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Aren't these mega conferences starting to eat their own tails?
As for the 4x named, I am open to Oregon and Washington and I could be talked into FSU but Clemson is a stretch. Oregon and Wash are AAU members and it is my understanding that FSU is working to improve their academics, but Clemson has a long way to go. If we take another team from the ACC to bring the B1G to 20x teams, I would look at ND, UNC, UVA, and Miami before Clemson.
Besides ND who brings the most moneyAs for the 4x named, I am open to Oregon and Washington and I could be talked into FSU but Clemson is a stretch. Oregon and Wash are AAU members and it is my understanding that FSU is working to improve their academics, but Clemson has a long way to go. If we take another team from the ACC to bring the B1G to 20x teams, I would look at ND, UNC, UVA, and Miami before Clemson.
If B1G goes above 20x, likely 24x in that case, ND, UNC, UVA, Miami, and Stanford should be priorities. That way, B1G completely incircles the SEC and the academicside will hopefully be satisfied. I'd then like to see the Big 12 get PAC and ACC teams like Arizona, ASU, Utah, Louisville, Pitt, and others.
You are correct, B1G leadership needs to keep an eye on the athletic money supply but the B1G academic leaders will want schools with high credentials. Good schools that will likely be money positive would be Notre Dame, Oregon, Washington, Florida State, and Miami. UNC may be positive or breaks even but Virginia and Stanford are question marks and would likely be losses. To keep rivalries alive and entice certain teams to join the B1G, some team pairs may need to be brought in - Oregon & Washington, ND & Stanford, FSU & Miami, UNC & UVA/Duke - and those pairings will hopefully become a net positive in the long run.Besides ND who brings the most money
The way the academic elitism canard has worked to cause fans to cheer on the destruction of college sports is such a fascinating study of human psychology.You are correct, B1G leadership needs to keep an eye on the athletic money supply but the B1G academic leaders will want schools with high credentials.
other than ND, which doesn’t reality count in the GofR discussion , there are 3 or maybe 4 ACC schools that move the needle to at least start the discussion .If I'm the B1G I tell any ACC school, "Get out of your GOR and I'll pick up the phone when you call."
I'll play... think the 3-5 that might move the needle is about right...but side note I really don't think anything happens here short term because of GORother than ND, which doesn’t reality count in the GofR discussion , there are 3 or maybe 4 ACC schools that move the needle to at least start the discussion .
The vast majority do not .
I agree that that's the smart way of thinking about it. Three caveats though:At what point do B1G and SEC decision makers get together and lay out an absolute plan to work together and formalize this entire process into the eventual end game?
Absolutely agree that in substance, we're already at the end game. That's why it seems like it might be an easy way to clean all this up by B1G/Fox and SEC/ESPN just agreeing on the final head count and timing, and removing what little doubt remains. To that point, I'm interested to see where ND and Clemson wind up. All the rest just don't move the needle much, if at all, and basically just fill out the rosters for each conference.3. Who says we aren't already at the end game? A duopoly that occupies more and more and more weight as the years go by in a deregulated landscape kinda suits everybody's purposes. I think people here mistake letting a dominant situation play out with some sort of hesitation or uncertainty.
It's actually relatively simple.Ever since the UCLA/USC announcement, I’ve been struggling to get my head around the financial and power dynamics that are really driving these changes.
They already have it. That's the important thing to understand. Their only competition today, tomorrow, and forevermore is between each other.So ultimately what really matters to the B1G and SEC? What gives them total control over the game, the chips, the table, the room, and the temperature on the thermostat?
Kinda crazy. When UI flies out to play USC in football, it will fly over probably 80% of the Big 12 footprint. Contiguous conference boundary lines cease to exist.
I would give anything for the conferences of my youth, don't get me wrong ... but I think there is also room to want to "ruin college sports correctly," at least in so far as it actually keeps giving Illinois an advantage over non-Big Ten and non-SEC schools. Pretty much, I am resigned to this happening, and I have given up on hoping for teams that would be better fits from a "fan" perspective (e.g., I think it would be a lot more fun to add Iowa State or Kansas than Rutgers or Maryland, but I know the fan experience will sadly never carry much weight).The way the academic elitism canard has worked to cause fans to cheer on the destruction of college sports is such a fascinating study of human psychology.
