He's not merely one guy though, he is the leader of the B1G. Maybe you'll be thinking differently when the major players break away and Fox Sports relegates Illini games to FS Deportes with the rest of the members of the newly formed Illinois Valley Conference (IVC)
Conference Realignment
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ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
If you recall, a big part of the motivation was simply getting to 12 in order to have a conference championship game in football. And the hope was adding a major football power and brand in Nebraska would be similar to adding Penn State. Alas it hasn't worked out that way.
And for all the canard about TV markets (how's that working out for the AAC?), I hope everybody can see by now that while the Rutgers and Maryland ploy absolutely succeeded on its own terms, we got the carriage fees from NYC/DC, and that money is in our bank account, it's poured into the foundation of the football facility, credit where it's due, but now that the cable bubble is deflating that big score is in the past tense, and we're stuck with an unwieldy, less traditionally grounded conference with more mouths to feed. The money in the bank notwithstanding we'd be in a stronger position without them.
And that's where this comes in. It's true that the leadership is incentivized for short-term thinking in many ways, but as custodians of the league and of the sport, we should not lose sight of the fact that the ACTUAL goal is long-term growth and viability. There are a great variety of areas in our lives that we've lost sight of that, this is just one of them.
And that's where I hope this is an opportunity to break out of that mindset. How can the Big Ten respond to match the SEC is creating a content inventory of football games appealing to TV in 2025? We can't, full stop. How can the Big Ten position itself to ensure it's overrepresented relative to other top leagues in the College Football Playoff as expansion looms? We can't, full stop.
If all of this were college football and college athletics stepping up into a glorious future, that would be a problem. But that's nonsense, we can all see these developments are in fact terrible for the sport, college sports' core audience hates all of this. So we need to stop hanging our heads and realize that's an opportunity!
Think about what a robust ecosystem for college sports in 50 years looks like and work backward from there. It ain't a nationalized 24-team Football Super League, I assure you, hard as everyone keeps pushing in that direction.
In JFK's famous speech about going to the moon at Rice Stadium in Houston, this was his quote:
"But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon...We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard"
Well, Rice doesn't play Texas anymore. We don't go to the Moon anymore either. Both sacrificed on the altar of this resigned inevitability that absolutely maximizing short-term revenue to the last red cent is the only world that's possible. Greed is good, they said. How's that going? Hey, we're getting $1 a month out of granny for her not to watch Maryland-Minnesota, so who's to say?
I don't know if personally I feel that's true, nor if there is any statistically based survey that supports this statement, either. If I had to guess, I'd actually say that for individual sports, realignment is absolutely better. Also, "the college sports' core audience" has a history of hating all innovation. So...
I think you are overstating the impact of cord cutting. ABC/ESPN and FOX/FS1 have been increasing payments to the Big Ten while cord cutting continues. But they are available on many streaming services.
Who's to say that BTN won't work out a similar deal with the streaming services, such as Apple TV, where every subscriber from the Big Ten footprint costs $X?
Additionally, being in more houses allows the network to charge more for advertising. Furthermore, I believe student interest from the East Coast has increased for all Big Ten schools since Rutgers and Maryland were added.
I don't see how you can peer into the future to say that adding them is a long term mistake when the exact opposite has occurred so far. Did you predict any of the success? I don't trust your crystal ball.
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
The delivery method has changed (cord cutting v streaming), but that does't mean that demand has decreased. At the end of the day, who cares how the product is delivered? I'm confident that the broadcasters (rights purchasers) know how to monetize the product.
Exactly, getting the top markets where most people live is the key. Imagine adding LA, SF, Seattle and Denver metro areas?
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Apple TV, for one.
Note for example that Marquee Network, here in the middle of year 2, remains unavailable on any of the major streaming services, which are growing rapidly as a share of how people watch their TV.
There's still money to be made of course, but at the end of the day providing something people feel attached to and want to watch is guaranteed to be robust against structural change, whereas galaxy-brained schemes to leverage existing structures aren't.
