. I would think they pay for them, but maybe it’s just something that comes with being a big booster. They don’t want those seats to just go unused. I’ve never gotten any of these tickets, so I don’t know how it works. But they’ve told me that they don’t get them from the players even though they’re player tickets.
Levi wasn’t a booster himself but his best friend was. That’s probably how it happened.
Or maybe he did know a player or two on the team. He was a young black guy, supposedly very friendly and outgoing, so it’s not impossible.
I’m just saying we can’t say for sure either way.
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Scarlet_Lutefisk,
“The news stories claim that Missouri BB players were leaving complimentary (ie free) tickets for Cooley by name. Yet in your posts you state that he merely bought tickets that were available to anyone off the street. Those are two very different scenarios.”
By NCAA rules every player is entitled to 4 free tickets to a home game. Those don’t go on sale to the public in any official way, and players aren’t supposed to sell them, but they can give them to anyone. Record requests show that tickets were left for him by name to at least 9 games by players.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/jun/10/too-close-for-comfort/
Coolley was apparently a guest of a major booster on the flights, so saying he wasn’t a booster is drawing a fine line. He also had ample contact with players. MO apparently only sells these plane seats for major events (conference tourney, NCAA tourney, bowl games), which blows Andy’s theory of needing the money. The boosters are allowed 2 seats and can bring any guest they want. This real estate developer brought the guy who rents space from him for his car stereo shop.
Another thing to remember is that Frank Haith is now MO’s coach, and he was at Miami when Shapiro was getting into trouble there. He is apparently very good at turning a blind eye to who his players talk with, especially since this contact would be at official sites (before games, etc).
“Let’s not forget that Ed Rife had no official connection with Ohio State and was not a booster yet history shows that players having personal dealings with a criminal who is a fan of but not affiliated with the school they play for can have disastrous results”
MO conveniently investigated themselves and decided they were clear. One naturally wonders how hard they looked. Has anyone happened to check out the car stereo set ups of the MBB team to see if perhaps they traded tickets for free/discounted equipment? Have they checked the books at his shop yet to see if the booster perhaps reimbursed him for helping out players?
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Oh, Brian. You try so hard and fail so hard, don’t you?
Levi is not a booster. He’s never given money to Mizzou. He was friends with his landlord, who is one of the biggest boosters at Mizzou. He owns a ton of commercial real estate in Columbia. He claims to have not known anything about Levi’s secret drug involvement. No idea if that’s true, but Missouri has not been accused of any involvement whatsoever.
So Brian, riddle me this, how is giving seats to boosters on plaens not profitable to Mizzou? Seems like its likely quite a bit more profitable than just selling those seats to the public, considering these boosters are giving tens of thousands in donations per year.
And connecting this to Haith is pretty funny, considering Levi’s been a guest on flights and to games for several years, and Haith was just hired at Mizzou last year. But nice try, really.
Oh, and that investigation of Missouri: it was done by independent investigators, as it needed to be, seeing as how the NCAA might want to check in and make sure nothing fishy was going on. And yes, it came out clean. And the District Attorney also came out to officially state that MU is not implicated in any wrongdoing whatsoever.
And no, he didn’t have a “ton of access to the players”. At least not any more than anyone else who goes to games and lives in the same small town as a bunch of kids going to school there. Nobody ever held his hand and walked him over to the players and introduced him and then left him unsupervised to stick needles in their arms or anything. But feel free to keep making ridiculous unfounded innuendos like that. Really makes you look like the reasonable one here.
I assure you those tickets didn’t have to come from players. Boosters get them without knowing players. That’s a fact. There’s no handy website I can link to in on this forum that will instantly prove it. You can call me a liar until you’re blue in the face, but I’m not lying. It’s 100% true. Thing is, I’m actually someone in a position to know, and you’re not. Sometimes that happens. Deal with it.
So..you got any more insight for us?
This is a classic example of what I was saying: people using untruths and misguided opinions against Missouri. Funny how it happens so much on here. Not my fault though.
And to think, I’m supposed to be the crazy one.
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And before you ask, yes, those tickets would officially be from the players even though the players weren’t the ones giving them to him. That’s how it works. I know this because I asked.
And I’ll repeat, maybe they did come from players, and maybe they didn’t. There’s just no way to know given the information that was released.
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Andy,
“Levi is not a booster.”
I didn’t say he was. But he was a criminal with close ties to a major booster and got the same privileges as his friend the booster.
“He’s never given money to Mizzou.”
Not directly, anyway.
“He was friends with his landlord, who is one of the biggest boosters at Mizzou. He owns a ton of commercial real estate in Columbia. He claims to have not known anything about Levi’s secret drug involvement. No idea if that’s true, but Missouri has not been accused of any involvement whatsoever.”
I give the booster the benefit of the doubt for now, and nobody said MO has been accused.
“So Brian, riddle me this, how is giving seats to boosters on plaens not profitable to Mizzou?”
Well, giving by definition is not profitable. Selling them seats for 1-3 rides a year is not a major revenue source in any way. Sucking up to them so they donate is the presumed goal. I guess they need to do $2.6M more sucking up next time.
“Seems like its likely quite a bit more profitable than just selling those seats to the public, considering these boosters are giving tens of thousands in donations per year.”
Actually, I doubt they charge them a real premium price since these guys can afford to charter a private jet. They’d be better off requiring a donation and a cheaper price (like big schools do for season tickets), because donors get a tax break on donations. For PR purposes, I bet they basically charge what the seat is worth to avoid ticking off a donor.
“And connecting this to Haith is pretty funny, considering Levi’s been a guest on flights and to games for several years, and Haith was just hired at Mizzou last year.”
It’s just a fun coincidence that shows why schools should be careful about who has access to players. Some coaches keep a tight reign, and others don’t.
“Oh, and that investigation of Missouri: it was done by independent investigators, as it needed to be, seeing as how the NCAA might want to check in and make sure nothing fishy was going on. And yes, it came out clean. And the District Attorney also came out to officially state that MU is not implicated in any wrongdoing whatsoever.”
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/jun/10/too-close-for-comfort/
I’m going by the Tirbune’s report that MO’s AD investigated itself. It also says he definitely had contact with the players, and that their records request showed players left him tickets by name.
“And no, he didn’t have a “ton of access to the players”.”
This is precious. You make up words and then put quotes around them and try to pass it off as something I said. I did not ever say he had a ton of access. You are blatantly making stuff up. Lying. You know, the thing you claim you don’t ever do on here. You can’t accidentally misquote a post like that.
“At least not any more than anyone else who goes to games and lives in the same small town as a bunch of kids going to school there. Nobody ever held his hand and walked him over to the players and introduced him and then left him unsupervised to stick needles in their arms or anything.”
From the same article:
“We knew he was around our program,” she said. “Yeah, they meet the people that are.
The point is, he wasn’t a complete stranger to the players. Nobody said they were best friends or that he was dealing to them. I’d say the bigger risk would be that he got them discounts on stereo equipment since he had other profit sources.
“I assure you those tickets didn’t have to come from players.”
The article specifically says that they did based on a records request. Maybe they don’t have to, but they did. There are lots of other ways for booster to get tickets, too, I know.
“Thing is, I’m actually someone in a position to know, and you’re not.”
Right, this again. Andy the all-knowing and his mysterious sources that tell him things. I see your rumors and choose to go with the actual article stating categorically that you are wrong.
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Quotes by Brian:
“giving drug dealers access to your players.”
“Miami was stupid to let Shapiro have so much player access”
“Providing inside access to boosters has been a known issue for a while.”
“The school providing the access that leads to the problems looks worse.”
“It’s just a fun coincidence that shows why schools should be careful about who has access to players.”
So the clear pattern here is that you’re implying that Missouri was somehow granting lots of extra access for Levi Cooley to players vs any other random fan living in a small town with these student athletes who can choose to go talk to these guys whenever they feel like it. That’s simply not the case. I wasn’t directly quoting you, I was quoting your repeated message, not your direct words.
There’s a world of difference between meeting with someone and interacting in any substantive way. Surely you know this. And I’d bet a million bucks you’ve met a criminal or two in your life. And somehow you’re still with us.
The difference between being a “complete stranger” and being someone you “met” isn’t really all that great.
My sourses aren’t mysterious. I told you exactly who they are. Boosters I know who go to games. It’s not a rumor, it’s a fact. A rumor would be something I heard second or third hand. This is something I got directly from people who know. And yes, the record would show that they got their tickets from players too, but they didn’t. There’s some sort of indirect route to get them. They told me this immediately after the Levi thing came out to explain to me that the tickets didn’t necessarily come from the players, although maybe they did. You can call me a liar ’til the sun goes down and it’ll still be the truth.
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“I give the booster the benefit of the doubt for now”
How generous of you to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who’s already been thoroughly investigated and cleared.
“Sucking up to them so they donate is the presumed goal. I guess they need to do $2.6M more sucking up next time.”
Yep.
All of the games Levi went to w/ player tickets were pre-Haith. The only game or trip Levi was associated with under Haith was the NCAA tournament trip, and he got arrested early on, never even made it to the game. So linking him to Haith is a mammoth stretch, even for you.
That tribune article is a new one I hadn’t read, and reports things differently then the older articles I had read. The article says that the players’ contact with him was equal to any other fan that would go to games, sit in good seats, and be frieldly. The KC Star had an interview last week with Steve Moore, one of Missouri’s players. He said Levi was sometimes at games and they liked him because he seemed like a good fan, but none of them knew him or anything, he was just a guy that came to games. If this is the sort of nafarious “access” you’re talking about then I’m not seeing what flying on planes has to do with anything. And even if he did have some sort of special access (and by all accounts he didnt), what would that even mean? What’s he going to do with it that would break any kids of rules? He’s not dealing with recruits that he can pay to come to Missouri. He’s a fan of the actual team that’s playing now. So what benefit would he have to give them free money or something like that? Is it supposed to motivate them to win more games? What’s your point?
Missouri Athletic Director Mike Alden: “It can be virtually impossible to be able to determine the backgrounds of every single person that has an affinity for your program,” Alden said. “I think you have a high level of responsibility, but certainly there’s also a high level of inability to be able to monitor every single person that has access to your kids.”
Would you disagree with that, Brian? Seems to me you’re being a little unrealistic with your standards. Do you truly believe Ohio State does any better?
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Andy,
Quotes by Brian:
“giving drug dealers access to your players.”
True.
“Miami was stupid to let Shapiro have so much player access”
True.
“Providing inside access to boosters has been a known issue for a while.”
True.
“The school providing the access that leads to the problems looks worse.”
True.
“It’s just a fun coincidence that shows why schools should be careful about who has access to players.”
True.
So the clear pattern here is that you’re implying that Missouri was somehow granting lots of extra access for Levi Cooley to players vs any other random fan living in a small town with these student athletes who can choose to go talk to these guys whenever they feel like it.
False. That’s the story your twisted little mind made up to justify your indignation.
That said, a random fan doesn’t get access to players on the team flight or at the NCAA tournament. Coolley had all the same access that random fans has plus what he got from his booster buddy.
I wasn’t directly quoting you, I was quoting your repeated message, not your direct words.
You should look up the definition of quote. Clearly you don’t understand how it works. You attributed words that weren’t mine to me with the intent of fooling others into believing I said them. It’s pure lying.
My sourses aren’t mysterious. I told you exactly who they are. Boosters I know who go to games. It’s not a rumor, it’s a fact. A rumor would be something I heard second or third hand.
As opposed to something you heard from someone who saw it, heard it or whatever? That is second hand.
And yes, the record would show that they got their tickets from players too, but they didn’t.
They left tickets for him by name.
You can call me a liar ’til the sun goes down and it’ll still be the truth.
Yes, it will. You’re a liar. You lie regularly on here, and then try to play it off as accidental or something else when caught. Many people have noticed it and said so.
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Andy,
“I give the booster the benefit of the doubt for now”
How generous of you to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who’s already been thoroughly investigated and cleared.
Thorough is in the eye of the beholder. The law doesn’t care if he broke NCAA rules, and no brief internal investigation is that thorough.
That tribune article is a new one I hadn’t read, and reports things differently then the older articles I had read.
Yeah, who’d think to check the St. Louis paper for news about MO?
And even if he did have some sort of special access (and by all accounts he didnt), what would that even mean? What’s he going to do with it that would break any kids of rules?
Are even you really that dumb?
He’s not dealing with recruits that he can pay to come to Missouri. He’s a fan of the actual team that’s playing now. So what benefit would he have to give them free money or something like that?
I think you actually redefine the term clueless.
Missouri Athletic Director Mike Alden: “It can be virtually impossible to be able to determine the backgrounds of every single person that has an affinity for your program,” Alden said. “I think you have a high level of responsibility, but certainly there’s also a high level of inability to be able to monitor every single person that has access to your kids.”
You don’t need to know a lot of backgrounds if you limit access. Players will bump into people of all types, but it’s different when the school makes the access possible. They knew this guy was around their players because they gave him access, but knew nothing about him. That’s a risk they didn’t have to take. There’s little to nothing they can do about all the other people that come into contact with their players, but this wasn’t some guy that came up and shook a player’s hand and took a picture.
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*Brian, the article in the KC Star said passengers on the planes sat in the back and not with ethe players. Players are quoted as saying they had very little interaction with them. Beyond that Levi just went to the games as a fan. Thousands of other people do the same. How is that additional access? You’re grasping at straws.
*As for me using the quote marks, I though it would be obvious it wasn’t a direct quote considering it didnt’ directly match what you said. It was meant to just signify that I was speaking from your perspective and not my own. Yeah, it’s not the formal way of using it, but if you’ve been around the internets you’ve probably seen it before. I didn’t invent it. It’s not lying, it’s just not fitting to your strict excpectations.
*Man, you’re really getting pathetic. No, someone who has actually done something and then tells you about it is not a rumor. Dictionary.com definiton of rumor: a story or statement in general circulation without confirmation or certainty as to facts. This is not in general circulation, that’s not wheere I’m getting it from, and there is a certainty of facts. I’ve talked to the direct witness. You are a tool.
*”They left the tickets for him by name” – Again, did you not see what I said about this. I know boosters who get tickets left for them by players by name and they’ve never even met these players. The only way to utilize this bit of information is to call me a straight up liar, which you’ve done
*But no, I’m not a liar. Every thing I’ve ever written on here is the truth as I know it. Yeah I’ve made mistakes. Why? Because I write these posts very fast. I type about 100 wpm. I write them stream of conciousness and then I press the submit button without reading them over. Why? Because I don’t want to spend any more time at these things then necessary. Maybe that’s a bad choice sometimes because I screw up my posts but I don’t really have any plans to change so you’ll just have to accept that I’ve made a few mistakes. Doesn’t make me a liar. Not even close. But it does make you a jerk for calling me a liar. And it makes you wrong. Again.
*I don’t live in Missouri. I don’t read the newspapers every day at this point. I basically only read them when someone I know sends me an article to read. Showing me an article and finding out I haven’t read it yet gets you 300 whogivesashit points. Congrats.
*OK, so I’m dumb and clueless according to you,and here’s why: I think that the odds of a guy who’s a fan and goes to games and has flown in the back of their plane three times isn’t really any more likely to have paid players or cheated than any of the otehr hundreds of people that are big fans and hang around the program a lot. Or any of the tens of thousands of people all aroudn the country that do it with other teams. Just because he sold coke doesn’t mean he violated NCAA rules with players. That’s like saying anyone who is a rapist also embezzles money. It’s just not a logical conclusion you can draw. You wish you could. You wish so hard. Because then Missouri’s basketball program woudl be hurt by this. But it’s just not true. Your whole premis is faulty.
*What is this magic special acces that this guy supposedly got? I mean it’s truly incredible that you keep yammering on about all this wonderful access Levi got to players but what was it exactly? Where has this super access been reported? He sat in the back of a plane, wow. And he went to some games, ok. Wooptydo. And if they did look into him, what are they supposed to find? Are they supposed to hire a private investigator to follow him around after hours to see if he’s selling coke? They guy had no criminal record. He’s a local business owner. Likable guy, supposedly. Been around for years. Didn’t cause any trouble, was well mannered. What exactly were they supposed to look for? Truth is, you don’t even know. You’re just bitching to bitch. You live for this stuff. You get off on trying to point out the failings in opposing groups, and you think you’ve got something here but you’ve got next to nothing. But you want to milk it for whatever you can. And you fail and fail and fail. It’s just sad.
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Brian:
To quote Ron White, “You can’t fix stupid.”
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ccrider55,
To quote Ron White, “You can’t fix stupid.”
Too true. Or crazy.
And saying that is what got me into this.
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Yeah, I’m crazy and you’re an asshole.
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Andy,
“Yeah, I’m crazy”
Good for you. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
“and you’re an asshole.”
Oh, your biting wit has cut me to the quick. How shall I ever recover?
Perhaps I should respond at a level you understand:
I’m rubber and you’re glue, what you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.
Didn’t you just accuse me of being the one calling you names?
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wow, he’s still talking..
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@Frank
Is that a sarcastic “Progress!” in your tweet? Sounds like they are struggling to come to a consensus on much of anything else, let alone revenue distribution.
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@bullet – Very sarcastic. Proverbial one step forward, two steps back.
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I think the commissioners are wise in that the will bring several plans to the presidents and make them choose.
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And Delany and the non-AQs run out of the room without talking to anyone. Opposites attract?
I suspect the non-AQs not being quoted is because noone is interested in talking to them. I heard the MAC commissioner on the radio a week or two ago. Thompson gets quoted a lot in the western papers.
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http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/19338707/bcs-meetings-promise-playoff-talks-but-little-in-way-of-solutions
Outline of the BCS meetings. Looks like everything outside of on campus games is back on the table.
Most interesting part (to me at least):
Now there is word that the entire three-game playoff may be played outside the bowls. There is concern that if the bowls host the semis, coaches will bring their teams in shortly before the games, thus ruining that “bowl experience.”
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Between this and Twitter chatter, it is pretty clear that the commissioners are not going to be reaching a consensus and will submit multiple proposals to the presidents and let them work it out instead of present the presidents with one proposal to either accept or reject.
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If neutral, non-bowl semi-finals are used, I officially despise whatever result is reached. That makes it easier to go to 8 and removes the Rose Bowl as the season goal.
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Welcome to the dark side.
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If neutral, non-bowl semi-finals are used, I officially despise whatever result is reached. That makes it easier to go to 8…
How? It’s probably easier just to plug 8 teams into the Big 4 bowls than it is to set up 4 separate neutral site games.
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It’s too bad they aren’t seriously considering on-campus sites for the semis; that was my favorite part of the whole scenario. Getting away from the bowls will put more money in the hands of the schools, but not as much as the on-campus games, what with the parking and concessions and not renting out some NFL stadium.
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I really think they (B1G/P12) will push for the Plus 1. The Plus 1 probably creates the biggest financial advantage over the other conferences. Plus it strengthens the other bowl games as other teams not in the Rose or Champions bow may have a chance to slip into the NCG game.
With the Plus 1 there are the same number of games as a final four but that plan (Final Four) probably creates a financial imbalance for the Final Four vs. the other bowls in total. And then comes the haggling over distribution. Distributions of just the NCG would likely be similar to the current set up adjusted for the remaining power conferences.
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@Kevin I thought the same thing earlier today and for the exact reasons you state. Given some time to settle in however, I think it is more likely this may just be a tactic being used to get as much leverage as possible as they hammer out details of the 4-team playoff.
Unless this is some big Kabuki theater production being put on by Delaney, Neinas/Bowlsby, Scott and Slive it seems like we really are headed for a 4 team playoff.
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Defend the Rose Bowl!
Worst case: we wind up with over 40% of the populace watching a true Rose Bowl. Mild interest in watching the game featuring final two of a little over half the nation. The F1/2+NC game.
Best case: we have a true Rose Bowl, with the winner getting a bonus game a week or two later.
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The commissioners have become celebrities all of a sudden, and now that celebrity is a nuisance because their presidents want them to do something very, very unpopular. So…they’re throwing it back to the presidents, where it can die into a controversy-ridden “plus one.”
They major conferences can make more money by creating their own bowls which will host the “biggest” games that will decide the eventual beauty contest we’ll call a “plus one.”
Rose and Champs are already set up.
Next, you’ll see lobbying for the next spots. Who gets SEC #2 (so teams like Alabama 2011 get solid match-ups to improve their stock in the “plus one”)? Who gets Big Ten #2 (so teams like OSU 2005 and Michigan 2006 get nice showcase games for the “plus one” voting)? Who gets Big 12 #2 (so teams like Texas 2008 get visibility for the “plus one”)?
Maybe the power conferences will further consolidate…and match-up their 2nd place teams as well? Pac-12/Big Ten in Fiesta…SEC/Big12 in Cotton (assuming Sugar gets the Champion Bowl). Leave the Orange with ACC #1.
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allthatyoucantleavebehind,
“The commissioners have become celebrities all of a sudden, and now that celebrity is a nuisance because their presidents want them to do something very, very unpopular. So…they’re throwing it back to the presidents, where it can die into a controversy-ridden “plus one.””
