Conference Realignment
- Status
dgcrow
- Kelso, WA
"The urgency was there for both of them," a Pac-12 source said. "It would have been much more difficult if one tried to move by themselves."
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Fun prompt.
In the broad sweep of history so long as the framework was conferences negotiating individual TV deals, consolidation was inevitable. The timeline might change, which schools in which conferences might change, but competing for those TV dollars meant destruction of the system eventually. The only way to prevent us getting here was collectivization in some form, which would have had the added advantage of leveraging quasi-monopoly power against the broadcasters. That's the happy version of the story and at every step since the Supreme Court handed schools and conferences TV rights, that SHOULD have been the decision.
As to what could have really changed the way it all went down, I think there are better moments to point at.
The first I said above, if CBS extends with the SEC for their first-tier games in 2019, that drastically reduces the incentive for ESPN and the SEC to coax Texas and Oklahoma, and also probably ensures ESPN's participation in the next Big Ten deal. That kicks the Power Five system to 2030 at least, into a new media paradigm we can't yet see. Who knows what comes out the other side of that hypothetical.
And then the second one is Nebraska, a move the Big Ten made in order to get to 12, which the NCAA mandated to allow for a football championship game, a rule they have since loosened. If we'd been allowed to hold a title game under current rules, we don't make that move, and without destabilization of the Big XII, the five conferences stay on much more equal power footing through the 2010's, a more durable equilibrium (as unhappy of a family as the Big 12 always was notwithstanding.)
(We also have to assume that the Pac 16 doesn't happen, which was a whisker away, only prevented by a financially senseless last-minute ESPN bribe of Texas. If the Pac 16 happens in June 2010, we have a 4X16 conference system by July 2010. That's the biggest contingency in the bunch.)
But what really should have happened, from a Big Ten perspective? When the BTN launch was so successful, and suddenly gave the league this huge platform in the homes of everyone in the Midwest, the league should have taken a long term view, invested, and tried to fill that platform, make it valuable. Most obvious there would have been pushing to make new revenue sports of properties that are known winners on TV, baseball and hockey. It needn't have necessarily been strictly sports though, something like the Big 10K in Chicago, not a TV property, but it showed the path of the Big Ten as a Midwestern lifestyle brand, something that could engage people in a deeper and more sustained way. It might not have worked, it might not have aged all that well in the era of media fragmentation (to say nothing of political culture war), but in 2007 that path was there and part of the discussion.
That was pursued barely at all, no sincere investment along those lines was ever done. The BTN has been a theft of $1 per month from it's inception, always with terrible ratings, the cheapest possible programming, and not the slightest attempt to make it worth more to the consumer than the old ESPN+ syndication system was. Just a cynical ploy for dollars, and a wildly successful one, the story of Jim Delany's career.
It's possible that the college sports world could have shaken out where something like "Ohio State and Penn State to the SEC" could have entered the conversation. Never likely, but if we'd stood pat at 11 (or 10) while others started eating each other, that's a possible future. But if the conference had attacked the opportunity to make Big Ten membership something deeper and more comprehensive (making it among other things more lucrative with diversified revenue streams), that could have made leaving unthinkable in a way more meaningful than just "no better TV deal from now to 2031 is available".
illini80
- Forgottonia
The story at the time, was they came to the B10.
Mr. Tibbs
- southeast DuPage
I 100% believe that to be the case
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Don't be silly about this.
FOX approached USC with the idea of joining the Big Ten, in an effort to create a beast capable of staving off ESPN's then-emergent grip on the college sports broadcast market. USC looped UCLA into the idea, hatched the plan, and then FOX came to the B1G and said "hey, we can get your TV deal to your internal targets if you do this".
Fox and ESPN. That's all any of this is.
But of course posters here are sweatily casting the B1G as the sweet innocent they want to believe in rather than the witless dupe they are happy to see when Kevin Warren's face is applied.
Mr. Tibbs
- southeast DuPage
I dont doubt for a minunte this is how it went down
NFW did Kevin Warren initiate anything on this
Of course the big ten in its 10 school form could thrive. The question is whether it would have disintegrated because an OSU AD saw the dollars to go elsewhere.
Gritty I love your point about BTN. I really thought they would have spent more on non revenue programming.
Gritty I love your point about BTN. I really thought they would have spent more on non revenue programming.
mattcoldagelli
- The Transfer Portal with Do Not Contact Tag
So the ACC is kind of stepping on a rake with this public Cal/Stanford/SMU flirtation….but the smoke that it is (partial member) Notre Dame trying to make it happen?
Sources: Cal, Stanford to ACC hits 'roadblocks'
The ACC presidents met Wednesday night, and the pursuit of Cal and Stanford for conference membership has "hit significant roadblocks," sources said.
