Please don't ever say that againThat almost seems like something a B10 commissioner would be involved in.
Conference Realignment
- Status
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
Oh, given an invitation, they'd jump on board immediately. Thing is, the BIG won't be expanding for a good while (5+ years) unless Notre Dame wants in (they don't). All further PAC adds would be dilutive. The BIG Presidents are not pro-expansion, at least for expansion's sake (i.e., it has to make sense).
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
We so easily sort tribally and react based on what are "our" interests versus "their" interests.
But how does a programming decision like that serve college sports as a pastime, something people care about?
Allen Fieldhouse isn't an asset you throw overboard in the name of efficiency.
Grooming Whitman to be next B10 commissioner?
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
The Big 12 signed a bad, but fairly straightforward deal 4 years ago. Some random Twitter user has been under a rock and just realized. Instead of understanding his favorite conference made a bad deal that hurts him, he accuses ESPN of a conspiracy to try and implode the Big 12. Yes, putting college sports behind a paywall is bad. Yes, losing tradition in college sports is bad. But you know what else is bad, being too ignorant to take a second to understand why a game isn't flexed to a network you have and jumping to blame it on a conspiracy. There are pretty easy ways to start a dialogue about the bad things happening in college sports. We do it all the time on this message board. This tweet isn't one of them.
That almost seems like something a B10 commissioner would be involved in.
I had the same thought.
Though I bet if JW became commish we’d hang another banner in SFC.
Right that wrong REAL fast.
Careful.....CARFEUL don't you dare jinx us like that. 1st successful AD we have in a while, and you are bringing bad ju ju by the mere suggestion of him as a B1G commissioner. An excellent one by the way, but more like10 years down the road after we win a natty in men's BB, women's BB and football.That almost seems like something a B10 commissioner would be involved in.
NEIlliniFan
- No longer in New England
Whitman is part of the conference leadership team that accompanied Warren on a 3-day West coast trip meeting with USC & UCLA
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
lol, no. Why would Whitman open a can of worms? He's way too smart for that.
Well deserved spot on the conference leadership team, but no chance he's being considered for commissioner (not that he wouldn't be a VG one). Sounds like the BIG is going to divvy up some of Warren's responsibilities. Don't sleep on the female candidate (whose name escapes me, lol).
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
And like, sure, that's all fine.
But when the sports industry has shriveled into a shadow of its former self 25 years from now, people are going to look back and wonder why people didn't see it coming. A major, major reason why is that the party best positioned to advocate for the long term health of the business - the fans, us - placed way more cultural cache and status on being able to simulate savvy insider understanding of the forces involved than on advocating straightforwardly for our own interests.
A future of college sports that doesn't have a spotlight for Kansas basketball is a smaller, lesser college sports, and market dynamics that push down that path are toxic to the long term health of this industry we love. The why is not important. The why is the enemy.
sbillini
- st petersburg, fl
I get what you're saying. What I don't get is how you propose to solve this. are you suggesting that either ESPN or the Big12 give something back (primarily monetarily) to ensure that marquee matchups stay on cable TV, ignoring the economic impact of it? Make the sport less about money? The money train left the station long ago, don't think you're gonna be able to stop it now.
I guess you can argue that ESPN is screwing itself cuz, 25 years from now, less people will be watching all college sports. But the people making those decisions aren't worried about 25 years from now...they probably won't be making those decisions anymore then. They're working with the here and now.
i guess another solution is start the "Boycott ESPN+" bandwagon to force things to go back. That could work...but gonna need a lot of Big 12 folks to jump on that bandwagon.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Step 1 is saying it's bad. Which sounds kinda simple and dumb, but when you actually wade into this topic on the internet, that's very very rarely a checkpoint that's actually hit.
If any of y'all get Apple TV+ there's a new documentary out about the European Super League of soccer that was recently proposed, and killed in large part because the fans of the teams that were the "winners" of the idea immediately revolted against it. Not out of some galaxy-brained concept of the inside baseball business of it, but because it sucks! We are the fans. If something sucks we should say so. Conference realignment sucks.
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
Jennifer Heppel, Patriot League Commissioner: https://patriotleague.org/staff.aspx?staff=1
One of Delaney's proteges.
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
LOL, I mean, yes, there is absolutely a greater conversation to be had about the health of college sports. We have it on here regularly. Goodness knows you love to spearhead it and, frankly, I always appreciate reading your position on it. Ultimately, the Venn diagram between your position and mine has a ton of overlap. However, I'm not going to engage further in this conversation due to how it's been brought up. That fundamentally matters to me. Conspiracy theorist tweets from know-nothings need to be shot down immediately. If you really want to dig in and do it, find a better way to start the conversation.
