Conference Realignment

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#102      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
Stability is entirely the wrong word to use.

We are Genghis Khan conquering all we survey, putting foreign lands to the torch and plundering their riches for ourselves, leaving the soil burned and the rivers choked with the dead.

Monstrous and unsustainable, but there are a lot of riches and the Illini have and will continue to benefit.
 
#103      

Mr. Tibbs

southeast DuPage
Stability is entirely the wrong word to use.

We are Genghis Khan conquering all we survey, putting foreign lands to the torch and plundering their riches for ourselves, leaving the soil burned and the rivers choked with the dead.

Monstrous and unsustainable, but there are a lot of riches and the Illini have and will continue to benefit.
settle down , Francis
 
#104      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
settle down , Francis
I Dont Ron Burgundy GIF
 
#106      

CleaverName

Chicago but not there anymore
Stability is entirely the wrong word to use.

We are Genghis Khan conquering all we survey, putting foreign lands to the torch and plundering their riches for ourselves, leaving the soil burned and the rivers choked with the dead.

Monstrous and unsustainable, but there are a lot of riches and the Illini have and will continue to benefit.
I heard the B1G is down this year 😀
 
#107      
I hate it as a fan, but one could reasonably argue traditional conferences were on borrowed time and managed to (positively) outstay their welcome for years or even decades. I don't know a single person my age (30) who wouldn't want the classic conferences back, but that isn't the world we live in, of course ... and I'm glad to be a part of the "haves," for sure.
 
#108      

DeonThomas

South Carolina
Just throwing this out there ... this is my self-centered hope for when USC and UCLA join:

1) They keep the divisions, and a resurgent Illinois program becomes an annual contender for the West.
2) They add USC and UCLA to the West, giving us trips to LA every other year!
3) They ship off Purdue to the East to balance it out:

East
Ohio State
Michigan
Penn State
Michigan State
Rutgers
Maryland
Purdue
Indiana

West
USC
Nebraska
Wisconsin
UCLA
Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
Northwestern

This is what I predict for the West teams in the near future, and if they came true, I think you would have a top-heavy East vs. a balanced West and ROUGHLY even divisions (with the top of the East still winning the Big Ten Championship more often):

USC and UCLA - Both benefit from joining the Big Ten
Nebraska - Hires a coach that gets them back to a regular top 25 team, though I don't think they'll ever approach the "Blue Blood" status they want
Wisconsin and Illinois - Consistent 7-9 win teams that actually develop a fun rivalry to mirror Bears/Packers over the next decade
Iowa and Minnesota - Good but pushed down toward the bottom of the shuffle
Northwestern - Completely falls off and returns to ALMOST their "Dark Ages" level of play
Yes, please......!
 
#110      
Amazon outbid CBS for the 3rd slot with the B1G and the B1G turned them down. It takes two to tango.

Theoretically either of those streamers could bid insane money to buy up the entire CFP contract, soon to be rebid, and make tons of money for everyone and maintain CFP neutrality in the Fox/ESPN Cold War.

Would the CFP honchos put their golden goose behind a streaming paywall though? I'm not saying they wouldn't, but that's the question to ask.
Gotta think the success Amazon has had with TNF should go a long way to getting them a chance. Thinking they are the only legitimate streaming option because so many people have Prime.
 
#112      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
Gotta think the success Amazon has had with TNF should go a long way to getting them a chance. Thinking they are the only legitimate streaming option because so many people have Prime.
Netflix is #1 at 220 million subscribers, but they haven't seemed particularly interested in sports content.

Prime has 200 million. These are global numbers of course, and both companies have major presence in countries not interested in college football.

That said, Peacock at 30 million, many of those "fake" subscriptions given for free with Comcast cable, has much, much smaller reach.

I hate it as a fan, but one could reasonably argue traditional conferences were on borrowed time and managed to (positively) outstay their welcome for years or even decades. I don't know a single person my age (30) who wouldn't want the classic conferences back, but that isn't the world we live in, of course ... and I'm glad to be a part of the "haves," for sure.
It's a pure governance failure by the sport.

In 1984, a vision of where we stand today would have horrified absolutely everyone. But individual actors, schools, conferences, TV distributors, were compelled step by step to make decisions that created these outcomes.

If the College Football Association had abandoned the confines of the NCAA as a collective in the 80's rather than suing for the right to operate as independent TV brokers within the NCAA framework, everything would have been different and almost certainly better.

And it will all end with the big football schools leaving the NCAA soon enough anyway, what a waste.
 
#113      
Netflix is #1 at 220 million subscribers, but they haven't seemed particularly interested in sports content.

Prime has 200 million. These are global numbers of course, and both companies have major presence in countries not interested in college football.

That said, Peacock at 30 million, many of those "fake" subscriptions given for free with Comcast cable, has much, much smaller reach.

Netflix isn't even close to Amazon in the United States and Canada.