I think this is the smart move on their part. The commissioners deal with the business of the sport (COO), but the presidents run CFB (CEO). The presidents should have to be the ones to make this decision, and several of them said early in the process that the presidents would be making this decision.
In addition, I think negotiations work better when the lower level guys do the hard work to narrow things down, then the big boys step in to hammer out an agreement before letting the lawyers dot the i’s and cross the t’s. The commissioners have dug too deep into the details and been involved for too long to be open minded. The presidents can bring some fresh perspective as well as reminding people of other relevant issues (missed class time, travel for athletes, etc).
Most CFB fans are going to be upset with the outcome no matter what it is. Everyone has their own plan they prefer, and the presidents will fall short for almost everyone. Let the presidents make the decision and take the heat for it.
“They major conferences can make more money by creating their own bowls which will host the “biggest” games that will decide the eventual beauty contest we’ll call a “plus one.””
I disagree in several ways. First, I think only the B10 and P12 would support a plus 1, so it won’t happen. Second, the major conferences all along could have made more money by creating their own major bowls but they never even discussed it. Heck, it took almost 80 years for the SEC to lock in an opposing conference champ for their bowl game. If all they want is money, they’d go bigger and blow off the bowls. All indications are that TV would pay the most for an 8 team bracket that is played when TV chooses, but that’s not what will happen so clearly this process isn’t all about the money.
“Rose and Champs are already set up.
Next, you’ll see lobbying for the next spots.”
I’m surprised we haven’t heard anything yet. Are the ACC in talks with anybody on this issue? I could easily see them getting an Orange Bowl deal to play someone from the combined pool of ND/BE champ/SEC #3.
“Maybe the power conferences will further consolidate…and match-up their 2nd place teams as well? Pac-12/Big Ten in Fiesta…SEC/Big12 in Cotton (assuming Sugar gets the Champion Bowl). Leave the Orange with ACC #1.”
I don’t think so. I think they plan to have a free market for runners up so they can make the best match-ups. If they did pair up, I think they would swap pairings to P12/B12 in the Fiesta and B10/SEC in the Cotton (or Orange). I think both the SEC and B10 realize they play each other in too many top bowls right now and would try for more diversity.
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@Brian
I made that point about lower level guys some time ago. I thought maybe the commissioners were too high level to be doing much of this work. You start with the top giving you general directions and then get the lower level to get the detail worked out and the higher level to make the executive decisions.
Its possible the last couple of weeks the Presidents have re-iterated to the commissioners that they will be making the decisions. The makeup of the presidents commission is interesting. I wonder how much they will be operating on directions and how much will be their individual judgement.
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Yes, I remember you saying it. It is pretty much the way any negotiation has to work. In this case I think the presidents have told the commissioners they are the middle men that attend the meetings and convey the thoughts of their bosses. They’ve certainly said publicly several time they will make the decision.
As for the committee, it would be interesting to know how Perlman acts. He’s clearly on the status quo side, but the rest of the B10 presidents aren’t all as anti-playoff as him I don’t think. We’ll he represent the entire B10 equally, or favor his position?
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My earlier musings turned into a full-fledged blog post. http://nittanylionsden.com/2012-articles/june/retreat-is-the-qplus-oneq-college-footballs-future.html
I think it makes total sense for the Fiesta to snag Pac-12 #2 and Big Ten #2…while the Cotton upgrades a bit and gets SEC #2 and Big 12 #2. This strengthens inter-conference competition, especially if the “plus one” prevails. Those match-ups will be the fierce competitions on the way to a national title. After that, each conference can and should diversify its opponents. Alamo stays as Big12/Pac-12…Capital One and Outback stay as Big Ten/SEC.
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allthatyoucantleavebehind,
“I think it makes total sense for the Fiesta to snag Pac-12 #2 and Big Ten #2…while the Cotton upgrades a bit and gets SEC #2 and Big 12 #2. This strengthens inter-conference competition, especially if the “plus one” prevails.”
I understand that point of view, but I’m not sure it makes sense for the B10 and P12 and maybe the SEC. The most lucrative non-BCS bowls are B10/SEC match-ups, and I think both conferences want to keep that. The B10 and P12 will also be playing each other so much in OOC play that the bowls really risk rematches and B10/P12 fatigue. We’ll be going from essentially 1 or 2 B10/P12 games per season to 14 with your plan. It’s going to lose its novelty. Besides, I don’t think B10 fans want every important bowl out west. FL is a lot closer for most alumni and fans.
With the Champs bowl replacing the Cotton bowl pairing, I see the B12 and P12 wanting to play each other, too. I could see the Orange getting SEC #3 versus the ACC champ, but I don’t think they can get #2.
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I would tend to agree w/ Brian. You don’t want ALL Big 10-Pac 12 match-ups. In fact, outside the Rose, the Pac-12 is usually seen as having a pretty lackluster bowl line-up. I’m sure the Pac wants another Bowl with the Big 10, I doubt the Big 10 reciprocates. A Big 10-SEC match-up in the Sugar makes sense (they already play a similar match-up in a different bowl). A Pac-12/Big 12 in the Fiesta makes some sense, at least geographically.
But I disagree that the “Plus-1” stays. You can do all the foregoing and still have a playoff. Plus-1 would be such a letdown for most involved, including the fans. I would agree with Neinas in that it can’t go backwards to that.
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Option B (IMO) would be the Fiesta to snag Big 12 #2 and Pac-12 #2…while the Capital One steps up big time and gets SEC #2 and Big Ten #2. That would promote the “cross-pollination” that you mention…while keeping the SEC/Big Ten premier games.
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“Maybe the power conferences will further consolidate…and match-up their 2nd place teams as well? Pac-12/Big Ten in Fiesta…SEC/Big12 in Cotton (assuming Sugar gets the Champion Bowl). Leave the Orange with ACC #1.”
I don’t think so. I think they plan to have a free market for runners up so they can make the best match-ups. If they did pair up, I think they would swap pairings to P12/B12 in the Fiesta and B10/SEC in the Cotton (or Orange). I think both the SEC and B10 realize they play each other in too many top bowls right now and would try for more diversity.
If the power conferences do something like this, they are essentially telling the ACC to dissolve, because there’s no room whatsoever for them at the big boys’ table. Maybe that’s perceived as a side benefit for the SEC, Big 12 and Big Ten (the Pac really doesn’t fit into the equation), as they take the cream of the ACC and leave the remaining members to cavort with the Big East.
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@Kevin: It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall as the various conference commissioners talk to the university presidents about the options for a post-season.
By and large, I agree with you that Delany and Scott would seek a Plus One because it keeps the Rose Bowl in place as the destination site for the Big Ten and Pac 12 Conference champions. The Festival of Roses is not only a national event, but has major international exposure as well. In that sense, the game itself is part of a larger event that the presidents see as one that promotes not only their universities, but the conferences themselves. When Larry Scott starts talking about marketing the Pac 12 in China, for example, you can see why they’d want to keep a marketing vehicle like the Festival of Roses firmly in Pac 12 (and Big Ten) hands.
If Slive, Neinas and Bowlsby are really looking at having the top four teams in the playoff, then it shows that their outlook on the upcoming Champions Bowl clearly isn’t the same as the Big Ten and Pac 12 have with the Rose Bowl. We all know, for example, that a four-team playoff from last year would have meant the Champions Bowl would have had the same two teams as last year’s Cotton Bowl–Arkansas and Kansas State. That’s a whole lot different than LSU and OkState playing one another.
I’ll be intrigued to see if the university presidents tell Delany and Scott to draw a line in the sand for next week’s meeting and to give full and unwavering support for the Plus One in order to protect their interests in the Rose Bowl.
It would also mean that the Champions Bowl would actually have the SEC and Big XII Conference champions play in it each year. That likely knocks out one of those two teams from the national championship game to follow and it sets up a situation where the NC game is SEC or Big XII champion v. Big Ten or Pac 12 champion. That’s not to say that the ACC or the major independents are all bystanders in this, but it does help strengthen four of the conferences over all the others.
That said, I’d be curious to find out what the ACC, Big East, etc. think about a Plus One. Would it be a more acceptable option for them if the only other one is the top four teams without consideration for conference championships?
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The Plus 1 option is likely just a negotiation point used by the minority/powerful conferences in order to gain leverage against the majority/weaker conferences. Besides folks interested in preserving the preeminance of the Rose Bowl, a Plus 1 does not make sense.
President’s priority (that the season not extend too long) and commissioner’s priority (more TV media money) both point towards a final 4 format. If the Plus 1 is being mentioned, it’s probably because the commissioners are really discussing distribution of revenues. The Plus 1 can be a good metaphor for non-AQ commissioners who may be seeking too much revenue for their schools.
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Here’s how it makes sense.
If the “Champs Bowl” actually GETS the SEC #1 and Big 12 #1 and the SEC and Big 12 split the TV money for that, they’ll get far more than if the SEC #1 and Big 12 #1 go to a “4-team playoff” semifinal, which would be split among 11 conferences. While the Champs Bowl might get less TV money than the 4-team playoff bowl, when it doesn’t have to be shared, it’s far more money (with power and access control, to boot!).
And watch this…in a “plus one,” the SEC #2 and Big 12 #2 might have a chance to break in to the championship scenario. (Like Alabama 2011 and Texas 2008) Now, they also own a 50% share of another bowl game’s revenue (without sharing it with the other conferences).
To break it down another way…with fictitious numbers…
4-team playoff…3 games…800 million dollars. After it’s divided up (not fairly, but still divided), the SEC might get 125 million. (The Sun Belt, for comparison’s sake, gets 30 million.)
“plus one”…one championship game…400 million dollars. After it’s divided up (not fairly, but still divided), the SEC might get 60 miillion. (The Sun Belt, for comparison’s sake, gets 15 million)
But, they sell the Champs bowl for 200 million. Get 100 million of that.
Then, they sell the Cotton Bowl for 100 million. Get 50 million of that.
To compare, the SEC could net 210 million for itself if it controls its own money, own TV sales. Meanwhile, the Sun Belt gets half of what it would if the playoff were implemented.
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allthatyoucantleavebehind,
“To break it down another way…with fictitious numbers…
4-team playoff…3 games…800 million dollars. After it’s divided up (not fairly, but still divided), the SEC might get 125 million. (The Sun Belt, for comparison’s sake, gets 30 million.)
“plus one”…one championship game…400 million dollars. After it’s divided up (not fairly, but still divided), the SEC might get 60 miillion. (The Sun Belt, for comparison’s sake, gets 15 million)
But, they sell the Champs bowl for 200 million. Get 100 million of that.
Then, they sell the Cotton Bowl for 100 million. Get 50 million of that.
To compare, the SEC could net 210 million for itself if it controls its own money, own TV sales. Meanwhile, the Sun Belt gets half of what it would if the playoff were implemented.”
I have a slight problem with your numbers. I don’t see a 4 team playoff making $800M, a bowl getting $200M, or a next level bowl getting $100M. ABC is paying $300M for 8 Rose Bowls and 2 NCG from 2007-2014 (based on ratings, roughly $38M per NCG and $28M per RB on average). I realize fees are escalating, but not that much.
Try this:
Playoff = $400M
NCG = $150M (because it isn’t a pure playoff, it’s worth a little less)
Champs/Rose Bowl = $60M (because it’s not a semifinal, it’s worth a little less)
SEC (playoff) = $60M
SEC (plus 1) = $22.5M + $30M – expenses to run the bowl = $50M
In this scenario, the SEC loses money. It all depends on the ratio of numbers you use between the playoff, the NCG and the bowl.
Remember that the Cotton payout exists either way. It will change some in value, but you gave it no value in the playoff scenario.
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How do you see your ‘President’s priority’ point more towards a final 4 than a +1? How do you see a +1 extending the season longer than seeded semis?
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The semis can occur between Christmas & New Years. With the MNC final a week or so later. This timing gives the Final 4 an earlier end date than a Plus 1. There have been statements from Presidents that they do not want football to extend into the Spring semester.
The Plus 1 would have to be determined after the New Years day bowls. The MNC game in a Plus 1 would be later than in a Final 4.
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I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
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No, you just chime in with hit and run unfounded assertions and snark, and then when you’re called on your bs you don’t even defend it because you can’t.
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Andy, this was a better board before you got here.
You are really quite obnoxious.
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I’ve been here since 2009, pretty sure I was here long before you. Greg is obnoxious. Search his name in this thread. He’s intentionally provoked me with about 10 hit and run snide remarks, and now another one where he’s pretending to be above the fray. He deserves to be called out for it.
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It’s amazing how everyone in these threads but you is obnoxious.
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And here comes Brian to assert his “king” status as the most obnoxious of them all.
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mushroomgod, I’ll make a deal with you: as soon as people stop calling me names (like “pig” for instance), acting like complete dicks toward me, and as soon as they stop bashing Missouri with complete untruths and idiotic insults, I’ll stop calling them out for it. It shouldn’t be hard for them. After all, I’m just some guy on the internet wo doesn’t matter, and Missouri is just some insignificant school nobody should care about. How about we start now. I’d be happy to see it. I promise I won’t call anyone else out or stir anything up as long as they can do this.
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This is painful, man. Sorry if you have been around since 2009, but these threads didn’t become like this until you started posting. Somehow dozens of thread with thousands of posts have come and gone without this level of acrimony.
You appear to be the common thread between the arguments.
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Ross, it’s because over the last week or two I’ve refused to let people get away with the things I ljust isted above. My patience for that crap has ended. And when I complain people have been more than happy to just pile on and keep it going rather than just let it go. I’m not going to be the one to let it go. Not this time. If they want to stop I’ll stop. I’d be happy to. But if they keep it going I’m going to keep calling them out.
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Sorry dude…sometimes idiocy needs to be told it is so so it can either move on or get smart.
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“…bashing Missouri with complete untruths…”
Remember that creative interpretations of facts I mentioned earlier?
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“Clemson BOT chairman ends Big 12 talk”
http://www.tigernet.com/view/story.do?id=10666
Clemson Board of Trustees chair David Wilkins told Tigernet:
“We are 1000 percent in the ACC.”
“There are no offers, no discussions and we are concentrating on being the best we can be in the ACC”.
I’m going to go out on a big limb and predict:
FSU is not joing the Big 12 without a regional partner, and Miami, GT and VT have said no thanks.
FSU is not going to join with UL and WVU, ISU, KSU, KU in a Big 12 division against the TX-OK schools.
Next rumor please.
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Big East, err Country looks to become Big World, invites University of Nepal, says the sky is the limit…
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While I never really thought that FSU and Clemson to the Big XII was especially likely, until the ACC actually signs a GOR nothing is off the table. Remember A&M and Mizzou both publicly pledged to stay with the Big XII less than a year before they announced their departure and WVU voted in favor of the Big East’s 27 month waiting period less than six months before they decided to violate.
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Its a strong pro-ACC statement. However, I agree that this does not definitively end it It is definitely clear the BOT wants people to quit talking about it.
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On another Internet site, there was a guy (not the “dude” of WV fame) that was convinced that the FSU/Clemson move was happening. He tried to come off as an “insider”, although I’m fairly certain he had no inside sources. However, he spoke with such convinction that this move absolutely would happen, that he would venomously attack anyone that dare question it. Now, even he is backing off the move. Of course, its couched as “something changed last minute and I was right all along” rather than the “I was wrong and this never was a lock” narrative, but I suppose it says something that even the strongest supporters (even random Internet people) are backing down. I’d agree its not finalized, so wwe can’t count out anything. But maybe this whole thing has really died down for once.
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I have a hard time believing that the FSU/Clemson move is or was close to being done at any given time.
There was an air of momentum because of the rumor mill moving in high gear and FSU’s chair talking along with Clemson’s board having “discussions”, but none of that equates to a move being at the point of the dotted line.
Plus, you had DeLoss Dodds talk down the potential move, and he might just be the most transparent person in this entire business. I mean, we all act like this is a poker game, but Dodds has almost always presented Texas’ point of view as truthfully as he could. I’m more inclined to believe that the Big 12 is still trying to figure out where it wants to go, and that they’re still trying to get ND into some kind of affiliation with them (via Dodds).
The Big 12 is like herding cats; they managed to get onto the same page for 5 minutes to bring in TCU and WVU, and then they went back to pursuing their own agendas. Until Bowlsby comes in and really gets a consensus on the future of the Big 12, there isn’t going to be anything going on…
And of course, the playoff scenarios hang over the ACC, Big 12, and ND, and until we get clarity on the eventual replacement for the BCS, none of these schools at issue is going to make a drastic decision.
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zeek: It’s not close because neither side is ready. The B12 is changing management and adding new members. FSU and Clemson aren’t close because saying they’re considering moving apparently requires them to escrow $10 mil.
If it’s going to happen, it’ll be at least July. With August 15 the date by which ACC members must commit for the following year, if things don’t start moving by late July, it’s probably not going to happen this year.
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Wilkins said nothing in conflict with his statement in May. If he says they will not consider any offers, that’s a change.
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The “plus one” is back. Here’s what it could look like. http://nittanylionsden.com/2012-articles/june/retreat-is-the-qplus-oneq-college-footballs-future.html
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I am totally on board with this article. While a Final Four would be epic in terms of popularity and money the other bowl games would suffer greatly.
A plus one would bring the bowls back to prominence.
I kinda go back to I think Delany’s comment from earlier in the year, “We are going to take back New Year’s Day”. The only way they do that is through a Plus One. The Final Four could likely diminish the relevance of New Years Day. I’ve come full circle and now strongly support a Plus One as it totally preserves tradition while still matching 1 vs. 2. And I think it will do a better job of matching 1 vs. 2 than the current BCS structure.
There will always be some controversy between 2 and 3 but not as much as between 3 through 7. The only way to truly eliminate that would be an 8 or 16 team playoff and that would destroy the regular season.
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I think they can “take back NY’s Day” if the major bowls are played on either Dec. 31 or Jan. 1. Whether it’s part of a “plus one” or a 4-team playoff. All it takes is for them to stop spreading the major bowls over 4, 5, 6 days. But, of course, MORE bowls will be relevant in the “plus one” than in the 4-team playoff…which makes the drama spread out more.
I don’t think a “plus one” will do a better job than the current system. On the one hand, it will give voters a larger sample size of games to judge a team by…but an undefeated team that loses its bowl game will be eliminated (or else will create a lame championship game) whereas a team that lost in September but wins its bowl game will be praised. If anything, there will be more outrage after a team wins a blockbuster, high-profile game and is shafted, than the current system where the regular season merely concludes.
Simply put, there are no guarantees in a “plus one” after you win.
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I don’t think 12/31 is a good day for major bowls. Most people aren’t watching at night due to parties and such, and the afternoon isn’t great unless it happens to be a weekend. 1/1 is much better, and maybe 1/2.
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Kevin,
I have to agree with you, although it will likely not be popular among the vast majority of fans and posters here.
Controversy is part of what makes college football popular and unique among sports. The limitation of the season is the small sample size. The plus-one as per allthatyoucantleavebehind, increases the sample size and provides some compelling games between conferences.
After the 82 season everyone was dreaming about the possibility of a plus one between and an Orange Bowl champ, #1 Nebraska and and undefeated Cotton Bowl champion Texas. Unfortunately both lost their bowls games making it moot.
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Schnellenberger is using that season as an example why you should have a 64(!) team playoff. His #5 Miami, who won the MNC that year would have been excluded in a 4 team. IMO, the only reason Nebraska and Texas lost was because they didn’t get to play each other. Both were horribly listless.
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So it appears that Big 12 expansion with FSU and Clemson is dying down, and I am trying to reconcile why. A few possibilities:
A. The increase in revenue from adding FSU and Clemson was highly exaggerated. If the numbers were as high as the WVU bloggers claimed (including specific increases for specific schools that was supposedly included in the latest contract), then every party involved would be crazy to not make it happen.
B. Texas put its foot down. Deloss Dodds has been open about his preference to stay at 10 teams while continuing to focus on Notre Dame. Numerous sources have claimed Texas is the one Big 12 school most adamant against expansion, and they may have finally flexed their muscles in the negotiation room.
C. FSU and/or Clemson were never as close to leaving for the Big 12 as the blogosphere claimed. Just a week or two ago it seemed as though both schools were out the door, but recent comments from FSU and Clemson leadership have blasted the Big 12 while propping up the ACC. The latter is normal in CYA realignment-speak, but the former makes zero sense if you are actually considering a move. To me, the comments are clearly intended to get the fanbases to move on.
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With no special knowledge, I’d guess C plus some of A but probably not B. I don’t think UT has the power to block it by themselves.
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In all honesty, I’m not sure that’s the right way of looking at it.
The rumor mill started this story first. Then Haggard (FSU Chair) got a hold of the rumors that the ACC had control of football T3 rights but not basketball T3 rights and the notion that the Big 12 would pay more, and he went off and declared FSU open for hunting season. FSU’s coach also said they should keep their options open.
That got the rumor mill into overdrive, ESPN spoke out against that in a rare defense of its contract with the ACC, and Clemson’s board decided to have some meetings on realignment.
That’s really all the “pro-expansion” angle that we’ve gotten thus far other than the driving force of the Big 12-SEC champion bowl that would leave the ACC outside of the top 4 grouping.