Again, it helps to work backwards. What all of these developments point to is an eventual college football super league that's basically identical to the NFL in structure. Divisions, playoffs, whole bit, exclusively for the best programs, meaning not Illinois for what it's worth. But then you step back and say wait a minute, nobody wants that, everyone would hate it, and it would certainly wither on the vine as a pale imitation mini-pro football. So clearly something is wrong in the way these things are being calculated.
If you start from the premise of, how to we ensure college sports are something people care about and want to invest their time and energy in 2050? Your next step is not going to be "destroy two of the major conferences covering the entire Western half of the country". The problems with that aren't off in the distance, they're obvious right on its face if you're looking at it through the right lens.
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
As has been stated by others, Colorado doesn't move the needle nearly enough. If Kansas isn't a take, why should we consider Colorado? Denver is a pro sports city, the Bufs are an afterthought. If we're going left coast, I want Cal over Colorado, despite their AD financial issues.
mattcoldagelli
- The Transfer Portal with Do Not Contact Tag
Without disagreeing on your assessment of Cal being the more valuable get, Denver is the largest DMA between Chicago and LA. Colorado is one of the fastest-growing states in the union. They've got meaningful football history with Nebraska. These are things Kansas doesn't have.
Buck Turgidson
- Massachusetts
Colorado would definitely add some eyeballs...and appropos of nothing, I was at the Colorado game in 1990. More of that would be nice
It seems to me that if this is the 'eventual' outcome, then 'eventually' half of these 'super league' teams are going to end up with losing records, or at best many of the teams will have barely winning seasons. And a couple will end up being bottom dwellers in this new 'super league'... Which team/school wants to sign up for that ?
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
The ones that are already bottom dwellers in the SEC, B1G, ACC, or PAC.
Would you rather play in the minors, or the worst team in the majors?
chrisRunner7
- Spokane, WA
FSU, Miami, Louisville, WVA, and Syracuse are not AAU and are unlikely to join the B1G. In particular, I would bet fifteen beach houses that Louisville and Miami will never join the B1G.
Anybody have thoughts on Arizona? They're AAU and are in a top 15 populated state that's growing rapidly. Don't really have an opinion on them but if we end up raiding the Pac12 is there a reason we wouldn't want them?
I would add Texas A & M in top 4. the B1G would love to get into that state .
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Let me say a couple of things on the AAU, and I say this as someone who worked in the administration of an AAU school for several years.
The AAU is an organization based on research funding, not academic rigor per se. It's fundamentally a lobbying organization, working with the big federal granting agencies on policy and a variety of other things. There are also other broadly overlapping groups with the same purpose. It's a vehicle to have a voice with NIH, NSF, etc.
So looking at the AAU with esteem is just a matter of looking up to the amount of dollars those schools are able to bring into their departments and labs for research, which is related to being a prestigious school, but not totally analogous. It's not only all the elite liberal arts colleges that aren't a part of that organization, but also places like Notre Dame, Georgetown, Wake Forest, Boston College, William and Mary, etc, major Universities that are unquestionably "better schools" than the likes of Arizona or Mizzou or Kansas in the undergrad admissions sense, but aren't as centered around seeking giant research grants from the feds as AAU schools are.
Higher Ed administration is full of rampant prestige-mongering, it would not surprise me one bit if journalists are hearing from Big Ten presidents that AAU membership is a prerequisite for their vote to admit a new member, and journalists are not wrong to parrot that back to the public, it's what decision makers told them.
But the fundamental view of tippy top University leadership about sports is that it is a sideshow that they're fine to indulge so far as it goes, it often (though less than you'd think) matters to their donors who are a critical constituency, but it isn't something they want to spend their time bothering with. It's a business line, and one they trust their AD's to run.
And I can't emphasize enough that the AAU is not a thing that matters in any real way. It's a title that reflects something that is sort of tangentially related to something that matters. It doesn't matter who's in the AAU, and for that matter it doesn't matter who's in the Big Ten from an academic standpoint. That doesn't mean stuffy haughty academics won't make stupid decisions on that basis, but it's a basis with no meaningful substance.
