Big Ten Media Rights / Conference Realignment

#326      
Agree with the point that it's ultimately going to be about what's the best deal for Texas in the eyes of the people with the political clout to make the decision.

All I'm saying is that at a certain point accepting a position of equality within The Only Football Conference That Matters And Will Ever Matter becomes that best deal. That provides a long-term vision that "say, I wonder if the ACC would bribe us?" doesn't.
 
#327      
All I'm saying is that at a certain point accepting a position of equality within The Only Football Conference That Matters And Will Ever Matter becomes that best deal. That provides a long-term vision that "say, I wonder if the ACC would bribe us?" doesn't.

You value the SEC & the idea of creating a super competitive football conference way more than I do and more than I think Texas will.

Even though I get what you are saying, I disagree that SEC is "The Only Football Conference That Matters And Will Ever Matter"
...SEC is clearly the strongest Football conference Top to Bottom, just don't think that is what is really important to the decision makers at Texas & long term it will Ebb & Flow.
...If you want to maximize revenue, B1G looks to be clearly winning with the latest contract; ACC has a different model that may work out even better for Texas
...If you want to maximize Texas football, throwing them in the SEC West for the last 5 yrs would have been a disaster, put them in the ACC or B1G West or PAC. The SEC west should be there last choice, because right now Texas football measured by performance doesn't really matter, throwing them in SEC won't help that.
...Texas brings along a lot of political baggage/expectations; they want no part of equal & honestly they are already making more than SEC or B1G teams in Media money; so I really doubt they want to buy into the liberal/communist concept of we are all equal. ACC offer may look like a bribe to you, but to Texas it is all just negotiation.
...Academics may be a bit interesting for Texas, because Big 12 is not high on the scale, everything is likely an upgrade, but it certainly doesn't favor SEC & in the end academia has a significant say.

IMO; fan first, high level approach, SEC makes sense. But University President view, my guess is SEC is last & certainly not leading. I'm putting my money on ACC & the sweetest deal.
 
#328      

mattcoldagelli

The Transfer Portal
All I'm saying is that at a certain point accepting a position of equality within The Only Football Conference That Matters And Will Ever Matter becomes that best deal.

Anybody involved in this decision-making process who is not factoring in a not-so-distant future where significantly fewer people play, and then later, watch football is not doing their job very well.
 
#329      
You value the SEC & the idea of creating a super competitive football conference way more than I do and more than I think Texas will.

True, though I think you're perceiving my value as on the CURRENT SEC, not what the SEC would hypothetically become. Adding Texas and OU is not the same thing as adding Rutgers and Maryland. It pretty drastically changes what the conference is.

I disagree that SEC is "The Only Football Conference That Matters And Will Ever Matter"
...SEC is clearly the strongest Football conference Top to Bottom, just don't think that is what is really important to the decision makers at Texas & long term it will Ebb & Flow.

No it won't. In a world where the SEC adds Texas and OU, they are a higher division of football permanently. Only a nation-spanning breakaway superconference of Michigan, Ohio State, USC, Florida State, Clemson, etc would be able to compete, and even in that unlikely scenario it would be debatable.


If you want to maximize revenue, B1G looks to be clearly winning with the latest contract

We're talking about 2025 here. This B1G TV deal will be long over. We will be living in an entirely new media paradigm by then. I've bored you all to death with my rants about cable bubbles and the like, but suffice it to say that a conference with a multitude of marquee football games every single weekend should have every reason to expect to draw more money from any given arrangement than a conference that cannot offer that.

It's my opinion that the Big Ten's financial strength reflects Jim Delany's mastery of inside baseball and smoke and mirrors and that his actions for short term gain are rotting out the inherent strength of the conference. Reasonable people can disagree. But what is a fact is that the conference revenue game is a fluid, dynamic system. Today's winners aren't necessarily tomorrow's.


If you want to maximize Texas football, throwing them in the SEC West for the last 5 yrs would have been a disaster, put them in the ACC or B1G West or PAC. The SEC west should be there last choice, because right now Texas football measured by performance doesn't really matter, throwing them in SEC won't help that.

There's a lot of truth to this, admittedly. If this move spurred a 4X16 world with a de-facto 8 team playoff (with the conference title games being round 1) in which any given team only has access to one of the eight spots, that's a heck of an advantage to anyone in a weak division, and a huge disadvantage to this proposed SEC.