We’re still really at the first step here though. Until we get a lot more movement from the presidents running FSU and Clemson (and neither of them has stepped forward to take the banner for moving like with A&M and Mizzou), nothing is going to happen.
Also, Bowlsby takes power in the Big 12 tomorrow, and we still need to see where the ACC, Big 12, and ND stand after the playoff situation is sorted out…; this could be a whole lot of nothing if the playoff situation makes it thus.
Ironically, a plus-one would help the Big 12 get FSU/Clemson, whereas a selection committee choosing teams for a 4 team playoff would be likely to hurt their effort to get those schools.
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Of course, none of this means that a move can’t happen within the next 2 or 3 months with FSU/Clemson to the Big 12.
It just means that there’s still a lot of stuff that needs to be sorted out…
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Maybe in 2 or 3 years, but no one is leaving the ACC until the playoff format is settled, the XII TV contract is settled, etc. and that is not going to be by the Aug 15 notice deadline. However, potential moves from the ACC will remain in play unlessl the ACC can turn the 1000 year commitment statements into a legally binding GoR.
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Are we back to calling two semis and a final a plus one? I was under the impression that the currently talked about plus one was a re-ranking/selection for the championship game occurring after the bowls.
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Nope, I meant the actual plus one as in the current system with the final game seeding selected after the bowls.
That would be a huge help to the Big 12 getting FSU/Clemson.
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Mizzou proclaimed loyalty to the conference and then bolted. Not surprising that CU would deny interest and point out the shortcomings of the conference. Of course adding CU/FSU/GTech and ?? for a pod would dramatically reduce the shortcomings (travel academics) of the bigxii for Clemson, so it may just be posturing and negotiation.
With the $10 mil escrow requirement I can’t imagine that anyone from the ACC would ever consider a conference switch until it is in the bag and very close the deadline for the subsequent year. Thats too much cash to have hanging in the breeze.
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Without FSU the B12 is still a top heavy fruit waiting to be plucked. How I wish the B1G had bit the bullet and snagged Oklahoma (and if need be OSU) when it had the chance. More Kings are what the BTN needs if it ever hopes to go rogue with its second and even first tier rights. If ND goes to the ACC Oklahoma would be a great partner for Nebraska. Texas can go solo or join the behemoth. – Whew! (stretch) what a dream!
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GreatLakeState,
“Without FSU the B12 is still a top heavy fruit waiting to be plucked.”
Do you really think so? The GOR has them safe for now. I don’t think anyone can leave unless UT does, and I don’t see that happening for a long time. They make plenty of money and have the conference they want. Plus, the LHN prevents them from going to several of the other leagues. I don’t see a likely scenario for plucking. i don’t think they are as top heavy anymore, either. WV and TCU and maybe OkSU can be princes to go with UT and OU as kings. That’s not bad.
“How I wish the B1G had bit the bullet and snagged Oklahoma (and if need be OSU) when it had the chance.”
It would require a paradigm shift. As long as the B10 is both an academic and athletic conference, OkSU was a no go. I don’t think the COP/C are ready to have a separate athletic and academic conference, and may not be for a long time.
“More Kings are what the BTN needs if it ever hopes to go rogue with its second and even first tier rights.”
Right now the B10 has 4 kings (33%). How many do you want? They can’t all stay kings if you have too many. The B10 already could stage 6 king/king games, 12 king/prince games and 3 prince/prince games (counting IA, WI and MSU). Unless the kings take turns being down, 1 or more will start to lose king status if you have too many.
If you play all those elite games, someone has to lose. Let’s take OSU as an example:
Current schedule – MI, PSU, WI, PU, IL, IN + 2 of (NE, MSU, IA, NW, MN)
Your plan – MI, NE, PSU, WI, MSU, IA, PU, IL, IN (I assume 9 games to get more top games)
Assuming all king/king games are roughly toss-ups while king/prince games are 60/40, that looks like an average of 3*0.5+3*0.4+3*0.3 = 1.5+1.2+0.9 = 3.6 losses per year in conference. How long will OSU fans tolerate 8.4-3.6 seasons? They fired Earle Bruce for less. Who will win the B10 if all the kings are 5.4-3.6? The princes should be going 4.5-4.5. Someone will break through occasionally, but it mostly sounds like the ACC recently with 2 and 3 loss champs every year.
Besides, I don’t think the BTN has any plans to usurp ABC/ESPN. The B10 would be giving up over half the country that doesn’t subscribe as well as all the promotion ESPN offers. That would be worse than the P10’s old TV deal. The B10 needs its top teams to be seen nationally which means one of the major networks for the elite games and a cable hookup for the second tier games. I think the P12 is about to learn that most of the country will just not watch their top games when the PTN has 1st choice.
“If ND goes to the ACC Oklahoma would be a great partner for Nebraska. Texas can go solo or join the behemoth. – Whew! (stretch) what a dream!”
I don’t think ND going to the ACC is necessary to make OU a good partner for NE. Unfortunately, I think OU’s academics are too shaky for the B10 without an elite school to balance them out at least (UT, ND, RU, etc). I think the disconnect is that most fans only care about the sports conference while the presidents are much more worried about the CIC.
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Has the B12 GOR been signed yet? I expect it will be, but I understand it hasn’t yet and may have some shorter term loopholes. Whether it does or not the same situation as some are suggesting applies to FSU and Clemson applies here too. It’s not done until it’s done (and maybe not then).
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They have signed a 6 year GOR. They have stated they intend to extend it to 13 years once the new TV deal is finalized.
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Why the delay?
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No one wants to sign a deal that binds them to the conference until they know they aren’t getting stuck with a sub-par TV deal.
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I bet the eight dwarfs would sign tonight.
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ISU, Baylor and TCU would all sign tonight. Everyone else has at least a conceivable reason to believe they could find a better home than a Big XII with a bad TV deal 6 years from now.
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OkSU and TT might hitch along with big bro. Where are the others going to be invited? The BEast? CUSA? That would have to be a really bad B12 deal.
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Anyone that’s not named Texas or Oklahoma or somehow brought along in expansion by either of those two schools will have difficult finding a better home outside the Big 12
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If the PAC decided to expand to 16 and Texas went elsewhere a KU/KSU package would be more a valuable addition than any combination of New Mexico, UNLV, Nevada and Boise St. In addition, WVU could try making a run at the SEC or ACC (both of whom they applied to before the Big XII). Again, this aren’t necessarily likely outcomes, but they are plausible and that’s the key.
(Of course all that is irrelevant anyways since a GOR requires unanimous consent and OU and UT have no reason to agree to anything until the TV deal is finalized).
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Plausible might be a stretch. When it looked like the Big 12 may fall apart, no one was rushing to grab Kansas. Sure, Kansas looks better than New Mexico or Nevada, but that does not mean it’s likely to happen. And West Virginia was passed over by both the SEC and the ACC once before. I can’t say it will never happen, but it seems extremely unlikely.
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ccrider: Could be as simple as wanting TCU and WVU to sign as full members.
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BobinH:
I’m not sure how their current membership status (partial/full) would have any effect on an institutions making a future contractual commitment. I suspect Frug is correct that the GOR needs to be unanimous. For all we know a number have, or would sign immediately but it doesn’t/won’t mater until UT and OU (and any one else that hadn’t yet) sign on.
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I assume they are requiring unanimous consent because they did for the 6 year GOR. (Which is why it didn’t become effective until after Mizzou formally notified the conference they were leaving even though the measure passed 9-0 with the Tigers abstaining.)
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frug, if you don’t get them all, you don’t have a good enough deal.
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“We carried 43 football games and all were featured in HD,” Silverman said, “and 40 percent of our football games featured a team ranked in the top 25.”
I realize that this isn’t directly to what you’re talking about, but does the Big Ten really need a bunch more kings (or perennial contenders as it were) when that many games on BTN feature ranked teams?
The football quality on BTN went up plenty already from the move to bring in Nebraska in terms of content that filtered down to BTN (more ranked teams and kings playing there as Nebraska’s schedule ate up top slots).
Sure, you can push that % up to 50 or 60 with another king or two, but at some point, it becomes dilutive to the kings when they can’t all expect to have 10+ win seasons…
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I think we’ll see more ABC/ESPN inventory in the B10’s upcoming tv deal, thanks to Nebraska… Also thanks to expansion, that won’t come at the expense of the BTN as they can add inventory to ABC/ESPN without losing any BTN inventory. (comparing pre-expansion inventory of course)
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“As long as the B10 is both an academic and athletic conference, OkSU was a no go. I don’t think the COP/C are ready to have a separate athletic and academic conference, and may not be for a long time.”
—Let’s be blunt Oklahoma is an academic no go even without Oklahoma St. The COP/C made that clear last Sept.
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Scarlet_Lutefisk,
“—Let’s be blunt Oklahoma is an academic no go even without Oklahoma St. The COP/C made that clear last Sept.”
I agree with you, but it wasn’t worth the fight that OU fans used to put up every time that was said before. Aside from the former AAU status, the two are fairly similar. Both are #101 in USNWR rankings. OU has easier admissions (85% to 62%) but a much bigger endowment ($716M to $143M), perhaps because the NE med school is separate. The point is, someone could make a reasonable argument that OU is equivalent to NE now so the B10 might consider them. I agree with you that the B10 doesn’t want to do it.
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http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8051501/miami-hurricanes-ohio-state-buckeyes-rewarded-academics
The NCAA investigated OSU and MIami again, and said …
Great job on academics. They were 2 of 13 I-A schools named as academic overachievers. The other 5 AQ schools were Duke, NW, Vandy, Rutgers and Clemson.
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My 1st thought reading this was, “Where’s Rice?”
Ran across a Joe Schad tweet-the non AQ football schools honored-Boise, Middle Tennessee, Northern Illinois and Rice.
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How did UNC not make it, academic fraud and all?w did
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Kind of like Craig James comments on that ESPN program on SMU and their pay for play. Another school was doing the same thing, but didn’t win nearly as many games. Wasn’t clear whether he was talking about TCU or A&M. Both got caught during the 80s.
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Did TCU and aTm get caught red handed, admin involved all the way through the president, swear they’d stop and yet get caught again one year later basically having changed nothing (just ignore the NCAA) like SMU?
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Just repeating what Craig James said (and its possible I’m remembering wrong and it was Eric Dickerson saying that, but we called them Dickerjames at the time anyway).
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Best move ESPN has made in years was getting James off the air.
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Now if they would (further) do away with Dr Lou and Mark May, all would be right in the world of college football broadcasting…
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I like Holtz. I hate Musberger doing college football.
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I could do without Corso. I just feel sad watching him now. Not quite Dick Clark New Year’s sad, but somewhere along those lines.
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I hate May and Musberger. Holtz is often pointless but doesn’t bother me much.
My idiosyncratic hate is for Gus Johnson. He needs to stop yelling all the time about everything. Not every play is that amazing.
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Also, ESPN didn’t fire Craig James; he left to pursue a Senate seat and they have made it clear they won’t be asking him back. So, how’d that Senate campaign work out, you might ask?
http://www.texasgopvote.com/2012-republican-primary/2012-texas-republican-primary-results-us-senate-and-us-congress-004228
Losing the hooker vote really cost him.
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To be honest, Holtz is a stand-up guy—He and May just don’t belong together, with Lou’s Notre Dame homerism and May just being an arrogant snob.
I forgot about Musberger— also agree that Gus could tune it down a bit– but, who am I??
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Jake,
It’s a little sad that he actually got even 4% of the vote. Can we write that off as family, friends and die hard SMU fans, or are regular Texans dumb enough to vote for him?
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Brian – 4% is about 50,000 votes, which seems a bit high for just the die hards. You could argue that he’s tough on crime. That plays well in Texas. I think a lot of people voted for him just so he wouldn’t go back to calling college football. But don’t count out stupid.
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I see Ridpath is his usual petulant self.
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Stay mad Chicago
http://deadspin.com/5918576/jeff-garlin-struggles-through-take-me-out-to-the-ballgame-before-telling-tigers-fans-they-suck
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Good discussion on Warchant podcast with a person who was in the FSU BOT meeting. Talks about FSU/B12 and the playoffs and the impact on the ACC. About 12.5 minutes.
Short points on the opinions:
Very unlikely to happen this year as FSU seems very early in its evaluations
Very much open in the future as Barron, while pro-ACC, seems more open than before
Playoff format will impact decision
http://floridastate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1375181
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I’ve wondered, how much would Big 12 schools’ fans favor a Plus One if it really helped the Big 12 to get FSU and Clemson? Just assuming it’d be in place until 2020 say (on an 8 year new BCS deal)…
I’d have to think that it’s the best way given that the Big 12-SEC bowl would be far more valuable than anything the ACC could put together, even with ND.
Obviously, an 8 team playoff is at the other end of the spectrum, since that virtually guarantees an ACC participant every year, so those schools wouldn’t need to move for access reasons.
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I much prefer the current system to a +1. I think a +1 just exaggerates the flaws of the current system. So even if it meant FSU/Clemson, no.
The general belief seems to be anything other than a 4 champs model is a negative for the ACC. In reality, any model puts the ACC a clear #5 over the BCS era. And the ACC hasn’t even been #5 in the more recent years (as far as its champion is concerned).
While expansion could be put off another year, it would seem to be easier from the Big 12 standpoint this year while ESPN was still negotiating the new contract. Once you sign the deal, the network has the leverage. Even if the options have been discussed, the network still has the leverage. The Big 10 accepted that with Nebraska. The ACC and SEC are finding that out with their expansions. The Pac 12 did it as part of their new deal. The Big East is doing it as part of its new deal. I’m not sure the odds are better next year than they are for getting it done by 8/15. A&M took another year to do it after the Big 12 Fox contract was signed. But they had some politics to work out.
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http://www.irishenvy.com/forums/notre-dame-football/62768-superconferences-realignment-162.html)
I have NO idea how accurate this is, but if it is accurate, this could be a game-changer. ND moving other sports to Big 12 and doing a scheduling arrangement of ~6 games/year with Big 12 would put the last nail in Big East being relevant and very plausibly be a major draw for FSU to move. Not sure who 12th normal member would be in that case; BYU maybe?
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http://www.irishenvy.com/forums/notre-dame-football/62768-superconferences-realignment-162.html#post715421
That’s the link that will take you to the post Matthew is talking about.
Now, normally I take a site like Irish Envy as gospel, but …
Supposed details of the “almost done deal”:
ND joins B12 in all sports
ND plays 6 B12 teams in FB
ND can keep the NBC deal
FSU (and maybe Clemson) would join later
The posters were split with one saying to just go to 8 games and become a full member balanced by another saying they should negotiate it down to 3-4 games. Several assumed this would lead to joining the B12. Nobody seemed against joining the conference or leaving the BE. Guesses at the games they would keep ranged, but the general consensus seemed to be USC and Navy for sure, MI and Stanford, plus MSU and PU alternating and an eastern team.
When 0% of a ND group protest joining a conference for football, I suspect they aren’t representative.
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Am I missing something? Both of those forum links are dated last September.
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OK, it was at the end of that thread. Oopsie.
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Would not surprise me at all if this was true and I’ll go a step further and say that this might not necessarily be partial membership either.
The Big12 could arrange things as follows:
Red River Division
Oklahoma
Texas
Oklahoma State
TCU
Texas Tech
Baylor
Other Division
Notre Dame
Florida State
West Virginia
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
The actual conference schedule might be just 6 games, the 5 division games and then one rotating crossover game. Two division winners advance to a conference championship game.
Its not what we think of as a conventional conference but it doesn’t violate any of the rules regarding conference championship games so I don’t see why it couldn’t be done.
I can see where ND, UT, FSU, and OU would benefit greatly from having the schedule flexibility of playing 6 non-conference games. That arrangement might open up more inventory for the LHN and/or any other 3rd tier network. KU and KSU might just figure to play Home and Home each year with one being designated a non-conference game, the Little Brothers in Texas might do the same.
I could see FSU being really attracted to this. Frees them up to play Miami and Florida each year as Non-conference games and gives them a unique annual game with ND. I’m a little less certain that ND would go for this model, but it might be a nice option for the Irish if they look at the postseason setup and figure they are disadvantaged vs. SEC or B1G schools.
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That might be a bit of a scheduling nightmare for some of these teams in terms of playing opponents from the other major conferences. The ACC and Pac 12 have or are going to nine conference games. The SEC is currently at eight, but they’re likely to migrate to 9 given their 14-team membership. The Big Ten has eight conference games, but one non-conference game per year with the Pac 12.
That’s not to say that the Big XII could try to play other conference members in “non-conference games” and just count the six normally scheduled, but that could make things very messy, especially when it comes to deciding division winners.
While FSU would get its annual games with ND, Florida and perhaps Miami, they’d also have four games with teams that are pretty distant from them every year (Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, West Virginia). It’s not a bad schedule in and of itself, especially if the crossover game is Texas or Oklahoma, so that might be a doable do.
Who knows? Maybe it would work, but I do agree with you that it’s somewhat unconventional.
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That might be a bit of a scheduling nightmare for some of these teams in terms of playing opponents from the other major conferences.
Expect plenty of C-USA schools to be seeing 2-for-1 visits to Ames, Lawrence, Lubbock and Manhattan (although East Carolina may be strong enough at the boxoffice to draw a straight home-and-home).
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Cutter,
One solution:Three team pods which would be paired in a rotating fashion so that the divisions would change every year or every other year. The five division games would determine the division champs, the additional conference games would be tie-breakers. Out of conference teams could be accommodated earlier in the season.
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The problem with that format is that there would be some years all four of the Texas schools don’t face each other. The ACC has the same problem with its NC “big four”; Wake and UNC no longer have an annual rivalry, and the same holds for State and Duke. That upsets a lot of fans in North Carolina, and that would be amplified by 10 times in Texas.
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Having Notre Dame or Florida State visit each year would be a boon for the likes of Iowa State and Kansas.
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FSU and ND would turn handsprings at the prospect…
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First off, I don’t think the Big East is particularly relevant right now. Notre Dame going to the Big XII in some sort of associate status is more like making the last light tap on the last nail in the coffin. ND was supposed to schedule three BE teams per year according to the previous athletic director, but that never happened. The Big East’s bowl game lineup has gotten a bit worse over the years, so having Notre Dame as part of the BE hasn’t helped them in the post-season either.
As far as being a game changer is concerned, what exactly does this do? The Big XII still doesn’t get a conference championship game because ND isn’t a full time member. Texas and Oklahoma already have Notre Dame on their present and future schedules, so that doesn’t touch on them too much. The other eight teams in the Big XII will get a game against Notre Dame perhaps two years out of three, but a number of them could probably get high end non-conference opponents on their schedule without this relationship with ND.
Maybe Clemson and Florida State go to the Big XII because of this move or maybe they opt to stay in the 14-team ACC because they feel it’s the best option to get into a national championship game or maybe being in a conference with a Texas-sized ego and an associate member with a unique arrangement isn’t what they would like to see in a conference structure. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but does having Notre Dame on the schedule two years out of four in and of itself really provide an incentive to move?
I could see why Texas–I mean, the Big XII–would want to have Notre Dame as an associate member. It helps juice up the non-conference schedule with a big market draw that doesn’t play football particularly well right now. For ND, it means getting a partner that will help them get quality opponents on the schedule in the latter two months of the season on a consistent basis.
Does any of this effect the Big Ten or Pac 12? Not particularly. One B10 school (probably Michigan and maybe MSU as well) might be looking for a non-conference game. The same with Stanford, who has become a regular on ND’s schedule. If the B10 wants to expand, they’ll just look elsewhere for additional members of they’ll continue to wait out ND as college football realignments continue to take place.
Any changes for the SEC? Probably not. If they were going to 16 members, Notre Dame was never considered a likely candidate. Unless some of the likely target schools for the SEC like Virginia Tech or North Carolina were to go to the Big XII because of this, then I guess it’d touch on them. But that doesn’t seem like a very likely scenario.
If the Big XII thinks Notre Dame will eventually join that conference full-time, just take a look at the Big East’s experience and see if history repeats itself. Maybe if college athletics realigns itself into super conferences and ND has to join a conference, then the Big XII might benefit (or maybe the ACC).
Whatever happens is going to have to wait until the postseason firms up somewhat. Notre Dame wants to be a “non-regionalized” independent. Well, if you commit half of your regular season games to teams spanning from Iowa to Texas (with one outlier in West Virginia), then exactly how “national” is ND?
If we extend this to men’s basketball (the other revenue sport), does it really make sense for ND to play in the Big XII? At least one thing the Big East has going for it is urban schools in the northeast and mid-Atlantic–places where you’ll find Notre Dame fans. I don’t know if there are too many of them in Stillwater, OK or Ames, IA.
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Let’s say this comes to pass (ND/FSU to Big 12, 6-game conference schedule, ND keeps NBC contract, the network also gets a contract with Big 12). If Florida State is the only team the ACC loses, does it diminish into permanent #5 status? And if ND is off the table for the ACC, might it be vulnerable to Big Ten/SEC raids? (Both conferences covet the Mid-Atlantic region for their current or future networks.)
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If ND became a full member of the Big 12, that probably cements the “big four” conference concept, leaving the ACC out in the cold along with the Big East. I can’t believe that the ACC would simply plug Rutgers (or Connecticut) in Florida State’s place; that really wouldn’t solve anything.