Netflix has about 73.4 million subscribers in the US and Canada.

There are 163.5 million Prime subscribers in the US alone with another 12 million or so in Canada.

But Prime subscriber does not equal Prime streaming service viewer. So while Prime would technically reach more people, I'm not sure how many of those people have ever tuned into Amazon Prime, the streaming service.
 
#114      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
But Prime subscriber does not equal Prime streaming service viewer. So while Prime would technically reach more people, I'm not sure how many of those people have ever tuned into Amazon Prime, the streaming service.
Right, a similar thing as Peacock in a way.

Though, the Amazon NFL games are getting numbers that are pretty formidable even if they're lower than NFL numbers on network TV. It's showing itself to be viable at least.
 
#116      
Right, because the NCAA has been an utterly fantastic steward of high major revenue sports.
I don't disagree but there is value in having it all under one umbrella. The Premier League spun off from the EFL. The result has been good for the Premier League and bad for clubs not regularly in the Premier League. I don't share Gritty's apocalyptic vision, but it's inevitable that any split from the NCAA by major football schools is going to come with major winners and losers, and that these knock-on effects won't be confined to football. For example, as a college basketball fan, I wonder what would become of the Tourney if the top 30 or 40 football schools leaves the NCAA. As a school steeped in Basketball tradition, would we come away worse off in certain respects even if we get accepted to the College Football version of the Premier League/NFL or whatever, but college basketball on the whole is diminished in some respect?
 
#117      
Netflix isn't even close to Amazon in the United States and Canada.

Netflix has about 73.4 million subscribers in the US and Canada.

There are 163.5 million Prime subscribers in the US alone with another 12 million or so in Canada.

But Prime subscriber does not equal Prime streaming service viewer. So while Prime would technically reach more people, I'm not sure how many of those people have ever tuned into Amazon Prime, the streaming service.
That was kinda my point. A lot of households in the US have access to Prime Video. Not saying it would happen but if OSU-UM was on Prime, they would figure out how to tune in. I don't really understand the Amazon side though. I don't think people are getting Prime for the streaming. Spending huge amounts of money for live sports or Lord of the Rings probably isn't moving the needle much in Prime subs.
 
#118      
Netflix isn't even close to Amazon in the United States and Canada.

Netflix has about 73.4 million subscribers in the US and Canada.

There are 163.5 million Prime subscribers in the US alone with another 12 million or so in Canada.

But Prime subscriber does not equal Prime streaming service viewer. So while Prime would technically reach more people, I'm not sure how many of those people have ever tuned into Amazon Prime, the streaming service.
Amazon doesn't separate Prime subscribers who watch videos from those who use the service for shipping.

Amazon Prime Surpasses 200M Subscribers, But It’s Not Exactly on Netflix’s Tail
 
#121      

redwingillini11

North Aurora

I know people are skeptical about this guy, but he seems to be tapped into some in-the-know channels at Nebraska. Sure enough, he seems to indicate (and cites a $$$ post as backup) that Nebraska could be looking at USC and UCLA as protected rivals, because the B1G wants to make travel easy for the LA schools by going through Omaha (closest) and Chicago.... To me, that suggests that USC would likely be looking at protected rivalries of UCLA, Nebraska, and Northwestern (private school, sometimes good sometimes pushover), and that UCLA would be looking at USC, Nebraska, and Illinois.

I, for one, thinks it makes a lot of sense to pair us with UCLA as a protected rival in this setup (primarily basketball school with some football tradition, big state school with good academics, etc.). And it would be amazing to have biennial trip out to Pasadena. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the B1G three would love to have UCLA as a rival to be able to recruit out in LA, but each of them would have a hard time squeezing them in as a logical third rival. It could happen, but I think those schools can recruit anywhere they want to and they'd probably take a gimme game against us, Indiana, Rutgers, or Maryland to make things more simple if they have to play each other anyway.

If there is going to be a geographic element to these rivalries, I think we are very likely to get an LA school and if its UCLA I am very excited for that.
 
#122      
>>and that UCLA would be looking at USC, Nebraska, and Illinois.<<

Nice

But Football wouldn't fly commercial and if the smaller sports fly into Chicago - They should double or triple up on one trip with games vs. some version of Northwestern, Wisco, IL, PU, IU.
 
#123      

Shief

Champaign Area
I like the idea of potentially playing UCLA in LA every other year. I have customers in the LA area and could definitely make a week of it starting or ending with that game.
 
#125      
I do not like the idea of growing the conference larger than 16. Bigger is not better. Quality drops when quantity increases.
I don't think the quality drop is a problem. Arguably, we're increasing it with acquisitions.

For me the problem is tradition. I'm just now beginning to feel like Penn State is a member of the conference.

I have no deep seated emotions about Nebraska, Maryland, Rutgers, or Penn State. So it takes some of the fun out of the conference thing for me.
 
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