But you could envision a world of a postseason 8-team playoff where the 4 big conference champions get bids, and then the new SEC soaks up 3 of the other 4 at larges most years. That could be a very nice position for Texas football-wise.


Texas brings along a lot of political baggage/expectations; they want no part of equal & honestly they are already making more than SEC or B1G teams in Media money; so I really doubt they want to buy into the liberal/communist concept of we are all equal. ACC offer may look like a bribe to you, but to Texas it is all just negotiation.

Lol'd at the bolded. Texas can call it whatever they like, it's a bribe. Just like the Longhorn Network deal was a bribe by ESPN to prevent a FOX-contracted Pac 16 from happening. No shame in calling a spade a spade. Texas has a lot of leverage and they know how to use it. It wouldn't surprise me if you're absolutely right about the ACC swooping in.


Academics may be a bit interesting for Texas, because Big 12 is not high on the scale, everything is likely an upgrade, but it certainly doesn't favor SEC & in the end academia has a significant say.

I've made my point here. What is best for athletics will be sold as what's best for academics.
 
#330      
Anybody involved in this decision-making process who is not factoring in a not-so-distant future where significantly fewer people play, and then later, watch football is not doing their job very well.

True enough, but what can you do? If football dies, college sports as we know it dies with it.

There is no "revenue sport" future for NCAA athletics in a post-football world. Not much factoring to be done, IMO.
 
#331      
We're talking about 2025 here. This B1G TV deal will be long over. We will be living in an entirely new media paradigm by then. I've bored you all to death with my rants about cable bubbles and the like, but suffice it to say that a conference with a multitude of marquee football games every single weekend should have every reason to expect to draw more money from any given arrangement than a conference that cannot offer that.

It's my opinion that the Big Ten's financial strength reflects Jim Delany's mastery of inside baseball and smoke and mirrors and that his actions for short term gain are rotting out the inherent strength of the conference. Reasonable people can disagree. But what is a fact is that the conference revenue game is a fluid, dynamic system. Today's winners aren't necessarily tomorrow's.

It amazes me how you can continually try to sell this drivel while being proven wrong over and over. I'm just as bored with it as you are and I don't have to type out the long posts every day. :)

Any conference containing Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Illinois, etc. will always be at or near the top when it comes to producing athletics revenue. Delaney has made some great financial decisions for the conference, but the bottom line is that the B1G is made up of large flagship universities in populous states with huge alumni bases. They will never become irrelevant as long as college athletics are relevant. That is not fluid.

Because of the inherent geographic advantages of the SEC, they will probably never overtake them again when it comes to football performance, but they are certainly going to keep trying.
 
#332      
Any conference containing Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Illinois, etc. will always be at or near the top when it comes to producing athletics revenue. ... They will never become irrelevant as long as college athletics are relevant. That is not fluid.

Totally, totally 100% agree with this. No disagreement whatsoever.

That's not the point people make though. The argument people make is that the Big Ten is the once and forever revenue king and will make ever more money forever because our schools are marginally higher in the US News Rankings and Jim Delany is a chessmaster thinking 7 moves ahead of the rest of the sports world, and any school in America would crawl over their mother to prostrate themselves before the entry gates of our almighty union.

I'm barely exaggerating.

I have two points.

1. All of college sports, and much of US televised sports generally, is currently a bubble because of the way they have generated colossal rent-seeking revenue from the existing but receding media paradigm, which doesn't reflect the actual interest in their product. The money is going to go downward. Possibly quite gradually and not anywhere near to zero, but the scams that are pushing revenue through the roof are temporary.

2. Because of how heavily leveraged the Big Ten is in the current paradigm, in a variety of ways, I see the Pac 12 and SEC as somewhat, SOMEWHAT, better positioned for the long-term future than the Big Ten. Particularly the SEC. That could change, there is a lot of uncertainty, but the Big Ten has made moves for short term gain and long term problems in a way those other leagues have not.

Again, that is not to say whatsoever that the Big Ten is doomed to failure or breakup or anything like that. But the idea that anyone is even in the same stratosphere as the Big Ten as a business entity, let alone better positioned for the future, is a very controversial one around here, and I can't seem to stop myself from harping on what I see as the faulty assumptions underlying that conventional wisdom.
 
#333      

mhuml32

Cincinnati, OH
True enough, but what can you do? If football dies, college sports as we know it dies with it.

There is no "revenue sport" future for NCAA athletics in a post-football world. Not much factoring to be done, IMO.