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Losing FSU would clearly hurt the ACC’s football strength and financial prospects. But it would also, paradoxically, create cohisiveness…which may allow the ACC to really stabilize. Mind that the only real instability comes from FSU’s need for more revenue (expressed passionately by Haggard) and FSU’s desire for greater geographic rivalries (mentioned by Barron as a means of strengthening the ACC.
IMO, the more interesting hypothetical…if ND is willing to consider a Big XII overture (with something like a 6 game commitment), would the ACC feel pressured to make an accommodation in order to entice ND towards the ACC (or just keep ND as a football independent). From ND’s perspective, the geographic and cultural advantages provided by the ACC would be nearly impossible for the Big XII to match. FSU’s deliberations on pros/cons of realignment have already put a spotlight on the ACC.
There are a lot of short-term needs (new BCS agreement, Big XII media contracts/rights) that need to be settled first.
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Pablo, cohesiveness is no substitute for money. The almighty god basketball is not going to rescue the ACC if Florida State leaves, no matter what the fools in the Research Triangle may believe.
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IMO, the more interesting hypothetical…if ND is willing to consider a Big XII overture (with something like a 6 game commitment), would the ACC feel pressured to make an accommodation in order to entice ND towards the ACC (or just keep ND as a football independent). From ND’s perspective, the geographic and cultural advantages provided by the ACC would be nearly impossible for the Big XII to match. FSU’s deliberations on pros/cons of realignment have already put a spotlight on the ACC.
The difference between the ACC and Big 12 is that the ACC’s athletic culture probably wouldn’t feel comfortable accepting some of what the Big 12 would accommodate Notre Dame — letting ND keep its NBC package and third-tier rights, unequal revenue distribution and the like. That just isn’t in the ACC’s DNA.
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Agree that money is the most important factor in realignment. Unfortunately, there is no way that the ACC gets the money that the BigXII/UT can get. Also, FSU is far and away the biggest media draw in the ACC. This means that the top priority for the ACC is to keep FSU (by promoting all factors that they can influence). If the ACC addresses some of FSU’s needs…and FSU has a few 1990s-like FSU seasons…the money dilemma is mitigated. In the previous comment, I was addressing what would occur IF FSU had left the ACC.
Agree that it is not in the ACC’s DNA to make financial accommodations to get ND. But allowing fewer total conference football games could be a different issue. For example, would allowing ND to have to play 7 conference games be too problematic for the ACC while enticing to ND? Unlike FSU, money does not seem to be as big a driver in ND’s decision.
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And money is no substitute for success on the field. Nor is it the cure.
It’s just an excuse.
Indiana has plenty of revenue, but still sucks in football. West Virginia has had crap revenue, but was much better and more relevant than Indiana. And so on.
It’s up to the school to figure out how to apportion its money within the program. If FSU wants to invest $4M in its womens basketball team, fine. But don’t complain that you are short on cash when overpaying for a non-revenue sport.
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ND to the B12 as a junior member would be perfect. They get to retain their national schedule by playing throughout the great plains. NBC would love to showcase those games on their NBC Sports Channel. And its not the Big Ten, so the alums would be giddy. Full of win.
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Since CWS opens tonight and I still think Delany should push the B1G more in college baseball here is a thought to ponder. If you go to mgoblue. com site it states the capacity for UM early on was 18,000 between 1930 and 1947. In 1947 the 1st NCAA D I Baseball Championship was held and California won the first one. Since the beginning Cal has won 2 CWS (1947 and 1957) and made 4 other trips. Michigan has won twice as well (1953 and 1962) and made 5 other trips.
Michigan currently has 4,000 as stated capacity – in cold climate
California currently has 2,500 as stated capacity – in warm climate
I get tired of hearing the “its cold” argument, and wish somebody in the B1G marketing office would wake up and get on the stick on this.
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Problem is two fold, 1) attendance/fan support/booster support (i.e. do alumni really care), and 2) recruiting/coaches.
As for attendance and all of that, only Nebraska pulls like a “baseball school”; the other 10 schools in the Big Ten are generally not that great. I think only Ohio State and Michigan were over 1000 per game (and it wasn’t much over). The other 8 were below.
At the southern and southwestern schools, baseball is generally treated as the 3rd most important sport behind football/basketball. It’s not going to be anywhere close to that high at Big Ten schools, so the importance in putting out winning baseball product isn’t really going be that high either (especially given that the Big Ten schools tend to sponsor more sports on average).
I’d venture that at most of the Big Ten schools, baseball isn’t even in the top 10 sports in terms of importance to the people that matter.
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Well, Fred Wilpon (Michigan) alum and owner of the Mets) cared enough to pony up the money to rebuild and modernize both the baseball and softball facilities, so when it comes down to dollars and cents, the physical support is there.
Also, when you look at attendance figures, check out the weather as well when comparing it to the warmer climes. Baseball isn’t exactly a great sport to watch when it’s cold outside. In fact, if you really want to up the attendance figures for baseball in the Big Ten, then play some of the season in late August, September and October.
In the end, though, winning does help. The Michigan women’s softball team is one of the best in the country because it has an excellent coach in Carol Hutchinson and makes regular trips into the college softball word series. Do that for UM baseball or at any other B10 school on a sustained basis and you’ll get the fan support you’re looking for in the end.
Finally, why should we be shocked that a particular college sport has largely regional support? I haven’t seen too many varsity hockey teams in the south, southwest or West Coast.
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I generally meant that in agreement with what you’re saying. All I’m saying is that the Big Ten schools have their own sets of needs with respect to sports.
Most of these schools get a higher payoff in terms of wins/fan-alumni support/brand awareness/recruiting students in general/etc. from sports like soccer, hockey, lacrosse, volleyball, wrestling, (or some combination of those sports or whatever).
I’d love for the Big Ten schools to prioritize winning in baseball aggressively, but at most, it just doesn’t make sense based on how the sport works and what those schools get out of sports.
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@zeek – just curious, but what sports would be ahead of baseball? Only six Big Ten schools have hockey, so, what – lacrosse and soccer?
@cutter – fall ball sounds good, but going up against college football would be suicide for the sport. And moving the season later into the summer would drive more top players away from college baseball, as it would conflict with short season pro ball. Not to mention the Cape Cod league. I’d like to find a way to help the northern schools, but I’m not sure what you could do that wouldn’t cause more damage to the sport elsewhere.
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It depends on the schools, but soccer, lacrosse, volleyball, wrestling among others draw really strong strong crowds for the Big Ten schools that sponsor them in general.
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On the mens’ side, wrestling get big crowds in the B1G. On the womens’, volleyball is king…er, queen.
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The B1G has won 16 of the last 20 NCAA championships in wrestling. PSU and Nebraska of course are the powers in volleyball.
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Some Big Ten schools draw well for women’s basketball (Purdue, Nebraska), though I don’t think its attendance is nearly quite as strong as the Big 12.
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My former classmate Suzy Merchant coaches the woman’s team at MSU so I went to a couple games and I was amazed at the crowds they get.
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Average Wrestling Attendance For Dual Meets
1. Iowa 9,014
2. Penn State 6,480
3. Ohio State 3,126
4. Iowa State 3,087
5. Minnesota 3,024
6. Oklahoma State 2,564
7. Lehigh 2,141
8. Cornell 1,981
9. Nebraska 1,620
10. Navy 1,595
Those just came out in March for wrestling.
For women’s volleyball, the Big Ten average was over 2k; only Hawaii outdrew the top 4 Big Ten programs.
Average Women’s Volleyball Attendance
1. Nebraska 4,522
2. Wisconsin 3,791
3. Minnesota 3,608
4. Penn State 3,177
5. Illinois 2,475
6. Purdue 2,390
7. Michigan State 2,102
8. Iowa 1,397
9. Michigan 1,381
10. Ohio State 1,275
11. Indiana 796
12. Northwestern 778
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2011-12 Men’s hockey attendance (courtesy USCHO)
Team Dates Total att avg att capacity
1. Wisconsin 20 235,458 11,773 15,237
2. North Dakota 23 256,576 11,155 11,634
3. Minnesota 23 219,401 9539 10,000
4. Neb-Omaha 18 141,544 7864 16,680
5. Boston Coll 17 128,338 7549 7884
6. Colorado Coll 20 135,078 6754 7343
7. UMass 17 112,250 6603 8373
8. Minn-Duluth 20 126,552 6328 6600
9. Maine 20 123,650 6182 5124 (that’s what it says)
10. Michigan 21 125,932 5997 6637
11. Mich State 18 96,546 5364 6470
12. Denver 22 117,908 5359 6026
13. New Hampsh 16 84,750 5297 6110
14. Ohio State 16 82,854 5178 17,500
15. Boston U 18 89,338 4963 6221
2011-12 Women’s hockey attendance
1. Wisconsin 21 56,471 2689 15,237
2. North Dakota 19 28,218 1485 11,634
3. Minnesota 21 27,658 1317 3400
4. Minn-Duluth 19 22,435 1181 6600
5. Cornell 20 18,402 920 4267
6. Dartmouth 16 14,126 883 4500
7. Mercyhurst 16 11,096 690 1300
8. Harvard 16 10,337 646 2776
9. Bemidji State 17 9008 530 4373
10. Boston U 18 7197 400 3684
Hockey is pretty big in places…
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And Wisconsin’s Hockey attendance has gone down the past few years. They use to average 14-15k.
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Yeah, I mean you just compare all those sports’ attendance numbers with the numbers that the Big Ten puts up for baseball (only Nebraska made the over 1,200 cutoff on the top 50 attendance leaders list with 3,760 per game).
It’s a definite part of the issue because success and attendance generally determine the pecking order for available budget funds at these athletic departments. Obviously, football and basketball are going to drive the bus and get the first slices of money, but after that, success and attendance play a big role.
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Jake-
I’m not so sure the conference commissioners of the Big Ten and Pac 12 would think playing baseball in the fall would necessarily be suicidal because of the competition with football.
The reason I say this is they’re envisioning having weekend sports festivals at the univeristies of the two conferences that take place in concert with the football games.
Say Oregon comes to Michigan to play a football game. The plan for the festival would include having multiple fall sports between the two schools taking place that weekend–men’s and women’s soccer, field hockey, etc. You would tack on the baseball games as well.
Last season, for example, I took my nice to the Michigian-San Diego State football game. The next day, we attended a Michigan-WIsconsin women’s soccer game (since she’s a soccer fan). That entire weekend could have instead been UM against the Ducks in football, soccer, etc. that would be marketed as a larger sports festival with ticket packages covering all the sports, not to mention coordinated scheduling around the football games (as best as possible).
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Those are some pretty good ideas. I think the idea of tying events together would really help drive attendance for non-revenue sports attached to a football weekend.
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IMO, the cold argument is real, but is really only a minor part of the problem.
Its my understanding oversigning is downright at an insane level in college baseball due to MLB’s ability to draft almost any time in a prospect’s career (18-college graduation). With the Big Ten strictly prohibiting that practice it puts them at a major disadvantage (even more so than in football) to those schools (surprise, surprise typically from the south) who willingly engage in that activity.
Also, someone here posted the thought that because because there are so few scholarships in baseball (less than 12), the need for depth so real, and the culture of partial scholarships its hard to get out of state baseball players to come to the Big Ten to pay part of a tuition that is 2-4 times a school elsewhere (just for example, out of state tuition at LSU is ~$10,000 per year and at PSU its ~$28,000 per year).
IMO, its not surprising why the Big Ten hasn’t focused in this sport when its so obvious there are inherent disadvantages to them participating in the sport. It’ll be interesting to see how the Big Ten moves forward now that it has the BTN (ie: will they start to push for NCAA change in certain rules? Expanding of scholarship limits in certain sports? etc)
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PSUGuy – LSU’s tuition is low, but not that low. Tuition and required fees for the 2011-12 school year was $19,363. That’s about the same at Iowa State and a little less than Nebraska.
Regarding you other points, weather is certainly a disadvantage for the B1G, but its not an impossible to overcome. Ask Kentucky, Louisville, St. John’s, Stony Brook, Kent State. Notre Dame and Nebraska have made it to the CWS in the last decade. Get some indoor batting cages. Players can pitch and hit indoors and most teams in the South do all that work inside throughout the winter. Winter weather presents a problem for fielding practice, but I would assume that in January and February, the B1G’s football teams aren’t utilizing their indoor practice facilities.
The B1G’s lack of willingness to accept reality by having crazy oversigning rules and restricting travel is self-inflicted. There’s a reason the Phillies have several minor league teams and have hundreds of players under contracts, hoping tens of them will make it to the majors. Baseball is the toughest sport to predict talent. Its the same in college, plus a player can be picked in the MLB draft out of high school, a JUCO, as a draft-eligible sophomore, a junior or senior. Players move freely between colleges and JUCOs, especially pitchers. Regarding travel, schedule some long weekends in the South and the West and bring some tutors.
Tuition is a red herring. Stanford, Rice, Vandy, Tulane, and Pepperdine all have higher tuition than Penn State, and those teams make it work. The reason for the 11.7 schollys is Title IX. I’m all for equality, if football were exempted out, men’s sports other than football and basketball could offer full scholarships
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From the mogoblue.com website on the Wilpon Baseball Complex:
Adjacent to the stadium is a 1,600-square foot locker room that features 30-inch lockers, two plasma television screens and a lounge area. The locker room connects directly to the 5,750-square-foot indoor hitting facility that includes retractable doors for ventilation during the summer months and is heated for year-round use. The hitting facility includes two dirt mounds, pitching machines, three indoor batting cages and a state-of-the-art video hitting system. Along the leftfield line are three outdoor hitting cages, in addition to four down the rightfield line.
See http://www.mgoblue.com/facilities/ray-fisher-stadium.html
If you look at the photos of the place in the link above, you’ll see this sign in the locker room:
ONE TEAM ONE GOAL OMAHA
Now I can’t speak to the baseball facilities at the ten other Big Ten programs that compete at the sport and it’s probably worth looking at them to get a sense of how well they’re equipped. But I imagine in most cases, the problem isn’t indoor batting cages.
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Yeah, I didn’t realize it, but a lot of the Big Ten schools have spent a pretty penny on baseball facilities in the past 5 years.
They may not be as glitzy as the SEC or Big 12 facilities, but I’d have to guess that they’re at least on par with the Pac-12’s facilities at Michigan/Penn State, etc.
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.Looking at the data by decade it shows things shift by location (unlike you I do not segregate west from north – so if you are north of say the Ohio River you are north) over time :
47-51 : California, Southern Cal, Texas, Texas, Oklahoma
52-56 : Holy Cross, Michigan, Missouri, Wake Forest, Minnesota
57-61 : California, Southern Cal, Oklahoma State, Minnesota, Southern Cal
62-66 : Michigan, Southern Cal, Minnesota, Arizona St, Ohio State
67-71 : Arizona St, Southern Cal, Arizona St, Southern Cal, Southern Cal
72-76 : Southern Cal, Southern Cal, Southern Cal, Texas, Arizona
77-81 : Arizona St, Southern Cal, Cal State, Arizona, Arizona St
82-86 : Miami, Texas, Cal State, Miami, Arizona
87-91 : Stanford, Stanford, Wichita State, Georgia, LSU
92-96 : Pepperdine, LSU, Oklahoma, Cal State, LSU
97-01 : LSU, Southern Cal, Miami, LSU, Miami
02-06 : Texas, Rice, Cal State, Texas, Oregon St
07-11 : Oregon St, Fresno State, LSU, South Carolina, South Carolina
One factor that really hasn’t been brought up (though I think I have before) is that in the 1970s, most colleges shifted their semester system so that the break (previously sometime in mid- to late January) would coincide with the Christmas-New Year’s vacation already being taken. (Some of this may have been to reduce costs, although I believe campus demonstrations in spring against the Vietnam war and other topics also played a factor.) As a result, graduation moved from early June to mid-May, and spring sports schedules were similarly shifted — not good news for baseball in northern climes. Syracuse, which I now discover actually played in the College World Series, gave up baseball in the mid-’70s, and some other cold-weather schools — Colorado, Wisconsin, Iowa State — followed suit. From the mid-’60s on, college baseball essentially turned into a Sun Belt sport.
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Alan from Baton Rouge,
“Regarding you other points, weather is certainly a disadvantage for the B1G, but its not an impossible to overcome. Ask Kentucky, Louisville, St. John’s, Stony Brook, Kent State. Notre Dame and Nebraska have made it to the CWS in the last decade.”
UK and UL are both south of the entire B10, while SJU and SB benefit from the warming effect of water in NYC and long Island.
Ave. weather in March:
Lexington, KY – 55/36
Louisville, KY – 58/38
NYC – 50/35
LI – 50/35
Columbus – 52/29 (most southern B10 school)
Minneapolis – 41/24
Lincoln – 52/28
State College – 46/28
The rest basically fit in that envelope somewhere. It is noticeably cooler in the B10 with a much higher chance of snow. That doesn’t make it impossible, but it does make it harder. The northern schools are forced to play about 2 months of road games to open the season.
“Get some indoor batting cages. Players can pitch and hit indoors and most teams in the South do all that work inside throughout the winter. Winter weather presents a problem for fielding practice, but I would assume that in January and February, the B1G’s football teams aren’t utilizing their indoor practice facilities.”
They have indoor facilities in the north. That doesn’t make a player from FL want to com e north to play, though. Who wants to play mostly road games when you can play in the south or west and play mostly home games?
“The B1G’s lack of willingness to accept reality by having crazy oversigning rules and restricting travel is self-inflicted.”
Please forgive the B10 for having morals and caring about not abusing players. Obviously it is self-inflicted, nobody ever said it wasn’t. They have this crazy idea that winning isn’t everything. It’s outdated compared to everyone else, but that’s life in the B10.
“Regarding travel, schedule some long weekends in the South and the West and bring some tutors.”
They do. For about 2 months to start every season. When is the last time LSU opened the year with 20+ road games? They are only allowed to miss 8 days of class, which makes it trickier.
“The reason for the 11.7 schollys is Title IX. I’m all for equality, if football were exempted out, men’s sports other than football and basketball could offer full scholarships”
Agreed. It would make things easier if everyone started a women’s football team since Title IX will never exempt CFB. I’d love to see them add women’s football with 85 scholarships and drop a bunch of the other useless women’s sports that are only around to balance the numbers.
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Brian,
Kent State is near Cleveland and that is not a warm place to play ball yet they are in the CWS. I am pretty sure they are north of a few B12 cities. Again, Michigan has 2 CWS and several other B12 schools do as well. I think if the home office went gung ho the B12 could do well in baseball.
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duffman,
“Kent State is near Cleveland and that is not a warm place to play ball yet they are in the CWS.”
I am well aware of where KSU is, thanks. Sure they’re in the CWS this year. That’s once in 98 years of baseball. The B10 has done better than that. KSU made the NCAA tournament 11 times since 1992 to get this 1 CWS appearance. B10 teams make the tournament regularly too, they just haven’t progressed to the CWS in a while.
“I am pretty sure they are north of a few B12 cities.”
If you mean B10, they are slightly north of OSU, IN, PU, IL, PSU and NE. They’re south of the other 6, by a substantial margin in some cases.
Are you saying the weather hasn’t made it harder for KSU to make it to this point, because that’s clearly all I said it did?
“Again, Michigan has 2 CWS and several other B12 schools do as well. I think if the home office went gung ho the B12 could do well in baseball.”
I’m assuming you always meant B10 where you wrote B12, so you’ll have to correct me if that’s a faulty assumption.
Several B10 teams have old CWS titles (MN 3, MI 2, OSU 1).
CWS Titles
12 – USC
6 – LSU, UT
5 – ASU
4 – CSF, Miami
3 – MN, AZ
2 – Stanford, OrSU, OU, MI, SC, Cal
1 – Wichita St, WF, OkSU, OSU, Rice, Pepperdine, Fresno, UGA, Holy Cross, MO
Northern schools – MN, MI, OSU, Holy Cross, maybe MO
That’s 7-8 of 65. Something is making it harder on northern teams.
If it was just B10 recruiting rules, other northern teams should make it regularly, but that doesn’t happen. I’m not saying it’s just the weather, but it has to be a factor. It forces lots of early road trips and that impacts recruiting. It makes it less hospitable and that impacts recruiting. It makes it uncomfortable to play some games and that impacts recruiting. Now that it has helped to prevent northern teams from having sustained success, it impacts recruiting that way as well.
All that said, the B10 has a lot more CWS titles than the ACC (8 to 1).
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Oh, 1 more thing. What is it you think Delany and the B10 office can do? Most of the B10 has fairly new baseball stadiums. Will they be forced to fire their coaches and hire new ones? Will the fans be forced to buy tickets some how? You can’t make people care.
I see four actions they could take:
1. Change the recruiting rules some more (they just did so you can now oversign by 1 scholarship over 2 years)
2. Push the issue at all NCAA meetings (adding fall baseball, starting the season later, etc)
3. Withdraw from the NCAA for baseball
4. Admit baseball is a stupid sport and that they can’t compete under rules they feel comfortable with, so drop it as a B10 sport. Schools can compete as independents without the B10’s extra rules if they want or drop the sport entirely like WI.