"...it's not that bad."
Yeah, that's what I'm typically telling myself after a rough day at work. Way to rationalize this one, champ.
At first I thought he was doing the Louis CK bit!
MoCoMdIllini
- Montgomery County, Maryland
Nothing says Atlantic Coast quite like Palo Alto.
Honestly, he’s not wrong.
Imagine in the 1950s, the thought of taking the train for, say, Notre Dame to play Army. I’m sure that was a daunting, time consuming and exhausting effort. Those players would have LOVE a five or six hour plane flight.
Times change. We move on. Some of those changes suck, some are great. But change is constant and inevitable.
There was a huge demand for college football that wasn't being met. The expansion of the playoff was needed both for fairness, and to meet demand. Fairness hasn't mattered in a long time, it was just a happy coincidence that some in congress were complaining about the NCAA monopoly & exclusion of smaller programs from their state, while the playoff money was there to make changes happen. Underneath the changes are enormous fan demand for programs wanting a legitimate shot at a national championship, and the excitement that brings to the season. Injecting that much money into the system enabled wholesale changes that would have been nearly impossible to do otherwise.
I would argue that Conference realignment is reflecting what fans want, or at least what fans will pay for. There's a market for championship level teams, and fans that don't care enough to fund this form of entertainment can't be free riders on those that will. Fan demand is what gives programs their worth --it's plain to see that in the way programs are being poached. Prior to all this realignment, conferences were clusters that were close enough in relative value, that they could still differentiate with other mechanisms (spend on recruiting, facilities, or more revenue in ticket prices, etc.). Now, it's not enough.
I actually see the current system and where it's headed as much better. I love the idea of 12 teams being able to play for a championship. I think the traditional have-nots will have a much better chance to be a Cinderella. And I think there's a legitimate place for teams like Illinois that can percolate up from a lower position in one of the best conferences. You don't want every team to be an Ohio State. They need underdogs on the schedule and they know it.
I've read much of this thread as people having a hard time with the changes and it strikes me as "get off my lawn". Mind you, there's plenty to complain about with a sport this big, the loss of the traditions, and the obscene amount of money that it generates ostensibly as part of an education system with it's own major issues. On the sports side, I find the media landscape to be the worst aspect, but I've decided it is what it is and I need to get used to it.
Ok, apologies for the opinions --just felt my take was different enough that I'd toss it out there. I do enjoy the discussion and reading the different hot takes.
Pac-12's downfall came after it could not adjust to changing media landscape
Larry Scott boasted five years ago that the Pac-12 Conference would be able “to adapt, react and take advantage of this new world media order that’s coming in a way others can’t.”
apnews.com
I’ve read some speculation of Clemson to the Big 10.
I would really worry about them and what a post-Dabo football program looks like. They could be post-Osbourne Nebraska, a small (by Big 10 standards) school in a small town in a small state, but without the Midwestern regional ties and even worse academics.
I would really worry about them and what a post-Dabo football program looks like. They could be post-Osbourne Nebraska, a small (by Big 10 standards) school in a small town in a small state, but without the Midwestern regional ties and even worse academics.
This is the football coach talking. Let’s ask the track and field or rowing or water polo or field hockey staff how they feel about the logistics required of a schedule that has them alternatively going from California to North Carolina back to California to Massachusetts to California to Kentucky and so on. I don’t know exactly, but a college softball team must take about 12-15 road trips per season or something like that? Crossing three times zones even three or four times a year is pretty brutal.
the national
- the Front Range
I've always enjoyed discussing the B1G with my neighbors at various events. I live in the western suburbs, and there are plenty of alumni from across the traditional base. I literally don't know a single person who went to Maryland, Rutgers, PSU, UCLA, USC, Washington, or Oregon. My neighbor's kid is going to Nebraska this year. The traditional foes matter much more to me because I'm watching and talking with others who care about them. "It's going to be a real battle when we play you guys in 2025" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
To each his own. I hate the idea of the new B1G.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I guarantee you this prediction will not bear out.
Playoff expansion is centralization, which was evident even at 4 and will be on steroids at 12. You'll see it clearer when we get there.
Mr. Tibbs
- southeast DuPage
yea, if there was any real value from a media perspective, those two schools would be in the B1G already.
Im not totally sure the B12 wants Cal in any way
I agree. 12 guarantees a spot for Alabama, OSU, Georgia, Clemson, and probably ND every year. If Oklahoma had stayed in the Big 12, they would be guaranteed, too. Michigan, PSU, Florida, Tennessee, USC, Miami, FSU and whoever wins the Big 12 will be frequent flyers, as well.
I think you will still see only one or two non traditional powers in the 12 any given year.
- Status