Considering college athletics survived almost 100 years of being "in the red", plus the continuation of low Division I, Division II, and Division III losing money every year and yet still support college athletics, I think your theory is highly unlikely.

I also don't understand the statement of "college sports as we know it", but also make a statement circling around the ever-changing technology and media environment. I would argue high-level Division I sports is evolving at an incredible rate, and to stamp a moment in time as best for everyone is foolish and short-sighted.
 
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#334      
Considering college athletics survived almost 100 years of being "in the red", plus the continuation of low Division I, Division II, and Division III losing money every year and yet still support college athletics, I think your theory is highly unlikely.

Oh there will still be college sports teams. There just won't be conference TV networks or playoff ranking announcement shows or nine-figure facilities upgrades or anything the suits really need to plan for.

Here's hoping the powers that be in football make the changes needed to ward off that dystopian future.
 
#335      

Rob07

San Francisco
Because of how heavily leveraged the Big Ten is in the current paradigm, in a variety of ways, I see the Pac 12 and SEC as somewhat, SOMEWHAT, better positioned for the long-term future than the Big Ten. Particularly the SEC.

I don't see how the Pac 12 is better-positioned than the Big Ten, other than perhaps in long-term secular trends of population growth. The B1G can't do much other than try to pick up UNC or Texas to move demographics in a more favorable direction: no amount of scheming or TV revenue will turn East Lansing into Palo Alto. But I suspect Pac 12 revenues will not outpace the B1G's regardless: it's a cliche, but most people in western population centers like SD, SF and LA do not care about college sports -- and if they do, they are likely to be transplants loyal to a Big Ten, ACC or SEC team.

The SEC is perhaps better positioned than the B1G if CFB becomes something akin to MMA where it's a blood sport to most, but a small and enthusiastic subset of the population is willing to pay significant extra fees to watch it. But in any other scenario, they will be equally hurt today if football TV revenues fall off. Any demography or geography advantages the SEC possesses are offset for the next 50 years by the larger market sizes, student populations, and alumni populations that the B1G schools hold today. And projecting beyond that is probably folly.


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#336      
Any demography or geography advantages the SEC possesses are offset for the next 50 years by the larger market sizes, student populations, and alumni populations that the B1G schools hold today.

But those are already baked into the cake, right? The SEC is near parity with those things already being the case.
 
#337      

ZeroDarkThirsty

Stay Thirsty My Friends
United States
B1G:
Illinois 12,875,255
Pennsylvania 12,763,536
Ohio 11,544,225
Michigan 9,883,360
New Jersey 8,864,590
Indiana 6,537,334
Maryland 5,884,563
Wisconsin 5,726,398
Minnesota 5,379,139
Iowa 3,074,186
Nebraska 1,855,525
Total: 84,388,111

SEC:
Texas 26,059,203
Florida 19,317,568
Georgia 9,919,945
Tennessee 6,456,243
Missouri 6,021,988
Alabama 4,822,023
S. Carolina 4,723,723
Louisiana 4,601,893
Kentucky 4,380,415
Mississippi 2,984,926
Arkansas 2,949,131
92,237,058

316,000,000 (est) in USA so B1G and SEC are about the same size. Fans watch from everywhere in the country. Teams recruit from everywhere in the country. B1G has the most money and longest history of any conference. I'm not sure there is anything to argue about. We need fewer than 100 men to play football, is there a people shortage?
 
#338      

Rob07

San Francisco
But those are already baked into the cake, right? The SEC is near parity with those things already being the case.

Totally true, I just don't see the difference in population growth rates creating an insurmountable lead for the SEC in the medium-term future.

I agree with you that the B1G isn't a clear long-term winner; I just don't agree that we are fundamentally disadvantaged. I also suspect that UT figures it can be a kingmaker by choosing any conference (and I think they would largely be right.)

Finally, I suspect they might be hesitant to follow in little brother A&M's footsteps and would want to blaze their own trail by getting a sweetheart deal somewhere, joining a conference with a superior academic reputation, or joining a conference with a better financial setup (even if it's only for now.) Maybe I'm underestimating the emotional maturity of UT's leadership and boosters, underestimating the value of the annual A&M rivalry game, or overestimating the value of being able to claim superiority by going somewhere else.

It's academic anyway until 2025(?), I guess. We'll see then.
 
#339      
Totally true, I just don't see the difference in population growth rates creating an insurmountable lead for the SEC in the medium-term future.