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duffman:
Michigan is in the B12? Is ND (supposedly) joining to assure continuing the series? 🙂
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Brian:
Shouldn’t OrSU’s 2 also count for northern schools?
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ccrider55,
I don’t count them because they are western. Their weather is greatly controlled by the Pacific. They are as far north as MN, but have weather more like Columbus but with less snow.
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Yes, I meant B1G but had ND rumors to the B12 on my mind (which I do not see happening) in my blog reading the past few days. I was looking at B12 CWS and it is really UT and everybody else in the B12. My thinking was at least 1 B1G school (say Michigan) could excel in baseball as it stands now because there seems no way to move it to the fall and go head to head with football. Michigan is also doing well in softball so it could be a tandem thing for them.
My point of Kent State was to illustrate that it can be done, so a power conference should be able to achieve more success than a MAC team. The bigger point is not every school in the south is doing well in baseball. In the warm climate power conferences it is still just a few schools who are winning, so how hard would it be to get maybe 2 or 3 B1G schools that really take off to get the B1G some late spring / early summer exposure.
I know you think baseball is stupid, but that does not mean some fans in Michigan or Indiana share your view. If there were a few schools who could emerge and rotate it could mean the B1G gets at least 1 site every year. Looking at the data by decade it shows things shift by location (unlike you I do not segregate west from north – so if you are north of say the Ohio River you are north) over time :
47-51 : California, Southern Cal, Texas, Texas, Oklahoma
52-56 : Holy Cross, Michigan, Missouri, Wake Forest, Minnesota
57-61 : California, Southern Cal, Oklahoma State, Minnesota, Southern Cal
62-66 : Michigan, Southern Cal, Minnesota, Arizona St, Ohio State
67-71 : Arizona St, Southern Cal, Arizona St, Southern Cal, Southern Cal
72-76 : Southern Cal, Southern Cal, Southern Cal, Texas, Arizona
77-81 : Arizona St, Southern Cal, Cal State, Arizona, Arizona St
82-86 : Miami, Texas, Cal State, Miami, Arizona
87-91 : Stanford, Stanford, <Wichita State, Georgia, LSU
92-96 : Pepperdine, LSU, Oklahoma, Cal State, LSU
97-01 : LSU, Southern Cal, Miami, LSU, Miami
02-06 : Texas, Rice, Cal State, Texas, Oregon St
07-11 : Oregon St, Fresno State, LSU, South Carolina, South Carolina
Take out 4 schools with 20+ appearances and you get :
UT in B12, U$C and ASU in PAC, and Miami FL in ACC
47-51 : California, Oklahoma
52-56 : Holy Cross, Michigan, Missouri, Wake Forest, Minnesota
57-61 : California, Oklahoma State, Minnesota
62-66 : Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio State
67-71 :
72-76 : Arizona
77-81 : Cal State, Arizona
82-86 : Cal State, Arizona
87-91 : Stanford, Stanford, <Wichita State, Georgia, LSU
92-96 : Pepperdine, LSU, Oklahoma, Cal State, LSU
97-01 : LSU, LSU
02-06 : Rice, Cal State, Oregon St
07-11 : Oregon St, Fresno State, LSU, South Carolina, South Carolina
Which is interesting as Southern Cal has not won since 1998, and Arizona Sate has not won since 1981! The SEC did not win their first CWS till the 1990’s and Northern Colorado has gotten to more CWS than all the SEC schools (including TAMU and Missouri) except LASu and South Carolina.
Colder weather schools by appearances :
(10) Northern Colorado
(07) Maine, Wichita State, Michigan
(06) Western Michigan, St Johns, Missouri
(05) Penn State, Connecticut, Minnesota, Southern Illinois
(04) Harvard, Seton Hall, Washington State, Lafayette,
(04) Boston College, Ohio State, Holy Cross, Oregon State
(03) Nebraska
(02) Eastern Michigan, Massachusetts, Iowa State, Springfield
(02) Temple, Yale, Notre Dame, NYU, Bradley, BYU
(01) Colgate, Michigan State, Louisville, Indiana State, Oregon, Rider
(01) Cornell, Army, Kent State, Iowa, Ithaca, Saint Louis, Rutgers
(01) Princeton, Northeastern, New Hampshire, Utah, Missouri State
(01) James Madison, Kansas, Tufts, Syracuse, Stoney Brook, Wisconsin
(01) Colorado State, Wyoming, Dartmouth, Creighton, Delaware, Ohio
So it is not like northern climate schools are unable to get to the CWS
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duffman,
“Yes, I meant B1G but had ND rumors to the B12 on my mind (which I do not see happening) in my blog reading the past few days.”
I thought so, but wanted to make sure.
My thinking was at least 1 B1G school (say Michigan) could excel in baseball as it stands now because there seems no way to move it to the fall and go head to head with football.”
I don’t buy that excuse. All the other fall sports exist just fine despite football. Hockey starts in October and draws crowds. MBB starts in November and draws some fans. There are plenty of misguided souls who prefer baseball to football, especially a MACrifice game.
As for doing well:
B10 baseball titles
35 Michigan 1899-1901-05-18-19-20-23-24c-26-28-29-36-41-42c-44-45-48c-49c-50c-52c-53c-61-75-76-78-80-81-83-84-86-87-97-06-07-08
29 Illinois 1900-03-04-06-07-08-10-11-14-15-16-21-22-27c-31-34-37-40c-47-48c-52c-53c-62-63-89-90-98-05-11
22 Minnesota 1933-35-56-58-59-60-64-68-69-70-73-74c-77-82-85-88-92-00-02-03-04-10
15 Ohio State 1917-24c-43-51-55-65-66-67-91-93-94-95-99-01-09
7 Iowa 1927c-38c-39-42c-49c-72-74c
5 Chicago 1896-97-98-99-1913
5 Wisconsin 1902-12-30-46-50c
4 Indiana 1925-32-38c-49c
4 Michigan State 1954-71-79-11
2 Northwestern 1940c-57
1 Penn State 1996
1 Purdue 1909
Other than PU in 2012, MSU in 2011 and PSU in 1996, the big 4 have won every title since 1980. In other words, there are a few teams that dominate. I expect NE to join the list and perhaps take over for a while.
“My point of Kent State was to illustrate that it can be done,”
Nobody said it can’t be done. We’ve all been pointing out that being in the north makes it harder. KSU having 1 fluke year doesn’t change that.
“so a power conference should be able to achieve more success than a MAC team.”
Not necessarily. Smaller schools do fine in baseball just like in hoops.
“The bigger point is not every school in the south is doing well in baseball.”
They can’t all do well. Someone has to lose the games.
“In the warm climate power conferences it is still just a few schools who are winning, so how hard would it be to get maybe 2 or 3 B1G schools that really take off to get the B1G some late spring / early summer exposure.”
Hard, because the RPI system used to pick teams is biased against the north. Starting next year, the NCAA will go to just a weighted RPI (that’s what the NCAA uses in hoops). A home win will be worth 0.7W and a home loss 1.3L. Conversely, a road win get 1.3W and a road loss 0.7L. Neutral site games will still be worth 1, but I don’t think they’ve finalized a definition for what is a neutral site game yet. This new formula is in response to some teams playing 40 home games (southern and western schools) and others only 20 (northern schools) as well as home teams winning about 62% of the time (determines the weight – hoops uses 0.6 and 1.4 because home teams win more often). This will mean that a northern team going to play in FL in March for a 3 game set will essentially earn a split with a 1-2 result.
The RPI has many problems (see http://sebaseball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=310988), but one is that losing to a good team can boost your RPI. Southern teams play each other, and a rising tide raises all ships. One important line from that article:
“It turns out that in college baseball almost all of the high RPI values are due to the error in the OOWP.”
In other words, a flawed formula rewards teams that schedule appropriately and southern schools are better positioned to do that.
Looking at the 2012 RPI:
44-14 PU is #12, just behind 39-19 UVA. The only team above PU with 14 losses or fewer is #1 UCLA at 48-14. Everyone else has 16-20 losses. Nobody below them in the top 50 has fewer than 17 losses. Some of that may be legitimate SOS differences, but some is pure formula error. #54 Stony Brook was 52-14 and is ranked just behind 30-22 TX and also trails 31-28 Auburn. As a comparison, 32-28 IN was #80.
What is the word on the streets about the new formula, baseball fans? Are people talking about it? Are they for or against it?
“I know you think baseball is stupid,”
I do, but I also realize there are many confused people that don’t agree with me.
“but that does not mean some fans in Michigan or Indiana share your view.”
Doesn’t baseball just interfere with playing pick-up hoops games in IN? You have to have priorities after all.
“If there were a few schools who could emerge and rotate it could mean the B1G gets at least 1 site every year.”
They do rotate winning. What they don’t do is win regionals and super regionals. It would take a lot to regularly host a regional. PU was the only northern school of the 16 this year. Pu had the best record in baseball but couldn’t get a seeding (top 8). At 44-12, they were as much as 4.5 games better than a seeded team. I’m not saying they deserved a seed, just showing how many more wins they’d have to have to get one. Maybe at 46-10 they’d get one.
“Looking at the data by decade it shows things shift by location (unlike you I do not segregate west from north – so if you are north of say the Ohio River you are north) over time :”
I separate them because the weather is different. Near the coast, the weather is greatly moderated by the ocean. It rains more but is less cold and snows less.
“Colder weather schools by appearances :
(07) Wichita State
(06) St Johns, Missouri
(05) Southern Illinois
(04) Seton Hall, Oregon State
(01) Louisville, Oregon, Saint Louis, Rutgers
(01) Missouri State, James Madison, Kansas, Delaware”
I’ll give you many of those, especially those in the mountains, but you are pushing it with some. I edited your list to show some of the shaky ones. Coastal areas have moderated weather, so I object to them (OR, OrSU, SJU, etc). Wichita State is in southern KS, practically in OK. I have similar issues with several of your other choices.
“So it is not like northern climate schools are unable to get to the CWS”
Nobody has ever said it was impossible. Why do you keep fighting against what people aren’t saying? All we’ve ever argued is that the weather makes it harder. Do you dispute that?
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Just to follow up on my west coast point:
OR opened the season with 8 road games and was playing at home by 2/28.
PU opened with 17 road games before starting B10 play on 3/24.
It’s not the same. The only B10 team that can avoid it is MN because they play indoors, but they still have to practice and it’s way too cold in February in Minnesota to do that outdoors. Perhaps they get some time at the Metrodome, I don’t know.
B10 teams make the tournament, so it’s just a matter of winning there. MN is #13 all time with 30 appearances. The only other northern school in the top 15 is SJU, and they have the benefit of being on the coast (and having a bunch of baseball fans around).. The B10 averages 2 teams each year roughly.
We should also remember that all the B10’s success came before the field expanded to 64. There used to be geographic regions which helped northern teams make the CWS. As it is, Stony Brook in the first Northeastern region team to make the CWS since 1986 (Maine).
Those in the know claim that recent changes like cutting rosters to 35 (Really? Doesn’t MLB use 25?) and the new bats are helping to level the field. Perhaps we’ll see progress in the near future.
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I know that here in Minnesota, the new university president has stated that baseball is one of the sports that he’d like to see restored to it’s more historical level of power. Within the last year there has been a big campaign for new facilities to replace historic (now run down) Siebert Field. Several major baseball alums, including Dave Winfield and Paul Molitor, have been back in the Twin Cities to push for more $$$, more commitment to restoring Gopher baseball to days of yore. Jim Pohlad was among the first major donors with $2 Million to get a start.
Ground has now been broken for the new facilities at the present location of Siebert Field. My understanding is the facilities will be built in stages to be state of the art. Not sure what the designs are as far as capacity–can’t imagine it being too big.
I don’t know too much about the recruiting stuff, etcetera… but do know that the U of Minn has a Hall of Fame coach, John Anderson (1000 plus wins, career .600 plus winning pct), who has been here for years.
I also don’t know why the “Big 4” of Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, OSU (quoted from above) can be so dominant in the B1G, but not make much noise in the NCAAs (at least in recent times).
I just don’t think I’m smart enough to put it all together, though several others have comments that may make sense—weather, recruiting issues, scheduling based on class requirements, general commitment by individual schools, general interest of the public compared to other activities…
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@ Brian,
On cold weather
You seem to define cold as extreme, while I look at where it is still snowing in say march and possibly april. It snows in Knoxville and Fayetteville so where you may split hairs, maybe it would be better to segregate to 3 levels :
cold , say a minnesota
not warm, say a missouri
warm, say one of the 4 above (Texas, Southern Cal, Miami, Arizona State)
The reason I bring all this up is because I have been to some UL baseball games and looked over their roster :
35 kids broken down by conference footprint :
KY / SEC = 13
MO / SEC = 2
SEC = 15 of 35 or 43%
IL / B1G = 6
IN / B1G = 3
OH / B1G = 2
PA / B1G = 2
IA / B1G = 2
MI / B1G = 1
B1G = 16 of 35 or 46%
OK / B12 = 2
NJ / BE = 2
OTR = 4 of 35 or 11%
I understand UL is no MN when it comes to weather, but it is not to far from weather at say Bloomington or Columbus. The Cardinals were not a historic baseball school but under Jurich they have been moving steadily up. The Reds are about an hour or so away and there is a solid farm team in the Bats. the Big East has less power and money than the B1G yet here they are carving a foothold in college baseball. I have personally been to the KY Derby in May when it was snowing so I would not say it is sunny FL, TX, or CA. The point in all this debate is if a school like UL can make it work, I am less than thrilled when the B1G is not. Especially when they have high school talent and the ability to compete.
On fall baseball
Competing with college football, the World Series (does the NCAA schedule the Final Four during the NBA playoffs), and the start of college basketball seems like pushing for the least open segment of the sports calendar. To me a signing issue would be a more equal method than going against the vast majority of the existing sport. Personally I like that baseball is hitting the conference part of the schedule just as basketball is winding down. Like all sports I am willing to bet that the meat of attendance numbers for the majority of schools is when they hit the conference games.
Here is the modern list of baseball champions by season / tournament
(schools in bold finished in the BCS / AP standings in december in CFB)
followup indicates B1G CWS play after the arrow => #? = seeding
1993 Ohio State #13 / Ohio State #13 => #4 OSU, #4 MN
1994 Ohio State #4 / Ohio State #4 => #1 OSU, #4 MN
1995 Ohio State #4 / Ohio State #4 => #4 OSU
1996 Penn State #11 / Indiana => #6 IU
1997 Michigan #15 / Ohio State #4 => #5 OSU
1998 Illinois / Minnesota => #5 IL, #5 MN
1999 Ohio State #4 / Michigan => #1 OSU, #2 MN, #4 UM
2000 Minnesota #13 / Illinois => #2 MN, #3 IL, #3 PSU
2001 Ohio State / Minnesota => #2 OSU, #4 MN
2002 Minnesota / Ohio State => #3 OSU
2003 Minnesota / Ohio State #2 #2 MN, #3 OSU
2004 Minnesota #25 / Minnesota #25 => #3 MN
2005 Illinois / Ohio State #25 => #3 UM, #4 OSU
2006 Michigan #20 / Michigan #20 => #3 UM
2007 Michigan #3 / Ohio State #1 => #2 UM, #3 MN, #3 OSU
2008 Michigan / Michigan => #2 UM
2009 Ohio State #10 / Indiana => #2 MN, #3 OSU, #4 IU
2010 Minnesota / Minnesota => #4 MN
2011 Illinois-Michigan State #9 / Illinois => #4 IL
2012 Purdue / Purdue => #1 PU, #3 MSU
Nebraska has 8 Regionals, 1 Super Regional, and 3 CWS
As you can see, there is much overlap between football and baseball success in the B1G so why overlap when it is not necessary? I really do hope Nebraska pushes more baseball and can you really see them doing baseball during football season?
I think the question is not if the weather makes it harder, but if that makes a convenient crutch for folks to say it can not be done, or offer up as an excuse for why something does not work because it makes an easy scapegoat. On a side note you said Maine was not in since 1978, but they made the tournament just last year.
Click to access champs.pdf
Here is a list of all participants, and not just those that make the CWS
.
@ mnfanstc,
Thanks for the heads up about baseball things in the works for the Gophers. Like you, I may not have the answers, but at least I am willing to ask the questions so at least it is out there for discussion. If Minnesota can get baseball to work there they can show it can be done in spite of the obstacles. As I indicated in the earlier post, Southern Cal was a baseball beast, yet something happened that tamed their baseball domination that they have not had the same effect they had in the 60’s and 70’s. Like UCLA in basketball, the Trojans had a remarkable run, but not much success since.
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@ Mike,
As Brian noted, basketball fills the state of IN, but that does not mean the state is still not producing kids that can play baseball at the D I level. My frustration was seeing these kids go out of state to play ball. Not sure how it will play out, but if Missouri uses the SEC to really promote college baseball then they can raid players from B1G states as UL is doing now. Neither Louisville or Missouri are exactly warm climate states, but they can be proof of success especially as Louisville is generally thought of as a basketball school. Maybe scheduling the same schools in the south in the early season that the ACC and SEC schools are may help both the RPI and the weather issues.
As stated before Nebraska’s baseball success has come in the recent past and I really do hope it shows that a B1G school can get to the CWS in the modern era no matter what obstacles are in the path. Perhaps some of the Nebraska folks on here can provide some insight on how they achieved baseball success in a program without the best weather and without the historic past. Any observations from Nebraska readers?
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duffman,
“On cold weather
You seem to define cold as extreme, while I look at where it is still snowing in say march and possibly april.”
I don’t think I’m saying extreme, but I do look at the weather and not just the latitude. The OR schools are coastal and have moderated weather. So do the east coast schools. Relatively few mountain, plains and midwest teams have sustained success. One thing those schools have in common is a later spring than the baseball powers.
“It snows in Knoxville and Fayetteville so where you may split hairs, maybe it would be better to segregate to 3 levels :”
Are UT and AR baseball powers in the SEC? Is UK? Or is it the warmer schools like LSU?
As for groupings, there are always borderline cases no matter how many groups you make.
“cold , say a minnesota”
Yes, and several other B10 schools. WI, MI, MSU, NW, IA, maybe PSU, maybe NE
“not warm, say a missouri”
Fair enough. This would also be IL, OSU, IN, and PU I assume.
“warm, say one of the 4 above (Texas, Southern Cal, Miami, Arizona State)”
Yes, which includes pretty much every baseball power. Funny how that works.
“The reason I bring all this up is because I have been to some UL baseball games and looked over their roster :
35 kids broken down by conference footprint :
KY / SEC = 13
MO / SEC = 2
SEC = 15 of 35 or 43%
IL / B1G = 6
IN / B1G = 3
OH / B1G = 2
PA / B1G = 2
IA / B1G = 2
MI / B1G = 1
B1G = 16 of 35 or 46%
OK / B12 = 2
NJ / BE = 2
OTR = 4 of 35 or 11%”
So kids move sideways and/or south to play at UL but they don’t go north, agreed?
“I understand UL is no MN when it comes to weather, but it is not to far from weather at say Bloomington or Columbus.”
No, but it’s still warmer and definitely more predictable. March averages about 6 degrees warmer for UL than OSU. That’s a significant difference. I didn’t see any sign of players willing to move north to a slightly cooler climate.
“The Cardinals were not a historic baseball school but under Jurich they have been moving steadily up. The Reds are about an hour or so away and there is a solid farm team in the Bats. the Big East has less power and money than the B1G yet here they are carving a foothold in college baseball. I have personally been to the KY Derby in May when it was snowing so I would not say it is sunny FL, TX, or CA. The point in all this debate is if a school like UL can make it work, I am less than thrilled when the B1G is not. Especially when they have high school talent and the ability to compete.”
I see several things wrong with that:
1. B10 teams are competitive, they just haven’t made the CWS in quite a while. You make it sound like the B10 fields the Washington Generals of baseball.
2. For all you trumpet fluke seasons from UL or KSU or ND, you haven’t shown any real consistent northern powers. The only example there is recently is NE with 3 CWS in the 00s, and they’ve gone down since then. Why harp on the B10 when this seems to be an across the board problem for northern schools?
3. If the weather isn’t a factor, why can’t any northern schools build a juggernaut?
4. Just because a few school have weather somewhat similar to UL doesn’t mean the entire B10 does.
5. As has been discussed elsewhere, most B10 schools have recently upgraded facilities. However, you can’t force fans to care. Baseball is the #3 college sport in the south and west, #2 in places. The northern schools have hockey (MN, WI, MI, etc) and wrestling (PA, OH, IA, etc) that strongly compete with baseball for popularity and hoops is a clear #2 (#1 in places). Most good baseball schools don’t have wrestling and essentially none of them have hockey.
“On fall baseball
Competing with college football, the World Series (does the NCAA schedule the Final Four during the NBA playoffs), and the start of college basketball seems like pushing for the least open segment of the sports calendar.”
It’s not like baseball draws many B10 fans. Playing in the fall shouldn’t be a major problem. It’s about the team, not the fans. It’s not like they expect to get on ABC for a game.
“Here is the modern list of baseball champions by season / tournament”
Cut to save space.