With all due respect to @ChiefGritty, I'm going to completely disagree with this statement. Any list of potential B1G additions realistically should only contain AAU member universities (or ND). I'm not sure why this is still even a debate. It's widely known that that will be the starting point of any discussion. Even Nebraska, who currently isn't a member of the AAU, was a member when it was accepted into the B1G, but only lost membership afterwards (though before officially joining; there's also some speculation that their membership was revoked because they changed conferences).
You can find the list of current AAU schools here: AAU Member Universities. There are currently 65 members, and it's easy enough to widdle that list down to schools the B1G would even consider by removing any non-NCAA D1 basketball school, removing any non-FBS school, removing any Canadian schools, and removing any schools already in the B1G (duh). This leaves us with 25 teams (if you include Notre Dame). Realistically, this is the list of schools from which the B1G would would even consider adding:
ACC --> Duke, Georgia Tech, Pittsburgh, UNC, Virginia
American --> Tulane
Big 12 --> Iowa State, Kansas, Texas
C-USA --> Rice
MAC --> Buffalo
PAC-12 --> Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington
SEC --> Florida, Missouri, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt
Independent/ACC --> Notre Dame
Any school not mentioned here just isn't joining the B1G. Unless the PAC-12 or ACC is closer to collapse than we all realize, I don't see any school from those conferences joining either (unless a major conversation happens between the two conferences as some of you have suggested might happen). We know the B1G isn't adding Tulane, Rice, or Buffalo. And if reports are true, and OU and Texas are linked, then Texas will not be joining the B1G either. And Notre Dame has made it abundantly clear for the past two decades it has no intent of joining the B1G.
This leaves the remaining Big 12 teams (Iowa State and Kansas) and whatever SEC teams leave or get left out in the shuffle (so potentially Florida, Missouri, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt). That's my take. Unless something major happens, if the B1G wants to expand within the next two years, it'll be one of these six teams: Iowa State, Kansas, Florida, Missouri, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt.
And at most it'll be one of the first 25 I mentioned. Anything else outside of that is a pipe dream.
well, it wont be Iowa St, highly doubt it would be Kansas or Mizzou, and HIGHLY doubt it would be Vandy (just being located in Nashville doesnt give us Tennessee in this instance)
look ahead 15-20 years. the people we want to reach are in Cal, Wash, Oregon, AZ, Texas, Colo, Florida, NC or Va. (again ND is an outlier here )
those are all states with population on the up. almost any other states mentioned in this thread are on the down like the existing B1G. We only expand if the networks pay us more money to include any new schools . The pie has to grow enough so that the slice of pie for each school is bigger for EVERY school afterwards.
Right. My list of six is if we expand in the next 12-24 months. Raiding the PAC-12 is the way to go, but I don’t see how that happens within the next 12 to 24 months.
Perhaps sitting back and waiting a bit is the right play after all.
mattcoldagelli
- The Transfer Portal with Do Not Contact Tag
I feel like even if @ChiefGritty is technically right, in any event AAU membership acts as a pretty handy screener for the "type" of school the B1G is ok with adding. @TheChief4Life's list is the list, IMO.
A factor that gets glossed over is size - the B1G wants (needs) big universities churning out huge numbers of alums who will in turn support the universities in their effort to keep churning out alums (and competing in athletics). This is another area where Nebraska was an outlier, as the only non-Northwestern B1G school with a total enrollment under 30,000. Kansas would be the third. Meanwhile, all the PAC-12 schools, with the exceptions of Stanford (expected) and Oregon (kinda surprised?) would slot right into the B1G mold.
A factor that gets glossed over is size - the B1G wants (needs) big universities churning out huge numbers of alums who will in turn support the universities in their effort to keep churning out alums (and competing in athletics). This is another area where Nebraska was an outlier, as the only non-Northwestern B1G school with a total enrollment under 30,000. Kansas would be the third. Meanwhile, all the PAC-12 schools, with the exceptions of Stanford (expected) and Oregon (kinda surprised?) would slot right into the B1G mold.
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