With their current lineup of teams? I don't see that either. I probably see them pulling ahead, but not insurmountably so.

Texas and OU are a big haul though. If they go somewhere together, that's a game changer, and I think it would be the most game-changery for the SEC, just because of how well those two fit with what the SEC is already doing well.
 
#340      

Rob07

San Francisco
Texas and OU are a big haul though. If they go somewhere together, that's a game changer, and I think it would be the most game-changery for the SEC, just because of how well those two fit with what the SEC is already doing well.

Would UT rather be in a football superconference SEC where they might get into the CFP even as the second place team, or prefer having a clean shot at the CFP every year by winning an easier B1G, PAC12 or ACC? I don't know the answer but don't think the former is the clearly superior option. And I do think that UT's boosters probably see the goal as winning national titles, not conference titles.

I'm not even convinced the SEC's interests are best served by becoming the far-and-away best league with everyone else irrelevant. The net result of that is probably that the other 70% of the country stops caring about college football, not that the other 70% of the country starts watching the SEC exclusively. Better to be a national sport than a regional curiosity. (Assuming national interest is high enough to generate TV revenue from ESPN/CBS/FOX -- if not, then I agree the calculus changes and it's better to dominate the niche.)
 
#341      

Joel Goodson

respect my decision™
Finally, I suspect they might be hesitant to follow in little brother A&M's footsteps and would want to blaze their own trail by getting a sweetheart deal somewhere, joining a conference with a superior academic reputation, or joining a conference with a better financial setup (even if it's only for now.) Maybe I'm underestimating the emotional maturity of UT's leadership and boosters, underestimating the value of the annual A&M rivalry game, or overestimating the value of being able to claim superiority by going somewhere else.

Hesitant? More like loathe. Not saying there's no way UT would join the SEC, but following A&M would be a very big deal to a lot of their fans. Yes, it's emotional. But it's very, very real.
 
#342      
True, though I think you're perceiving my value as on the CURRENT SEC, not what the SEC would hypothetically become. Adding Texas and OU is not the same thing as adding Rutgers and Maryland. It pretty drastically changes what the conference is.
No, I agree adding Texas and OK would be huge. What I don't see is why it wouldn't be just as significant for the B1G, maybe more so since the SEC already plays in Texas.

No it won't. In a world where the SEC adds Texas and OU, they are a higher division of football permanently. Only a nation-spanning breakaway superconference of Michigan, Ohio State, USC, Florida State, Clemson, etc would be able to compete, and even in that unlikely scenario it would be debatable.
I'm not convinced of this. For every conference win, there is a conference loss. Football wise I'd argue over the last few years Texas has done nothing on the field that make the SEC better, but to me the real question is what is the target, the best football teams or the most valuable football teams to pair up with.



We're talking about 2025 here. This B1G TV deal will be long over. We will be living in an entirely new media paradigm by then. I've bored you all to death with my rants about cable bubbles and the like, but suffice it to say that a conference with a multitude of marquee football games every single weekend should have every reason to expect to draw more money from any given arrangement than a conference that cannot offer that.

It's my opinion that the Big Ten's financial strength reflects Jim Delany's mastery of inside baseball and smoke and mirrors and that his actions for short term gain are rotting out the inherent strength of the conference. Reasonable people can disagree. But what is a fact is that the conference revenue game is a fluid, dynamic system. Today's winners aren't necessarily tomorrow's.

Things change & I agree that today's winners may not be tomorrow's, but that is different than suggesting the SEC has a leg up on the B1G in 2025. I just don't see there revenue stream looking that much different than the B1G's. I'm sure the argument is that the bottom of the B1G, Rutgers, NW, PU, probably IL... will not bring the value in a market where customer's choose what to buy...but I still think the real genius of the latest contract was B!G network shared with Fox, which gave the B1G more leverage with ESPN than any other conference. Also the large alumni & population base of the B1G footprint I still think looks better than SEC. I believe, number 1 football game last year was MI-OSU. You look at sports revenues, OSU is usually 2nd to only Texas. Just don't think it is obvious that SEC is ahead of B1G in revenues come 2025 & in the meantime it looks to me like B1G will be adding an extra 10-15 million/team/yr on the SEC until 2025, that has to be worth something to value come 2025.


There's a lot of truth to this, admittedly. If this move spurred a 4X16 world with a de-facto 8 team playoff (with the conference title games being round 1) in which any given team only has access to one of the eight spots, that's a heck of an advantage to anyone in a weak division, and a huge disadvantage to this proposed SEC.