“As you can see, there is much overlap between football and baseball success in the B1G so why overlap when it is not necessary?”
Because the improved weather might give the teams a better chance to be nationally competitive?
“I really do hope Nebraska pushes more baseball and can you really see them doing baseball during football season?”
Their coach already said he wouldn’t fight the move to establish a fall season but NE wouldn’t play in the fall. He may be overruled by the B10 office and his AD, but his position is clear.
“I think the question is not if the weather makes it harder,”
Which is all we’ve been saying. So do you agree that it does, in fact, make it harder? You have been dancing around that question for a while. It’s not a hard question.
“but if that makes a convenient crutch for folks to say it can not be done, or offer up as an excuse for why something does not work because it makes an easy scapegoat.”
It can be both a reason and an excuse.
“On a side note you said Maine was not in since 1978, but they made the tournament just last year.”
I meant the CWS. If I said the tournament instead, I apologize. My sources don’t show Maine at the CWS last year.
Here is a list of all participants, and not just those that make the CWS
.
“@ mnfanstc,
Thanks for the heads up about baseball things in the works for the Gophers. Like you, I may not have the answers, but at least I am willing to ask the questions so at least it is out there for discussion.”
But you don’t provide any potential solutions. You said the B10 office should get involved, but haven’t said what exactly they can or should do. You can’t wave a magic wand and make people care more about baseball. You can’t make the weather warmer. You can’t make kids not care about the weather. I think everyone agrees the recruiting rules are a major obstacle, but the presidents are pretty firm in their opinions about oversigning.
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Alan,
IU is the most southern BIG school, their baseball isn’t very good though.
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Everyone covered just about everything else but this:
Click to access undergrad.pdf
Maybe I’m reading that wrong, but I read out of state tuition is ~$10,000 for LSU fall semester 2012. For comparison:
http://tuition.psu.edu/tuitiondynamic/rates.aspx?location=up#up-NonPA
In any case I think my point stands that due to the limited number of scholarships a player is much less likely to go to a school that has high tuition because they will need to shoulder a higher percentage of tuition costs than if they went elsewhere.
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In-state tuition would be the more relevant comparison. I pointed out somewhere above that when I went to Texas, you could get in-state tuition if you won a competitve academic scholarship. I’m sure anyone serious about sports does that for partial athletic scholarship players.
In any event, Rice, Miami and USC are powers in baseball and none have cheap tuition.
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Never heard about that for scholarships. Found some chatter detailing exactly that (a scholarship can be granted in-state tuition if chosen), but didn’t go into detail on if it had to be a full athletic scholarship or partials qualified (a big point in baseball I guess). Only reason why I mention is the places I read specific “full academic scholarship or athletic scholarship” and I don’t know enough to fill in the blanks.
As for Miami and USC (and depending on how you feel about Houston)…they shouldn’t be permitted scholarships based on “regional attraction”. Being facetious of course, but I don’t think it a small thing to point out how an 18 year old’s motivations may push him to not weight debt as heavily if getting laid in the big city close to the beach as opposed to the mid-west.
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I concur that the oversigning rules really restrict the B10. Being in cold weather states with generally worse talent bases doesn’t help either. Still, I think IL and OH have enough talent for Illinois and OSU to be regularly competitive, however, if the administrations devote resources to baseball. Due to their proximity to the IL and OH talent bases, PU and IU should be able to make some noise every so often (as PU has done this year) as well.
BTW, the non-seniors the MLB draft take are generally juniors, so colleges can hold on to players for 3 years.
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I get tired of hearing the “its cold” argument, and wish somebody in the B1G marketing office would wake up and get on the stick on this.
@duffman – as someone who goes to B1G baseball games in February and March, I can tell you this argument is valid. Baseball can (and should) be a revenue sport for schools. More fan friendly dates will help build interest.
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CWS has begun! Geaux Steauxny Brook, indeed. They need all the support they can get after that first inning.
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To increase baseball attendance, one thing the B10 schools could (and probably should) do is schedule Saturday doubleheaders. For conference series, a doubleheader Saturday followed by a Sunday day game. Possibly visiting minor league (or even major league) parks as well (mid-week in May) for league games. So 8 3-games series (same as now) + 2 Wednesday games the last 2 weeks of the season at pro parks.
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Interesting ideas. I’m not a fan of the Saturday doubleheader. One day of rain and you miss 2/3 of series. Plus ~6 hours of baseball is a lot to ask fans to commit to (it should be mandatory for Brian, IMHO). I don’t mind barnstorming a little, a Northwestern vs Illinois game a Wrigley, UM MSU at Comerica, Indiana – Purdue in Indy might kick up a little buzz. The Nebraska – Creighton games at Rosenblatt always drew better crowds than games on campus.
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Richard,
As noted the doubleheader is tougher if weather is an issue. Playing a series over a weekend offers more works around weather issues. The mid week early season games seem like the attendance drags, especially if they are so / so opponents.
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Mike,
I think the barnstorming idea is possible. Maybe instead of fall baseball do december ball over the christmas break in warm climates. A B1G version of the grapefruit league games. Hit retired alumni who have retired south as a base. Maybe the Legends group “winters” in FL, and the Leaders group “winters” in AZ over the break so the kids have easier travel issues during the semester.
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The B10 does play the BE in a baseball challenge in February. Baseball over winter break could be intriguing as well (if the NCAA allows it; I don’t believe they currently do).
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Jake would you care to explain this…
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Scarlet – I was in the audience for that “performance.” The kids in the video are TCU Orientation Student Assistants (OSAs). Those kids are student leaders that obviously weren’t chosen because of their ability to carry a tune. This video was taken during a dinner for kids and their parents, and TCU faculty and staff. The OSAs led 120 incoming freshmen (including my daughter) through 2 days of orientation and registration. I met several of them and they were some of the nicest 19 and 20 year-old kids you’d want to meet. While I thought the performance was bad in-person, it does look much worse on YouTube. But within the context of the evening, it was typical corny college skit stuff. I’m just glad there is no video of my portrayal of Jimmy Swaggert singing AC/DC’s “You shook me all night long” at LSU’s Greek JamJam back in the late 80s.
Parents were on a different track most of the time and we met with almost all of the TCU administration to discuss the gamut of issues from financial aid to campus safety. It was a first class event and I am very satisfied with my daughter’s decision to attend TCU. Its a great school with great kids, a beautiful campus and a very helpful staff and faculty.
GEAUX Horned Frogs!
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It was really a rhetorical question. I’m sure we all saw equally embarrassing ‘productions’ regardless of what school we attended.
That’s not going to stop us from poking fun at TCU & Jake over it.
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Yeah, that video has been much discussed over on the TCU boards, along with a lot of other forums. Typically goofy orientation stuff that probably would have been best left off the Internet. Alan, you were there for that? I’m so sorry.
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The problem with modern media is the ability to take thinks out of context when they go viral. If I was doing goofy stuff in college I would not want it out there for others to make fun of who are not party to what is actually going on. As Alan informed us this was not intended to be a “professional” effort and while the viral folks may make fun of it I am not so sure the parents of the actual kids find the same ridicule acceptable. Kids are still kids and I hope this does not discourage them to do goofy stuff and be themselves.
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http://miamiherald.typepad.com/sports-buzz/
If you scroll down to last Sundays entry, you’ll see an interesting tidbit:
A high-level UM official said the school hasn’t been given an updated timetable by the NCAA but will not be surprised if it doesn’t receive its punishment until after National Signing Day in February. The UM official was disgusted by minor violations found in the basketball program, such as providing transportation (including flights) to players’ family members: “That should never happen.”
Missouri and ex-UM coach Frank Haith has said privately he had no idea his assistant coaches were providing those benefits and has told the NCAA that UM never paid basketball players.
No punishment until next spring? That means their hearing would be late this year at best. This thing blew up 8/2011, right? That’s a really long investigation. Miami hasn’t even received their Notice of Allegations yet.
The good thing for Miami is that they are still under the old punishment regime, like OSU and UNC and USC. It may also be good news that they can tell recruits whatever they want about penalties and that their season won’t be disrupted. The bad news is their rivals can also tell recruits whatever they want about penalties coming up.
If you’re Miami, do you extend your bowl ban? They self-imposed one for last year. Do you do it again, and if so, when? I think they will wait until they get the NoA and see how bad it is. Then I think they will extend the ban, but maybe they wait until after their hearing instead in the hopes that they can beat some of the charges.
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http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/24156338/34441353
Speaking of NCAA penalties, have you studied the new penalty structure? CBS lookede at how USC would have been punished under the new format versus the old one, and it’s much stiffer.
Extra penalties:
1 more year of bowl ban
Bigger fine
Another 17-27 scholarships lost per year (32-42 total gone from the 85 limit)
Up to 50% reduction in recruiting activity (official visits and such, I assume)
The loss of scholarships would be huge. I’m not sure how they’d work that since many players would have to become walk-ons. Do they get a free transfer out like seniors do? Regardless, that would cripple a team. No top recruits will come, and there will be no depth.
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I wonder if the author is interpreting the penalties correctly. Typically you will see what looks like a big penalty like 15 scholarships, but when you look at the detail, it is actually 5 scholarships a year for 3 years. So instead of 15/85, it is really 5/85 for 3 years. 32-42/85 is a very serious penalty and significantly more than anything I remember seeing since SMU.
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For example, that 37.5-50% reduction in scholarships could be interpreted as 42 scholarships over 3 years, meaning the school was limited to 71/85.
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Click to access Penalty_Guidelines_Matrix_Outline.pdf
That’s the working draft of the penalty matrix. I would interpret it the same way the author did, but perhaps you disagree.
I think the point is that the new top level of penalties is much closer to the death penalty than ever before, but doesn’t shut down the program.
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Based on traditional penalties, interpreting the way the author did means it is a significant increase in the severity. That’s the reason I raised the question. I don’t have any knowledge of their thinking to interpret it one way or the other.
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What is usually described as a 15 scholarship penalty (5 for 3 years) is just rounding error. Some of those scholarships would have gone to walk-ons in many programs. Its a very minor penalty IMO, but is often touted as big. 42-14 for 3 years would be a hindrance. 42/85 would be dramatic.
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Yep. The reason I think it’s the right interpretation is it says 37.5-50% of scholarships. Now, that could mean from the 25 annual limit but the NCAA knows not everyone uses 25 each year (in some leagues, anyway) so that would be a strange way to do it. In addition, the people on the committee made statements about how sick they were of the violations and that they made the penalties much more severe.
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Might be strange, but then it would hurt those schools that rely on oversigning more than those that don’t, so that’s a good thing.
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True.
I guess it’s partially that I’d like to think they are willing to dock 42 scholarships at once. Still, taking 12 a year for 3-4 years so they can only recruit 13 players max would sting quite a bit. If it becomes limiting them to 73 total per year, that’s not much different from what USC got.
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Brian:
My understanding is USC is limited to offering 15 scholarships per year for the next 3 years, for a total of 30. In the third year they will have 55 of the usual 85 allowed. They will then have the 25 per year limit so for at least a couple years they will still be significantly below 85 (unless they have an extraordinary stretch of luck regarding injuries, discipline, academics, transfers). This is why I’ve wondered why people say USC is back. They haven’t suffered anything that effects the team and it’s makeup yet, only a financial and PR hit. They served their bowl ban but appealed, and lost, the schollie penalties. Those penalties start this year. Other schools that have had similar 3 year penalties seemed to take more than 6 years to recover. (However, they were not USC.)
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…for a total reduction of 30…
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ccrider55,
“My understanding is USC is limited to offering 15 scholarships per year for the next 3 years, for a total of 30. In the third year they will have 55 of the usual 85 allowed.”
OK. I thought it was 15 per year but the total was up to 75 for each year. It would make a big difference if it drops to 65 than 55. Kiffin took a big class leading into the penalties, getting a lot of youth to carry them through the penalties.
“This is why I’ve wondered why people say USC is back. They haven’t suffered anything that effects the team and it’s makeup yet, only a financial and PR hit. They served their bowl ban but appealed, and lost, the schollie penalties. Those penalties start this year.”
Mostly it’s because they have Barkley and the wide receivers and had a great year last year. I’d like to think the penalties will kick in eventually.
“Other schools that have had similar 3 year penalties seemed to take more than 6 years to recover. (However, they were not USC.)”
I guess we’ll see what happens.
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The USC thing is interesting, but as for depth, haven’t they had a lot of attrition of late? I seem to see transfers going out from USC at a way higher pace than usual the past year.
That may be making up for the loss of scholarships. I mean if you clear out the depth you aren’t going to use, you can still bring in plenty of fresh recruits.
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http://www.buckeyextra.com/content/stories/2012/06/17/osu-center-transferring-to-minnesota.html
It’s interesting to see how the B10’s new rules work for transfers between B10 schools. It used to be that you had to pay your own way, plus you lost the mandatory year from the NCAA. Now you you still lose the year but can get a scholarship. In this case it works out well because OSU and MN aren’t scheduled to play before his eligibility runs out.
I liked the old rules, because I don’t think a player should get to transfer within the conference without penalty. There are plenty of non-B10 schools available. Since OSU and MN aren’t likely to play while he’s there it’s no big deal, but I don’t like it.
Theoretically I like the idea of players being able to transfer penalty free in general, but in practice I think it would be a terrible idea. Free agency is bad for CFB.
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Why? It’s his life, let him get his education.
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He can get his free education elsewhere, or pay for it in the B10. I don’t see eliminating 11 schools as a significant hardship.
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The Big Ten honors course credits among themselves. He’s a student first and foremost.
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And nothing prevents him from continuing that education in the B10 or elsewhere. He just can’t get the free ride for football. It’s his choice.
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IIRC the Big 12 rule is you lose two years.
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It’s one year. The transfer year counts as a year of eligibility.
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I was unaware that previous rules didn’t allow transfer with ability to play under scholarship at new school, ouch… In this case Mr. Bobek will pay his way this fall semester, as Minn currently has the max 85 kids on scholarship. Bobek will be under scholarship in the new year, effective Jan 1, 2013. I dunno… IMHO the one year of lost eligibility is plenty of penalty for transferring—on the surface, it appears that Mr. Bobek doesn’t fit into the new coaching staff’s scheme as far as blocking goes—who really knows?
My understanding is that Bobek was a pretty highly ranked/recruited kid out of high school, so I imagine it’s disappointing for him that he fell on the depth chart at OSU. Guess I can’t blame the kid for wanting an opportunity to play elsewhere, though I agree (w/Brian) that I don’t want to see college football turn into college BB (too many xfers) or the NFL (free agency). But, as long as coaches can do as they wish, you surely can’t chain down the players…
As a Gopher fan, this is a really nice gain, especially with what Coach Kill and his staff are trying to do here in Minn. Kill understands that you build from the trenches outward. Hence, a lot of his recruiting efforts have been to build up/shore up both the O and D lines…
By the way, Brian… I was/am very impressed with the civility of the comment posters on “buckeyeextra”— no childish manure… The same article on ESPN wrought forth the typical idiot posters… So thanks to more mature fans on the “extra”…
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mnfanstc,
“I was unaware that previous rules didn’t allow transfer with ability to play under scholarship at new school, ouch…”
Yep. So when OL Justin Boren transferred from MI to OSU and said things about RichRod (probably the most famous intraleague transfer lately), he had to pay to play at OSU.
“In this case Mr. Bobek will pay his way this fall semester, as Minn currently has the max 85 kids on scholarship. Bobek will be under scholarship in the new year, effective Jan 1, 2013.”
That’s bad planning unless you can afford it, which I assume he can. I’m glad he’s happy.
“I dunno… IMHO the one year of lost eligibility is plenty of penalty for transferring—on the surface, it appears that Mr. Bobek doesn’t fit into the new coaching staff’s scheme as far as blocking goes—who really knows?”
The reason I don’t like it is the potential for a recruit to essentially be paid to go spy for a year at another school and bring back the playbook and signals to another B10 school. We all know there are rogue boosters that would pay for that sort of thing, and a poor player might consider it. Why give the temptation?
That’s why I’d have no problem with him transferring outside the conference without the penalty. I’d even accept eliminating the 1 year penalty from the NCAA with certain conditions:
1. They can only transfer once penalty free
2. It’s to a team not scheduled to play their previous team
3. No other teams can contact them once they sign their LOI. The player must initiate all contact with another school (to avoid recruiting players off of other teams).
“My understanding is that Bobek was a pretty highly ranked/recruited kid out of high school, so I imagine it’s disappointing for him that he fell on the depth chart at OSU.”
Yes, he was highly touted and expected to move up from #2 to #1 this year. Instead, he dropped to #3. I understand the disappointment and desire to go where he can start more easily. On the other hand, I hate to see so many players unwilling to compete and earn spots.
“Guess I can’t blame the kid for wanting an opportunity to play elsewhere, though I agree (w/Brian) that I don’t want to see college football turn into college BB (too many xfers)”
I think I heard it’s up to almost 40% of players, now.
“or the NFL (free agency). But, as long as coaches can do as they wish, you surely can’t chain down the players…”
I’m fine with restricting coaches to a degree.
“By the way, Brian… I was/am very impressed with the civility of the comment posters on “buckeyeextra”— no childish manure… The same article on ESPN wrought forth the typical idiot posters… So thanks to more mature fans on the “extra”…”
Yeah, the paper usually draws fewer of the crazies.
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http://www.statesman.com/sports/nine-things-and-one-crazy-prediction-for-this-2401036.html
Kirk Bohls with some playoff news:
1. It may be September before a decision is made since the POC only has 4 hours for their meeting next week.
2. The B10 and P12 feel like the SEC and B12 are trying to force a 4 team playoff when they want a plus one.
3. The new Champs Bowl could be a sticking point. The two leagues want all the money for themselves, but the B10 and P12 long ago had to share the Rose Bowl money with the BCS. Either they all share as part of the bigger system or the B10 and P12 will get the Rose money back.
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Pretty bold on the SEC and Big 12’s stance. They don’t seem very collegial at this point. Delany is probably right when he said some want to have their cake and eat it too. Plus One solves a lot the money issues.
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Why would they be? They have the most to lose from any changes to the current format.
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Having their cake and eat it too sounds like the Pac 12/Big 10 stance in relation to the Rose Bowl. Sources outside Pac 12/Big 10 are kind of frustrated with their stance.
Its seems not really so much a conference issue as a playoff proponent/traditionalist battle and the Pac12/Big 10 are most happy with the traditional setup. Playoff proponents are stronger in the Big 12/SEC/ACC.
Not sure how Plus One solves the money issues (unless you are talking about distribution-and it only solves it for 4 conferences). And a Plus One deals with none of the BCS problems except for the decline in interest in the bowls.
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I’d say it sounds more like the SEC. The B10 and P12 have made compromises already. What has the SEC sacrificed or even said they would consider giving on?
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http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8070330/bcs-conference-commissioner-believes-colleagues-reach-four-team-playoff-model
New latest report has commissioners leaning towards the stupidest playoff idea possible;
According to people familiar with the BCS discussions, the commissioners are leaning toward incorporating the semifinals into the existing BCS bowl games (Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar). At this point, according to sources, the commissioners are leaning toward having predetermined semifinal sites — which would be designated before a particular season begins — and rotating them among the BCS bowls.
This of course directly contradicts the previous latest reports from about a week and a half ago that had the commissioners leaning towards a system that bid out the semifinals to non-bowl neutral sites and the latest reports from about a week ago that had them handing a host options to the presidents with no recommendation.
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Probably the only way to get the Orange Bowl on board; otherwise, it will be stuck with the ACC every year and relegated to irrelevancy.
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The ACC will come back around with time. It’s been a down period, but an undefeated Florida State or Virginia Tech in the next few years will be #1 or #2. Beyond that, I don’t think the Orange Bowl by itself has enough power to push this.
More likely, the conferences want to be able to sell things for the game well in advance and that’s easier with a site designated.
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@vp19 – I know that you’re convinced that the ACC is going to be relegated, but I don’t believe for a single moment that schools such as UNC, Miami, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech are going to get treated the same as the Boise States of the world (much less those in lower non-AQ conferences) in the new system. There is no structural disadvantage to being in the ACC. Their top teams simply haven’t been winning with the talent that they have. I think way too many people are going overboard in believing that underachievement by the ACC champ over the past few years is the same thing as being structurally behind the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12. That’s simply not the case when you see the recruiting classes that schools such as Florida State and Miami (even in the midst of an ugly scandal with the prospect of future sanctions) and the way NFL teams still draft ACC on par with any other power conference. The talent is definitely there, and if you have the talent, you can win. Execution on-the-field (as opposed to a lack of resources or brand names off-the-field) is what the ACC needs, and that can actually be fixed much more easily than off-the-field issues that will hold, say, the new Big East down.
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The SEC can survive when its team from Florida doesn’t do well. With the possible exception of Virginia Tech, the ACC can’t. That’s a big difference. If UF strikes gold with another Urban Meyer, FSU and Miami (though the latter is increasingly irrelevant) will return to mediocrity.
And maybe recruiting class rankings are overrated, that players who go to school X are perceived as more talented than those who go to school Y because X has a “name” and Y does not. That’s been the story of Notre Dame the past two decades — their recruiting classes have been terribly overrated, perhaps because the areas the recruits hail from (largely the urban Northeast and Midwest) have weakened without anyone realizing it.