"The customer is never right", famously the motto of successful and thriving businesses that have bright futures.I know the fan experience will sadly never carry much weight
It wasn't. There were so many opportunities for this to go a different way across so many domains, conferences, playoffs, NIL, transfers, it's all been contingent on individual decisions, so many of which were obviously bad and shortsighted at the moment they were made, let alone in retrospect.Maybe the deaths of these conferences was inevitable
I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, but I want to throw out one nitpick. Average viewers can be a little deceiving over a short timeframe. For example, Indiana had very good TV ratings in 2020 because they were surprisingly good, and they played Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State, didn't play any cupcakes and played on ABC or FOX for HALF of their games. Fast forward to 2022, and their ratings (even with Michigan, OSU and PSU on the schedule) kind of sucked because they played on BTN and FS1 a lot more. Of course, the teams with the most viewers are theoretically on the big-time channels BECAUSE they deliver ratings and don't get the ratings as a favor from that broadcast slot, but Illinois drew very good ratings whenever we got the chance to play on a big-time channel like ABC or FOX or ESPN. Conversely, Penn State did not draw much better than us for their games on BTN.A remarkably large number of the most watched televised programs are football, mostly NFL:
94 of the top 100 most-watched telecasts of 2022 were sports, and 82 of those were the NFL
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Americans enjoy watching sports. Per the Sports Business Journal, of the 100 most-watched telecasts in 2022, 94 were sports. Of those 94, 82 were NFL games, a staggering amount. There were also five college football games in the top 100 (the Rose Bowl and...awfulannouncing.com
College football, particularly big name match-ups, draws a lot of eyeballs -- more than any MLB or NBA game.
This makes college football content one of the most valuable properties to broadcasters. And, as Gritty notes, the more "big name" content, the better.
The SEC and B1G have now assembled most of the "big name," most watched programs. Arguably, 20 of the Top 25.
The only other two that really consistently move the needle are Notre Dame and Clemson. There are a few other "would be nice to haves" that include Florida State, Oregon, and maybe TAMU and (lately, but can they sustain?) TCU. Here's a couple viewership lists, among the many available online:
Which college football programs bring in the most TV viewers?
TV viewership isn’t always the best way to measure a college football program’s value. But here’s how each school ranks since 2015.medium.comCollege Football Viewership By Team
College football viewership by team was the highest for Ohio State Buckeyes with 70.3 million viewers. Michigan Wolverines had 70.1.thefootballusa.com
Reading these links makes clear why the PAC is a dead conference walking, and why the ACC remains the solid #3 as long as Clemson, ND, Florida State and Miami don't bolt.
In the theater of my mind.How did you calculate that 80% number ? ? I know I'm old, but I can't see that....
I want nothing to do with two-tier/relagation conference play. College football is already trying to copy March Madness. We don't need Euro-League soccer.If the B1G and SEC end up at 20-24 teams each, I have to wonder whether we will end up with a two-tier relegation system, and a four-team conference playoff. Maybe top 3 schools in Tier 1 and top school in Tier 2 play in the playoff for the conference championship?
Hypothetical two-tier B1G with 24 teams (Oregon, Washington, Cal, Stanford, Florida State, Miami, Clemson, Georgia Tech added (I have no idea where we stand with the west coast schools now)) with the teams split by 2023 ESPN FPI just to see what this could look like:
B1G Leaders Tier (Tier 1)
Ohio State
Michigan
USC
Clemson
Penn State
Oregon
Florida State
Wisconsin
Washington
Miami
Michigan State
Minnesota
B1G Legends Tier (Tier 2)
Iowa
UCLA
Maryland
Illinois
Purdue
Nebraska
Georgia Tech
Northwestern
Indiana
Rutgers
Stanford
Cal
As long as we can't get relegated out of the B1G, maybe this is ok? Conference rivals could get split up, but at least (if you are one of the power brokers) you can get a super league while still keeping the idea of the B1G intact.