But you could envision a world of a postseason 8-team playoff where the 4 big conference champions get bids, and then the new SEC soaks up 3 of the other 4 at larges most years. That could be a very nice position for Texas football-wise.

I think you're reaching. I wouldn't want to bet on this & average conference wins still is a net zero-sum game.


Lol'd at the bolded. Texas can call it whatever they like, it's a bribe. Just like the Longhorn Network deal was a bribe by ESPN to prevent a FOX-contracted Pac 16 from happening. No shame in calling a spade a spade. Texas has a lot of leverage and they know how to use it. It wouldn't surprise me if you're absolutely right about the ACC swooping in.

I've made my point here. What is best for athletics will be sold as what's best for academics.[/QUOTE]

"persuade (someone) to act in one's favor, typically illegally or dishonestly, by a gift of money or other inducement." Nothing illegal or dishonest, no gift, it is just favorable terms in a business deal. ACC has the most need & is likely to cut the best deal for Texas, the fact the SEC/B1G want to stick by there own rule of all equal is there choice. Look at it from Texas's point of view, if you were making $40 mil in TV money, is it fair you give up 5 mil to join the SEC or B1G social club & would you be excited about that deal. Getting to keep your money just doesn't count as a bribe.

In the end I think you just value the SEC & there football prowess & seem to think that is where this will go. I think it is about value & that isn't 100% correlated with conference football prowess & conference football quality is different from Texas Football. Texas will try to maximize Texas Football>>>importance than SEC football to Texas.
 
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#343      
Hesitant? More like loathe. Not saying there's no way UT would join the SEC, but following A&M would be a very big deal to a lot of their fans. Yes, it's emotional. But it's very, very real.

It would be a big deal. It would probably bother A&M even more than Texas, but in the end the Fans don't get a vote & I think this will & should be pretty low on importance to totally out of the discussion.

I think Texas politics will be even more interesting in how it plays out, if Houston makes the final cut for Big12, then there will be another Texas little brother that UT is supporting along with their politicians trying to keep Texas in the Big12 or Texas trying to bring there friends with them to the party. I just don't see the B1G or SEC willing to play that game, which is why I think there is a fair chance the B1G 12 survives.
 
#344      
For every conference win, there is a conference loss.

This seems to be the crux of the disagreement here.

You may be right that no amount of a gap in conference quality will make a 9-3 SuperSEC team look better than an 11-1 B1G team. But if we get to a world where SEC teams have like 10 of the top 13 recruiting classes every year (which we are not far off from now, frankly) and five star players from all over the country are falling all over themselves to get into that league, and the facilities are better and the coaching is better and the crowds are larger, and those teams start to never lose to non-conference foes, I think they would get there.

It takes a bit of imagination. It's not a cold hard cash on the table upfront deal, and I fully recognize that Texas will have those kinds of offers and that those are tough to turn down.

But the other thing Texas has a taste for is shooting for the moon and dreaming big. Leaving the rest of the sport behind has a nice ring to it. We'll see. That's my prediction. Let's reconvene in 10 years.
 
#345      
this article is a little dated but that fans per school ratio probably hasn't changed much. Essentially:

1. The B1G will always be ok because even as mentioned upthread, schools like Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State have extremely large followings.
2. The B1G has the highest average amount of fans per school than any other conference.
3. This article didn't include Rutgers and Maryland joining the B1G, but who knew that the largest amount of football fans in NY were followers of Rutgers.
4. The article didn't mention this (however another article that I can't find talked about it) discusses that the B1G not only has heavily populated schools and football followings, but our alumni bases spread out throughout the country more than any other conference. This essentially allows us to have an efficient economy of scale in terms of developing a B1G TV market in all regions of the country, whereas conferences such as the SEC have heavy concentrations of fans in the region their schools are located.

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/20...ege-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/?_r=0
 
#347      
#349      
#350      
Allegedly Nebraska thinks it would have been better for their brand to remain in the Big 12, or you know clone Tom Osborne and keep winning games. Anybody know what their penalty would be for leaving?

http://www.yardbarker.com/college_football/articles/report_nebraska_wants_to_rejoin_big_12/s1_127_22041061

I buy that Nebraska people feel the Big Ten move hasn't been everything they'd hoped.

To go from that to thinking they'd climb aboard the sinking Big 12 ship is absurd though.