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Not sure why that has to be true. FSU, UF, and Miami were all strong programs in the 1990s. A good Florida team does not make the other Florida schools irrelevant.
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I don’t understand why predetermined bowl sites would be the preference. That lets you hold onto little history, possibly makes no team close to its bowl, and is much more likely to give a big advantage to the lower seed.
That said, neutral site games that aren’t bowls is narrowly still my least favorite idea.
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Actually I do understand why (easier to sell things in advance). I just don’t like it.
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@Eric – I think the TV timeslots are also a big deal. The TV networks almost certainly want the semifinal games to be the last 2 bowl games played (e.g. one in prime time on January 1st and the other on January 2nd), which does make it more difficult since switching bowl game dates isn’t necessarily easy or possible. The Fiesta, Sugar and Orange Bowl all have potential NFL conflicts, so they need the dates of their bowl games locked down far ahead of time.
Also, I asked Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune via Twitter last month on whether the Big Ten wanted to have predetermined semifinal sites (with the bowls rotating every 2 or 3 years) or slotting the semifinals based on bowl tie-ins and he responded “definitely” the predetermined semifinal sites. That surprised me at first (since the bowl tie-in proposal would seem to protect the Rose Bowl more), but when you think about it, the predetermined semifinal sites also guarantee that the Rose Bowl is a Big Ten/Pac-12 bowl in most seasons. We’ve concentrated a lot about the benefits of a Big Ten or Pac-12 team being in the top 2 if you slot the semifinals based on bowl tie-ins, but that also means that the Big Ten and Pac-12 could get kicked out of the Rose Bowl in any given year. If USC goes on a run like it did during the first half of the 2000s, the Big Ten could end up getting kicked out of the Rose Bowl for several years in a row. That’s likely unpalatable to the Big Ten presidents – they’d rather have a frequent guarantee of getting to the Rose Bowl as opposed to putting their tie-in at risk every year.
So, I think the compromise will likely be that there are predetermined semifinal sites with preferences provided to bowl tie-ins for the bowls that are hosting (e.g. the Rose Bowl gets Big Ten/Pac-12 teams in the years that it’s hosting).
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It means the Big Ten/PAC-10 miss the bowl the fewer times, but it also means the champions are playing in it less. If the semi-finals are based on tie-ins, then the Rose Bowl would have Big Ten champ vs. PAC-12 champ if both were out of the playoff or if both were in the playoff (and likely not 3 and 4 or 1 and 2). In this set-up, there are more possibilities for missing 1 or both champs.
That said, I get what you are saying and can why they’d go this route. I still don’t care for it at all though.
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On the timeslot issue, I hope they are willing to keep the Rose in its traditional time slot regardless of whether its a semi-final or not, but am guessing it would be an evening game if it’s a semi-final.
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The cost of trying to get BCS 2.0 (aka playoff) is too high. Forget it. Return to the bowl system and bitch about who is voted #1 rather than lose the Rose Bowl and bitch about who was selected top 4.
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Eric,
“I don’t understand why predetermined bowl sites would be the preference.”
I know you say in the next comment that you do understand but don’t like it, which is fine. I just wanted to give context.
“That lets you hold onto little history, possibly makes no team close to its bowl, and is much more likely to give a big advantage to the lower seed.”
How about a compromise?
The semis rotate between the 4 big bowls (assuming the Champs is played in the Sugar). The pairs for semis are Rose/Orange and Fiesta/Sugar. When the Rose has a semi, the B10/P12 game moves to the Fiesta instead. When the Sugar has a semi, either champ not in a semi plays in the Orange (if both champs miss the semis, the Orange has their pick).
That keeps a lot of tradition while allowing the logistical advantages that come with predetermined sites.
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Nooooo…
Re-rank post bowls. The Rose Bowl isn’t the Rose Bowl unless B10/P12 champs meet in it.
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ccrider55,
You know I’m all for that, but they seem to be bypassing that option. I was trying to stay within their parameters of rotating semis in the BCS bowls.
I could also go for top two survivors advance rather than re-ranking. So if #1 and #2 before the bowls both win their bowls, they automatically play for the title. Everyone else would need all but 1 team above them to lose. This means nobody can lose their bowl and still play for the title, but it also means the regular season determines your fate for the most part. The key is to play the BCS bowls in reverse order of highest ranked team so the last game always determines at least one of the NCG teams.
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I could see them going with something like that. I’m not sure how I’d feel about it. A part of me says that if it’s not in the Rose Bowl, there is no reason the game has to be against the PAC-10 at all (I particularly don’t want the Fiesta Bowl in the same status as the Rose which what that would feel like it was doing).
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All the same, I’d probably go for it. However, the Big Ten would not be tied to the Fiesta Bowl when the Fiesta Bowl was a semi-final.
I do agree the order will be something like that though. They are going to want one western and one southern bowl each year.
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Eric,
Nothing will be the same as the 2 champs meeting in the Rose, but this is the the best way within their parameters to keep some of the history. The Fiesta will never gain equal status to the Rose, but at least the game would feel familiar. It’s still a western trip, but the Fiesta was the only one without any tie-ins. They could make the Detroit bowl the replacement so the P12 has to come to the B10 half the time, but that seems sort of like punishment plus a weird match with a weak game in the off years.
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As to your second post, that’s right. The B10 would only be tied to the Fiesta when the Rose is a semi, which is part of why the Fiesta will never feel equal to the Rose.
With the semis, I don’t know how they’ll decide who plays where. They could just give #1 the choice, or they could use tie-ins for #1 and #2, or they could avoid home games for #3 and #4 or a combination of those. I’d like to think they’ll honor tie-ins as much as possible, but not at the expense of giving the lower ranked teams an edge.
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Quick question- anybody has the cliff notes on the UVA’s Pres. Sullivan being dismissed last week?
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I was just wondering that too.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2012/06/teresa_sullivan_fired_from_uva_what_happens_when_universities_are_run_by_robber_barons_.single.html
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Sounds like she was fired because a bunch of MBAs led by a hedge fund type decided that her outlook for the university wasn’t a “business” type of outlook.
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One Board member decided that she wants to dictate how UVA runs without the day to day stuff like dealing with faculty, students and other stakeholders of the university. She went behind the the scenes months ago to create an opportunity to force Pres. Sullivan to leave.
http://chronicle.com/article/Sullivan-Defends-Her/132379/
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/06/18/reports-suggest-uva-board-wanted-president-eliminate-language-programs
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/2012/06/17/gJQA4ijrhV_story.html?hpid=z2
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TPTB at UVA are being vague about why Sullivan was let go. The Rector of the BOV, Dragas, claims that there was a difference in ‘strategic direction’ between the Board and the President. Sullivan suggests that possibly she was not making ‘budget cuts’ suggested by the Board. In either case, no one is really clarifying the issue.
It does not look good for the BOV. First, their suggested ‘interim’ President withdrew from consideration as a replacement for Sullivan. Second, the current Provost is publicly seeking an explanation and seems to be supporting Sullivan. Third, the previous President (Casteen) is questioning the decision. Now the faculty is strongly supporting Sullivan.
Fascinating how incompetence plays out at the highest levels of universities.
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http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/62160/3-point-stance-urban-meyers-contract
Bob Stoops is upset at how many night games OU has to play (average of 9 per year for 2010-2011). I know many fans like them, but this just shows that feeling isn’t universal.
I prefer a nice afternoon game to attend, but primetime games are great for TV viewing. Perhaps they could show more P12/MWC games at night (for the east coast) and let eastern teams play during the day.
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http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8071316/big-ten-conference-ivy-league-launch-joint-study-concussions
The B10 and Ivy League are combining their concussion studies into one giant program. That’s 20 schools with 17,500 athletes and many of the top experts in the country. They are looking to get NIH funding, which seems likely given the large number of concussions that happen annually and the quality of people involved. I’d like to see the NFL get involved in helping to fund the research since the results are crucial to them.
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If the NFL cares half as much as it pretends to these days it needs to get involved somehow.
Include its players in testing to increase the data variety (best athletes with highest impact collisions for example), dump a couple hundred million to jump start the process (couple percent of one year’s profits for some sizable positive PR), or just find some way to stencil its logo somewhere near this.
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They do sponsor some research on their own. I just think it would look better to pay truly independent scientists to do the work. Nobody will believe data the NFL produces, just like nobody trusts a study run by the drug company making the drug.
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The NFL cares so much as they don’t want to be liable in a lawsuit and they want their stars protected.
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In related news the SEC & Gulf State Conference have teamed up in a ground breaking study on the potential detrimental effects of book learnin’ on catfish noodling.
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Concussion research at Nebraska
http://journalstar.com/news/local/unl-researcher-at-the-forefront-of-head-injury-research/article_f595736e-060e-5e34-b60e-c08ad2525f07.html
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http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/19378895/power-conferences-likely-to-receive-most-of-playoff-revenue
At least 1 revenue distribution plan is under discussion. It would be based on past rankings in the final BCS rankings from 1998 on based on 2014 membership.
With standard poll points (1st = 25, 2nd = 24, …), the totals so far would be:
1. SEC 1,054
2. Big Ten 860
3. Big 12 816
4. ACC 673
5. Pac-12 671
6. Big East 240
7. Notre Dame 73
8. C-USA 49
9. MWC 48
10. BYU 45
11. MAC 21
12. Sun Belt 0
(tie) WAC 0
That makes it pretty obvious the top 5 should get the lion’s share with the BE getting a medium share. Of course, each conference is a different size. Per member, that would be:
B12 81.6
SEC 75.3
ND 73
B10 71.7
P12 55.9
ACC 48.1
BYU 45
BE 20? (I lose track of how big they’ll be in any given year)
CUSA 4.9
MWC 4.8
MAC 1.5
SB 0
WAC 0
Other 0
If you prefer to just look at the number of teams in the BCS top 25 and not their actual placement (reduces the impact of bias), you get this:
1. SEC 78
2. Big Ten 66
3. ACC 57
4. Big 12 56
5. Pac-12 49
6. Big East 24
7. MWC 6
7. BYU 6
9. C-USA 5
9. Notre Dame 5
11. MAC 3
12. Sun Belt 0
(tie) WAC 0
Per team:
BYU 6
B12 5.60
SEC 5.57
B10 5.50
ND 5
P12 4.08
ACC 4.07
BE 2.00
Others < 1.00
Again there is a clear top tier of 5 conferences with the BE a level down and then the rest.
The point is, I think the top 5 leagues plus ND all get paid at one rate, with BYU and the BE on a middle tier and the others on a bottom level. I don't think they'll be quite as performance based as the NCAA tourney because of the smaller numbers and poll bias issues. I could see them revisiting the splits every few years to see if a conference has clearly moved up or down from one tier to the next. For now, it's pretty clear there are 3 levels.
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http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8073582/ohio-supreme-court-rules-ohio-state-case-vs-espn
OSU beat ESPN in court over the release of documents. The OH Supreme Court said FERPA concerns were enough to withhold the info. Take that WWL.
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CFN released their All-American teams:
1st D:
ACC 2
BE 0
B10 2
B12 0
P12 2
SEC 4
Other 1
2nd D:
ACC 0
BE 0
B10 2
B12 2
P12 1
SEC 5
Other 1
3rd D:
ACC 0
BE 1
B10 1
B12 3
P12 1
SEC 2
Other 3
Total D:
ACC 2
BE 1
B10 5
B12 5
P12 4
SEC 11
Other 5
1st O:
ACC 1
BE 0
B10 3
B12 0
P12 2
SEC 4
Other 1
2nd O:
ACC 2
BE 0
B10 2
B12 1
P12 2
SEC 3
Other 1
3rd O:
ACC 0
BE 0
B10 0
B12 4
P12 1
SEC 3
Other 3
Total O:
ACC 3
BE 0
B10 5
B12 5
P12 5
SEC 10
Other 5
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http://cfn.scout.com/2/1196131.html
Sorry. That’s the link for those that need it (it’s on their front page).
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Brett McMurphy’s BCS points formula: SEC #1 by a large margin, Big Ten 3rd with 36% fewer points. Missouri ranked tied for 17th among all individual programs.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/brett-mcmurphy/19380435
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To be clear, that is for only the last 5 years. It’s also with the 2014 alignment, so the SEC has 14 teams.
Total since 2007:
1. SEC 407 points
2. Big 12 361 points
3. Big Ten 259 points
4. Pac-12 224 points
5. ACC 184 points
6. Big East 130 points
7. BYU 31 points
8. MWC 30 points
9. C-USA 5 points
10. MAC 4 points
11 (tie). Notre Dame, WAC and Sun Belt 0 points
Per team:
B12 36.1
SEC 29.1
B10 21.6
P12 18.7
ACC 13.1
BE 10.8
With the range of conference sizes now, it’s important to take that into account.
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I’m pretty sure that was clear to anyone who clicked on the link I posted and read it for 10 seconds.
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Not everyone actually reads the linked articles. Since you threw out some of the info from his article, I provided a touch of context.
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Why just the last five years? Seems like a proposal from the SEC. I am surprised they didn’t just want to use 2011.
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I think that’s McMurphy’s idea.
5 years is a reasonable interval and consistent with how they spread NCAA tourney credits. It balances year-to-year fluctuations while still rewarding success.
If they use this format, the full BCS era is more likely because it does even out the Big 4 a little more and separates the Big 5 from the BE. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them gradually switch to a 5 year interval. For example:
Year 1-20% current year, 80% BCS era
Year 2-20% current year, 20% prior year, 60% BCS era
Year 3-20% current year, 20% prior year, 20% two years, 40% BCS era
Year 4-20% current year, 20% prior year, 20% two years, 20% 3 years, 20% BCS era
Year 5-20% for each of the 5 most recent years
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Seems a little more reasonable than just five years. Bad coaching decisions can take some time to unwind. ie. Rich Rod etc… and maybe the end of the Bobby Bowden and Joe Pa era’s. USC’s issues etc… Tennessee’s disaster.
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But we are dealing with conferences of 10-14 teams, not just one team.
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In any event, I don’t see them using just the last 5 years in view of how dominant the SEC and Big 12 have been in that interval. And I don’t see the SEC and Big 12 trying to insist on such a built in advantage where you already know the past. Noone knows what the next 5 will bring.
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bullet,
I don’t see them using a strict performance-based system. Instead, I think they use performance to define tiers (1 = Big 5 + ND, 2 = BE + BYU, 3 = other) and pay each tier equally. I think they will re-evaluate the tiers every so often to give conferences the chance to move up (or down), but basically this is just a way to be lawsuit proof by saying they have data to support the payments rather than just using reputations.
Performance works better in the NCAA tourney because of the numbers involved (both teams and games). The limits of 25 teams and 3 games, and knowing that bias can have a sizable impact on ranking, means using the BCS rankings straight up would be unwise.
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It will be interesting to see.
If they use tiers, it leaves some of the anti-trust appearances, if not actual issues.
There has to be at least some % performance based because some schools play more games and there is a cost involved.
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If it is a rolling five years I see no issue with it.
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Assuming the post-season playoff produces $400M net for distribution among the conferences and using the rankings since 2007, this is how the money would be split percentage-wise (total points equals 1,635):
SEC (14): 24.9% or $99.6M or $7.1M per team
Big 12 (10): 22.1% or $88.4M or $8.8M per team
Big 10 (12): 15.8% or $63.2M or $5.3M per team
Pac 12 (12): 13.7% or $54.8M or $4.6M per team
ACC (14): 11.3% or $45.2M or $3.2M per team
The 62 teams in the five conferences above would get 87.2% of the post-season revenue.
The remaining conferences (Big East, C-USA, MWC, MAC, WAC, Sun Belt) and independents (ND, BYU) account for 12.8% of the $400M for a total of $51.2M,
If you go back to 1998 and assume the same $400M distribution, then here’s what we’re looking at (total points is 4,550)
SEC (14): 23.2% or $92.8M or $6.6M per team ($0.5M less per team than 2007 option)
Big 10 (12): 18.9% or $75.6M or $6.3M per team ($1.0M more)
Big 12 (10): 17.9% or $71.6M or $7.2M per team ($1.6M less)
ACC (14): 14.8% or $59.2M or $4.2M per team ($1.0M more)
Pac 12 (12): 14.7% or $58.8M or $4.9M per team ($0.3M more)
When you compare the two, you can see where this might be another B10/P12/ACC v. B12/SEC battle over revenue. Those five conferences would account for 89.5% of the revenue with the remaining 10.5% or $42.0M going to the other conferences and independents.
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Fun history lession via EDSBS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnolia_league
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Still think they should call it the Kudzu League.
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That would imply it is rapidly growing and will soon take over everything.
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ND to Big 12
Two sources in the Big 12 said Wednesday the possibility of Notre Dame moving its Olympic sports out of the Big East and into the Big 12 is becoming more and more likely.
Speculation is growing among those sources that an announcement could come from South Bend before the end of the summer.
As part of such a move, Notre Dame, which has a contract with NBC to televise its home football games through the 2015 season, would agree to play up to six football games against Big 12 competition (but most likely three or so to start with), sources tell Orangebloods.com.
http://texas.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1377426
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It makes sense. Why would it be getting less likely or even staying the same as they realize who’s left in the BE and what they get paid versus what ND might make in the B12 for all but FB? NBC may have told them that playing some B12 games would help the TV deal, too.
I don’t see 6 FB games in the near future, though. USC, Navy, an eastern school, 2 of their 3 B10 rivals, and maybe a second western school are mainstays of their schedule. That’s 5 or 6 games. I don’t see them filling the rest of their schedule with the B12. They still want to play other schools.
I could see them regularly playing 3 games like:
A. UT, OkSU, ISU (2 for 1 or neutral site or only at ND)
B. OU, TCU, KU (2 for 1 or neutral site or only at ND)
They get 1 king, 1 prince and an easy game. I don’t seem them playing a lot of road games in Ames or other Manhattan or Lubbock. The kings will be home and homes, and maybe the princes (or they could move to a nearby pro stadium), but the peasants will have to be neutral sites or 2 for 1s or something.
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ND vs Charlie Weiss’s KU at Arrowhead. Must see TV.
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Notre Dame has a four-game series scheduled with Texas and a home-and-home with Oklahoma. I don’t think they necessarily need to join the Big XII to get teams from that conference on their schedule. That said, it’s a matter of timing–the UT games were season openers in three of four seasons with the other being played the second week of the season. The OU game in South Bend is in September, but the game in Norman is in October. What the Big XII might help them do is get some quality games in the latter two months of their schedule.
With the ACC, Big XII and Pac 12 all having nine-game conference schedules, the Big Ten starting its scheduling agreement with the Pac 12 in 2017 and the SEC likely to go to a nine-team conference schedule in due course, Notre Dame is looking at a situation where the teams it’d like to play have fewer non-conference scheduling slots. It doesn’t make the situation impossible for ND, but it’s potentially more difficult. As good as this year’s schedule looks like, also keep in mind that Notre Dame had Western Michigan and Tulsa on its recent past schedules as well.
It’ll be an interesting television arrangement for Notre Dame. The Longhorn Network hasn’t exactly been tearing it up on the distribution side, so I have to wonder how well a one university network would do for ND. I imagine they’ll be putting a lot of their sports on the NBC Sports Network.
A potential association with the Big XII would also help their bowl access, especially when compared to what the Big East had to offer. I imagine they’ll have some sort of tie-in to the Big XII bowls, including the Champions Bowl with the SEC.
I suspect the Michigan-Notre Dame series is going to end pretty soon, so the two Big Ten teams that will be on their schedule more often than not would be Michigan State and Purdue. I know Northwestern has a home-and-home with them coming up, so maybe some other B10 teams will be on their schedule (although Wisconsin apparently tried, but couldn’t find an open date with them). We’ll see.
Conference realignment might be on the table again with this move and once the post-season gets to its final steps. It could make for an interesting summer.
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cutter,
“Notre Dame has a four-game series scheduled with Texas and a home-and-home with Oklahoma. I don’t think they necessarily need to join the Big XII to get teams from that conference on their schedule.”
Agreed. But the B12 might view some more FB games as the price ND has to pay to join for the other sports. Most B12 schools will probably lose money by travelling to ND for the other sports, not make more because ND helps their TV deal. Getting some ND FB games to even that out seems reasonable.
“That said, it’s a matter of timing–the UT games were season openers in three of four seasons with the other being played the second week of the season. The OU game in South Bend is in September, but the game in Norman is in October. What the Big XII might help them do is get some quality games in the latter two months of their schedule.”
Also a good point.
“With the ACC, Big XII and Pac 12 all having nine-game conference schedules, the Big Ten starting its scheduling agreement with the Pac 12 in 2017″
True. You might as well view it as the P12 with a 10 game schedule and the ACC, B12 and B10 at 9.
” and the SEC likely to go to a nine-team conference schedule in due course,”
That’s the one I don’t buy. They seem fine with not playing each other very often and don’t want the harder schedule.
“Notre Dame is looking at a situation where the teams it’d like to play have fewer non-conference scheduling slots. It doesn’t make the situation impossible for ND, but it’s potentially more difficult. As good as this year’s schedule looks like, also keep in mind that Notre Dame had Western Michigan and Tulsa on its recent past schedules as well.”