Last edited:
just get one of your tech savvy friends to get you a fire stick. Maybe buy him or her a six pack of spotted cow and you get everything if you’re worried about which service to get to see the games you want
For free
For free
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I mean I don't know man. Is the CEO of ESPN up in a smoke-filled conference room in Manhattan (New York, not Kansas) twirling his mustache thinking of ways to crush the innocent hopes and dreams of noble message board posters of the Great Plains? Of course not.
Are ESPN's imperial ambitions for and increasing emphasis and focus on the College Football Playoff a proximate cause of immense damage being done to the sport, to the point they deserve a middle finger for a silly small-potatoes programming decision? I think that's a pretty fair argument.
We're hurtling toward a world where by sheer blunt force of January neutral site football revenues from a handful of teams, Texas A&M vs South Carolina basketball is imbued with more attention and more broadcast resources than Kansas State vs Kansas. That sucks! That is not out with the old in with the new, that is just a world in which college basketball is smaller and lesser and worse.
Tellin’ ya. Get a firestick or something similar from someone who knows coding and you can get everything.
Totally circumvents ‘media deals’ that limit availability… not that I have one… a friend of mine does….
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
Trust me, I, too, think it sucks. I also think corporations are fundamentally bad. I just don't think corporations are pulling some clandestine sh*t. I think they're doing it out in the open. ESPN, like quite literally everything, is trying to extract max profit as quickly as possible, repercussions be damned. And yes, you've talked about the repercussions and I tend to agree with you. You're preaching to the choir.
I also agree with you that the only thing that can possibly stop it is fan backlash. I think the Super League is a perfect example. As an avid Tottenham Hotspurs fan, I don't have to watch a documentary to know the story. In fact, when Spurs signed on to the ESL, I was tweeting my anger @SpursOfficial, as well as emailing them, and taking down the Spurs flag that hangs in my home. ENIC and Daniel Levy out.
Where we disagree, is that I see our guy Russ the Plummer as the fundamental problem, not just with sports, but society in general. Russ supposedly loves the Big 12 so much that he based his Twitter handle on it. Despite that, it's taken him four whole years to realize he doesn't have access to the games he wants to watch and doesn't understand why that is. Quite literally everything in life that matters takes effort and understanding. If you don't pay attention for a second, someone is going to take the thing you love and you'll be left wondering how it happened.
Me, I'm a passionate guy that stays engaged in the things I care about. Hence why I was able to instantly reference the media rights deal earlier. I try desperately to understand what's happening. And when possible, I raise my voice for the things I care about.
So, yeah, I don't know man. Honestly, I'm kind of shocked this is where we are after I said, "bad tweet is bad." But here we are.
You could argue by that logic that he’d be too smart to send an open letter to Illini fans basically giving a middle finger to Warren. But he did it.
The B1G re-wrote the rules (last year I think) saying if something like that happens again, they’d award both (all) teams a share of the title.
I don’t think he’d destroy his reputation by giving something to a team that deserved it by the B1Gs own rules. (Retroactively applied of course)
And he’s such a good orator that he’d deliver it in a way that made sense.
And if all that fails, people would eventually forget about it as he flawlessly leads the B1G to success.
illini80
- Forgottonia
I have a fire stick, but know nothing about coding and have few friends. One out of three ain’t bad, right?
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Love the post, but I encourage you to noodle on the tension between these two statements.
Not every Tottenham fan would have been able to communicate their objection to the ESL situation in a way the would have made a lick of sense, but in that moment they were on the side of the angels.
@KStateGoober might not know much, and if the TV revenue situation were flipped he might well have the exact opposite self-serving opinion. But you go to war with the army you've got, not the one you wish you had.
The Galloping Ghost
- Washington, DC
Fair enough, but it's the "in that moment part" where I fear the Russ the Plumbers of the world will fail us. There's a short window to change things. Miss it, and it's too late.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I don't like being fatalist this way, but honestly? We're too late.
We were probably too late before this year even, but with USC and UCLA to the Big Ten and the 12-team playoff, the college sports America fell in love with is dead.
Get it while it's still weird next year folks. Last Tango In Corvallis.
I put it to you Greg...
I’m contrarian. I think when USC plays in Memorial Stadium, and UCLA comes to SFC, there will be huge local interest and ticket sales. Huge. I would SO rather see those teams than Rutgers or Maryland, TBH.
- Status