I think Pitt ans Syracuse moving to the ACC is also a factor. Pitt was a regular, and now their schedule is much more full. SU also was an eastern option, but now they aren’t as available.
“It’ll be an interesting television arrangement for Notre Dame. The Longhorn Network hasn’t exactly been tearing it up on the distribution side, so I have to wonder how well a one university network would do for ND. I imagine they’ll be putting a lot of their sports on the NBC Sports Network.”
They’ve had a 1 school network for a while and done fine. As long as NBC is happy, ND is.
“A potential association with the Big XII would also help their bowl access, especially when compared to what the Big East had to offer. I imagine they’ll have some sort of tie-in to the Big XII bowls, including the Champions Bowl with the SEC.”
I doubt it unless they get to 6+ games, actually. ISU, KU, etc don’t want to lose a rare chance at a good bowl to ND, and the bowls will always choose ND over them if they have the option.
“I suspect the Michigan-Notre Dame series is going to end pretty soon, so the two Big Ten teams that will be on their schedule more often than not would be Michigan State and Purdue.”
I don’t think it will end entirely, but I expect it will have more gaps.
“I know Northwestern has a home-and-home with them coming up, so maybe some other B10 teams will be on their schedule (although Wisconsin apparently tried, but couldn’t find an open date with them). We’ll see.”
NW might get a few games, but not the rest of the league. They’ve never wanted to play the other teams much.
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While I said that I think the Big 12 was being undervalued for a long time, I do not think this is a good fit at all for Notre Dame. They are a school in the Midwest, but which thrives off the east coast as much as the Midwest. Putting all their Olympics sports in a conference of the plains is not going to be a good long term move. The demand for a certain number of games is equally bad as it will limit their options greatly especially if they need to continue the 7-1-4 arrangement for NBC. I know the bowls will be better and the money probably will be a bit better too, but I don’t think the positives for the Fighting Irish outweigh the drawbacks.
If the ACC made the same offer, I think it might be worth considering though (since they have a decent northeast presence now).
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A few thoughts…
I forgot the “?” at the end of my comment before the excerpt.
The Big 12 bylaws don’t account for partial membership. I imagine that will be something to hammer out. How will the GOR work?
If true, I’m surprised to see ND leave its Catholic brothers behind and ND will need to find a home for its sports that the Big 12 doesn’t sponsor. Not an insurmountable obstacle, but one it must account for.
Stillwater, Ames, Lubbock, Manhattan (KS), and Waco are not the big games on big stages that ND seems to like. This move makes sense if you look at Texas and Oklahoma and stop there. I just don’t understand why ND would willingly travel (for Basketball, etc) to Manhattan, KS over yearly trips to Manhattan, NY. At least Dallas (TCU) and KC (KU) can offer the big stages, but the Big East is all about schools in large metro areas (i.e. the big stages).
Assuming ND mandates it plays Texas and Oklahoma, they will have 10 guaranteed games against BCS level competition. USC and Stanford will as well until the Pac 12 – Big Ten agreement kicks in and then they’ll have 11.
Chip mentions in the article that starting a network is “one of ND’s biggest attractions to the Big 12.” Outside of South Bend, where is the critical mass of ND alums to get their network carriage? He continually promotes The Underpants Gnomes Theory of Networks. Step 1: start a network, Step 2: …, Step 3: Profit. Instead of starting a network, Oklahoma sold its content to Fox (smart). Texas gets paid for a network that no one can see (smart), and BYU gives their network away (Mormon smart). That’s it. Does Chip know what happened to the Mtn?
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Like the SEC network, there’s a lot of smoke, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
I don’t see the value.
ND helps in bowl arrangements, but they will probably take more than they help. All but Texas and OU will get trumped every time a ND team is even close.
ND helps in prestige, but they take away more in prestige by creating a hybrid conference with partial members.
ND adds TV$ with the scheduling arrangement, but UT and OU already have them on the schedule. Will ND honor this schedule anymore than the one with the Big East? They don’t need to be in for all sports if the Big 12 is willing to be flexible in when ooc games are played, much like the BYU/WAC deal.
And having more members with different agendas creates instability. So some marginal increase in TV$ and they take away in non-revs and stability.
Adding them as a partial member just decreases their need to join as a full member at some point in the future.
Just don’t see the justification.
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More thoughts…
Scheduling agreement helps Notre Dame in the scheduling crunch with the ACC, B1G, and PAC going to 9 conference scheduled (not conference games) games or more.
What happens to the Big East? Does it finally split? Do the Catholic’s create their own catholic league by grabbing Creighton, etc.?
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Final thought…
Would the ACC make a similar offer to ND and another non-football school (say Georgetown) or Navy (keep FB indy) to create a 14/16 hybrid to keep ND out of the Big 12?
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@Mike – This would still surprise me, but wouldn’t shock me. Geographically and culturally, I don’t think it makes sense for ND. However, in terms of perception, ND would maintain its place as a member of a power conference for non-football sports (which the Big East isn’t anymore, even if it’s still pretty good in basketball), so that may be the driving factor for a fairly image conscious institution.
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Still have to follow the money. This puts things into perspective. Swofford wanted conference champions only. That probably would have pushed ND his way. With it appearing that there will be a way for ND to qualify outside of a conference, they would go toward the B12, which would take them without a football commitment, while the ACC probably would not.
Then there is Tier 3, which would cause a complete redo of the ACC contract if ND had come in. But they can get their own deal in the B12.
If the conditions change and you have to be a league champ, they could make the commitment to the B12 and keep Tier 3 (although I wouldn’t expect that any time soon)
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Here’s what I’ve had not explained to me yet: I keep reading that ND is “satisfied” with the way the playoff format was unfolding. Now the Domers are saying they are happy they have a way in to the tournament. So what I am wondering is, doesn’t ND realize they are EXACTLY correct: they will have ONE and only ONE way into a 4-team playoff, and that is by grabbing the only at-large bid available, in a fierce competition with, say, 60 other schools. Meanwhile, everyone else will have TWO ways in: the at-large bid or winning their conference championship (which may not be automatic but will make it highly likely).
How is ND okay with this? Do the Irish really think they have any shot at all at the at-large bid, except maybe as a once-every-25-years St. Jude miracle?
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You’re assuming they do a 3 champs and a WC. A straight top 4 (however it is determined) would give them the same access as everyone else.
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AnthonyD,
“Here’s what I’ve had not explained to me yet: I keep reading that ND is “satisfied” with the way the playoff format was unfolding. Now the Domers are saying they are happy they have a way in to the tournament. So what I am wondering is, doesn’t ND realize they are EXACTLY correct: they will have ONE and only ONE way into a 4-team playoff, and that is by grabbing the only at-large bid available, in a fierce competition with, say, 60 other schools. Meanwhile, everyone else will have TWO ways in: the at-large bid or winning their conference championship (which may not be automatic but will make it highly likely).
How is ND okay with this? Do the Irish really think they have any shot at all at the at-large bid, except maybe as a once-every-25-years St. Jude miracle?”
They are OK with it because they have a chance to make it and they get to still be ND, the school to cool to join a conference. That’s all they’ve ever wanted. They’ll happily trade more frequent playoff appearances for staying independent.
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“up to” seems the key part here. I’d expect annual Texas/Oklahoma games, and then some sort of rotation among the rest of the programs (if FSU+1 joins Big 12, I could see alternating between those two for one game and then rotating between EVERYONE else for the fourth). I can’t see ND doing annual, or even close to annual, home and homes with the likes of ISU, Baylor etc.
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Whenever I see the words “up to” I always just substitute in “at most”. I would be pretty shocked if this actually went through. I’m sure ND would jump at the opportunity, but I just don’t see enough upside for the Big XII.
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Swarbrick
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/chi-notre-dames-swarbrick-nothing-to-report-of-big-12-switch-20120620,0,4551897.story
“I have no idea what prompted that,” Swarbrick said. “It is not based on any discusson, any meeting we have done…
“I can’t imagine what triggered the account, because I did see it. There was no conversation, no ‘something’ that would cause it to be written.”
[snip]
As always, though, there was some wiggle room left should the Big East disintegrate.
“I’ve said all along that there were three important factors for us,” Swarbrick said. “One was the resolution of postseason football, which we are closer to. One is a resolution of our media relationship, which we are in the homestretch of.
“The third is related to the stability of the Big East, which we get more information on eveyr day. In that sense, pieces of that are starting to fall into place, and that will put us in a time and place where we probbaly take a look at it and decide what we’re doing.”
Typo of “eveyr” is in the article
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Chip talked to Deloss…how much more authoritative can you get…
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Dodds has delusions of grandeur vis-a-vis ND.
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New APRs are out. Missouri ranks 1st in football in the Big 12 again. Would be 2nd in the SEC and 1st in the Pac 12, 3rd in the Big Ten, and 3rd in the ACC,
http://www.columbiatribune.com/weblogs/behind-the-stripes/2012/jun/20/mu-footballs-apr-score-among-the-best-in-big-12-se/
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Good for them. One slight correction, though. The article only listed public schools above MO in that sentence.
MO would have been:
7th in the ACC behind Duke, Clemson, Miami, BC, GT and WF
4th in the B10 behind NW, OSU and WI
2nd in the BE behind Rutgers
2nd in the P12 behind Stanford
2nd in the SEC behind Vanderbilt (and tied with FL)
OkSU was in the danger zone (below 930), lower than anyone else in the ACC, B10, B12, P12 or SEC. UL was really low (911). No other AQ team was in the danger zone that I saw.
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Okie St.’s MBB team is also below 930. If they don’t get their APR up they won’t be going to the playoffs no matter how much money T. Boone pumps into the athletic department.
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Yes, but NU is first in the FBS for the sixth time!! That’s poetic justice for not winning a bowl game since the 48′-49′ season and being the only BCS conference team not to make the NCAA basketball tournament (but so what, we won it all in ’31 – still better than the Cubs). GO U NU!!
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Back in the real world
————
https://twitter.com/ChiTribHamilton/stat…1234718721
#NotreDame AD Jack Swarbrick on report of non-football sports to Big 12: “I have no idea what prompted that.”
https://twitter.com/ChiTribHamilton/stat…3100213248
More #NotreDame AD Jack Swarbrick on Big 12 affiliation report: “It is not based on any discussion, any meeting we have done.”
https://twitter.com/ChiTribHamilton/stat…4564705280
#NotreDame AD Jack Swarbrick said school is in the “homestretch” of resolving “media relationship,” presumably NBC deal.
quoted from “Wildthing2o2” with sources above
http://csnbbs.com/showthread.php?tid=574958&page=8
——-
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport…ort-of-big-12-switch-20120620,0,4551897.story
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The BCS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick on Wednesday endorsed a seeded four-team playoff model for college football that would begin for the 2014 season.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8078786/commissioners-reach-consensus-four-team-college-football-playoff
“We’re very unified,” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said. “There are issues that have yet to be finalized. There’s always devil in the detail, from the model to the selection process, but clearly we’ve made a lot of progress.”
Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said the discussion centers on a four-team playoff inside the existing bowl structure with the championship game up for bid nationally.
Sources told ESPN that under the recommended model, the four teams would be selected by a committee that would consider certain criteria such as conference championships and strength of schedule.
…
The presidential oversight committee still is expected to discuss multiple models next week, including a plus-one format proposed by presidents from the Big Ten and Pac 12.
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Regarding the pre-determined sites, I have a hard time trying to figure why the PAC 12 and Big 10 would want the Rose Bowl as part of the rotation. If they really want Big 10 vs PAC 12 in the Rose Bowl, they’re better off not being in the rotation. Here’s a sample of how all the bowl games could have looked like the last 4 years if there was a playoff with a selection committee. Their odds of matching a PAC 12 vs Big 10 team is better off out of the playoff rotation.
2011
Rose Oregon vs Oklahoma St (Semi-Final)
Sugar LSU vs Alabama (Semi-Final)
Fiesta Stanford vs Boise St
Orange South Carolina vs Wisconsin
Champions Arkansas vs Kansas St
2010
Fiesta Oregon vs TCU (Semi-Final)
Orange Auburn vs Wisconsin (Semi-Final)
Rose Ohio St vs Stanford
Sugar LSU vs Michigan St
Champions Arkansas vs Oklahoma
2009
Rose Texas vs Cincinnati (Semi-Final)
Sugar Alabama vs TCU (Semi-final)
Fiesta Oregon vs Boise St
Orange Ohio St vs Georgia Tech
Champions Florida vs Nebraska
2008
Fiesta Oklahoma vs USC (Semi-final)
Orange Texas vs Florida (Semi-final)
Rose Penn St vs Utah (no viable replacement PAC 10 team)
Sugar Ohio St vs Boise St
Champions Alabama vs Texas Tech
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Not a single “true” Rose Bowl.
Stinking pile of…
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texmex,
“Regarding the pre-determined sites, I have a hard time trying to figure why the PAC 12 and Big 10 would want the Rose Bowl as part of the rotation. If they really want Big 10 vs PAC 12 in the Rose Bowl, they’re better off not being in the rotation.”
It depends on the details, of course. However, having a rotation should guarantee a B10/P12 game every other year plus whenever one happens in the semis. It also means the Rose has its match-up (it won’t always be champs, but I think they have accepted that) or a semi every year to keep it prominent. With semis tied to who is in the playoff, they have better odds of getting a lot of B10 or P12 but not both and sometimes neither. If the model insists on strict 1/4 and 2/3 games, the odds of getting B10/P12 go way down.
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texmex,
In more detail:
1. Assume the rotating semis are paired Rose/Sugar, Fiesta/Orange
2. Compare cases (semis are R/S, F/O, based on 1&2, try to max B10/P12)
3. Use the BCS top 4 as is.
Rose Bowl options:
2011
Rose = semi: AL/OkSU
Rose = not semi: WI/OR
Based on 1/2: WI/OR – not semi
Max B10/P12: WI/OR – not semi
WI/OR played.
2010
Rose = semi: OR/TCU
Rose = not semi: WI/Utah
Based on 1/2: OR/TCU – semi
Max B10/P12: OR/TCU – semi
WI/TCU played.
2009
Rose = semi: UT/UC
Rose = not semi: OR/OSU
Based on 1/2: OR/OSU – not semi
Max B10/P12: OR/OSU – not semi
OR/OSU played.
2008
Rose = semi: OU/AL
Rose = not semi: USC/PSU
Based on 1/2: USC/PSU – not semi
Max B10/P12: USC/PSU – not semi
USC/PSU played.
2007
Rose = semi: OSU/OU
Rose = not semi: USC/IL
Based on 1/2: OSU/OU – semi
Max B10/P12: OSU/OU – semi
USC/IL played.
Rotation (odds = semi) : 1 B10 vs other semi, 2 B10/P12 (1 of champs), 2 other semis
Rotation (evens = semi) : 1 P12 vs other semi, 3 B10/P12 (2 of champs), 1 other semi
Based on #1/#2 : 1 B10 vs other semi, 1 P12 vs other semi, 3 B10/P12 (3 of champs)
Max B10/P12 in semis : 1 B10 vs other semi, 1 P12 vs other semi, 3 B10/P12 (3 of champs)
The debate is whether hosting semis is better than hosting B10/P12 match-ups that aren’t semis. For prominence, the Rose may have to have semis as much as everyone else. It may also be a requirement to let them get other concessions they want (game time, always getting to replace with another B10 or P12 team, etc).
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If the Rose Bowl were not in the playoff rotation, these would have been the matchups going back to 2004. Some very attractive matchups that wouldn’t take away from the lure of the Rose Bowl at all. I think 2010 and 2011 would have been great matchups.
2011: Stanford vs Wisconsin
2010: Stanford vs Ohio State
2009: Oregon vs Ohio State
2008: USC/Utah vs Penn St (USC/Alabama toss up for 4th playoff spot)
2007: USC/Illinois
2006: USC/Wisconsin (Polls had USC #7 that year..it’s doubtful committee selects them)
2005: Oregon vs Notre Dame (Penn St and Ohio St both make playoff, ND is replacement team at next Big 10 team was rated #18)
2004: California vs Michigan
I don’t know…i think the best solution is to have the playoff semi-finals take place the 4th Saturday of December….leave the Rose and future Champions Bowl out of the rotation and have those two games headline New Years Day. Play the championship game sometime in early January.
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Wow, an honest-to-goodness playoff. I’m happy to have a less controversy-riddled post-season, but I don’t care for the semis staying with the bowl sites. I’d really prefer on-campus games, but if the universities are okay sharing their money with the bowl committees, who am I to complain? Also, are we sure these semis will be taking place in the bowl games themselves and not just at the sites?
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Jake,
We’re pretty sure at this point that they’ll be at the bowls on a rotating basis (so maybe Rose/Orange one year and Sugar/Fiesta the next).
The colleges actually probably make more from in the bowls than they would at home sites. Maximizing the revenue is also why pre-determined sites are more likely. With set-up bowls, they can have games in NFL stadiums (and the Rose Bowl which has other attractions) where they can sell tickets and luxury seats for a whole year in advance. With on campus games, the options are more limited. Also, the games being a step removed from the conferences allow them to avoid a few headaches with controversy for things like the Fiesta Bowl incident (that only reflected badly on the bowl itself rather than the Big 12 for instance).
Don’t get me wrong. My preference would be to have semi-finals at home fields the first week of December, but the bowls still make good money sense in a lot of ways. Maybe they still could increase it a little, but they aren’t leaving a lot of money on the table.
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texmex,
“If the Rose Bowl were not in the playoff rotation, these would have been the matchups going back to 2004.”
You think. You assumed a committee would make certain adjustments to the BCS rankings, primarily OR passing Stanford last year.
“Some very attractive matchups that wouldn’t take away from the lure of the Rose Bowl at all. I think 2010 and 2011 would have been great matchups.”
That’s all in the eye of the beholder. A staunch traditionalist would say only a champ/champ game is a good Rose Bowl. Others will accept a high ranking replacement for a champ in the playoff. Some will accept 2 substitutes of high rank. Some aren’t concerned with rank at all, just the conferences.
The Rose Bowl committee has never said anything about where it falls on that spectrum, and neither have the B10 and P12.
“2011: Stanford vs Wisconsin”
OR/WI was better.
“2010: Stanford vs Ohio State”
No champs hurts it.
“2009: Oregon vs Ohio State”
Happened, and for once the B10 won a Rose Bowl.
“2008: USC/Utah vs Penn St (USC/Alabama toss up for 4th playoff spot)”
USC/PSU was a good match-up. Utah not so much.
“2007: USC/Illinois”
That game showed the potential problem of substitute teams. Blech.
“2006: USC/Wisconsin (Polls had USC #7 that year..it’s doubtful committee selects them)”
USC was #5 in the BCS and was P12 champ at 10-2. LSU was #4 as an at-large. I think USC gets in over them. Either way, it’s B10 #3.
WI/Cal = Another blech game.
“2005: Oregon vs Notre Dame (Penn St and Ohio St both make playoff, ND is replacement team at next Big 10 team was rated #18)”
No. You don’t get to plug in ND. If the point is to preserve the match-up, then be consistent and do it every time. Otherwise, several games would be different.
OR/WI = blech
“2004: California vs Michigan”
Cal wasn’t champ, but otherwise OK.
“I don’t know…i think the best solution is to have the playoff semi-finals take place the 4th Saturday of December….leave the Rose and future Champions Bowl out of the rotation and have those two games headline New Years Day. Play the championship game sometime in early January.”
Best solution for whom?
It may be, but it’s not going to happen by all accounts. If the semis are going to be in BCS bowls regardless, do you still think the Rose should sit out? There’s no better way for it to become irrelevant than to let the Orange, Sugar Cotton and Fiesta host all the semis while it sticks with the B10/P12 game (hopefully minus lots of champs). If it never hosts a semi, how can it stay the preeminent bowl game?
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Jake,
“Wow, an honest-to-goodness playoff. I’m happy to have a less controversy-riddled post-season,”
Facts not in evidence. There could easily be just as much controversy if not more with this system. You’ve got the human factor in picking teams, then seeding them, then picking game sites. Just wait.
“but I don’t care for the semis staying with the bowl sites. I’d really prefer on-campus games, but if the universities are okay sharing their money with the bowl committees, who am I to complain? Also, are we sure these semis will be taking place in the bowl games themselves and not just at the sites?”
Yes, they’ll be the actual bowls. They’ve said they want to get away from the double hosting model, so nobody is getting 2 games in close proximity.
As for sharing the money, the idea is that these bowls already have a corps of people dedicated to making these games go off with relatively few hitches. No school can do that because they don’t which years they’ll host and it takes a lot of time and money to coordinate everything. Hosting a major bowl isn’t like having a random night game during the season.
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No school can do that because they don’t which years they’ll host and it takes a lot of time and money to coordinate everything. Hosting a major bowl isn’t like having a random night game during the season.
Yet somehow Oregon managed to host the PAC championship without a problem.
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http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/62201/should-academics-factor-into-bcs-revenue
A new revenue sharing idea would also factor academics into the plan. It’s not as extreme as the Knight Commission’s plan, but would make academics a factor.
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