Conference Realignment

Joel Goodson said:

did the BIG cripple the horse or did USC and UCLA? that the PAC is unable to secure a decent media contract speaks volumes about their landscape

bringing in UW and UO under half shares is shrewd business. bringing them in at full shares (with USC and UCLA) would have been a debacle.

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Why would bringing in UO and UW at full shares be a debacle? UO at least has strong national brand recognition. Another poster posted the most watched football programs and UO was 12th, ahead of USC, UCLA, and even FSU and Nebraska. We’re all acting like we’re throwing them a bone, but we would be lucky to have UO in the fold. Also, 48% of their student population isn’t even from Oregon. UO alumni are all over the country.

Epsilon said:

Why would bringing in UO and UW at full shares be a debacle? UO at least has strong national brand recognition. Another poster posted the most watched football programs and UO was 12th, ahead of USC, UCLA, and even FSU and Nebraska. We’re all acting like we’re throwing them a bone, but we would be lucky to have UO in the fold. Also, 48% of their student population isn’t even from Oregon. UO alumni are all over the country.

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because adding them with full shares would be dilutive

Joel Goodson said:

because adding them with full shares would be dilutive

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As I posted earlier, I really think it's as simple as this ... I am not claiming to know how exactly the powers-that-be calculate exactly what a school brings to the Big Ten financially (I am sure a school's academics is financially additive in some way, getting BTN into a new market isn't AS important anymore but is still a chunk of money, there is probably some type of NPV given to a school's "potential" like the ratings a good Illini team could draw in Chicago, etc.). However, I think it is very clear that no school is getting added with full shares if that school does not increase EACH school's share.

In the example given earlier, if the Big Ten "pot" is $14 million and we each get $1 million at the end of the year, Oregon HAS to bring in an additional $1.1 million for the existing members to support it. And, even though those numbers are made up for illustrative purposes, there are not that many schools that "move the needle" in this sense. I do not know if Oregon does, but I am inclined to believe the list consists of just a handful of targets, and the only one I would be sure about (that isn't in the Big Ten, SEC or headed to either one soon) is Notre Dame.

Fighter of the Nightman said:

As I posted earlier, I really think it's as simple as this ... I am not claiming to know how exactly the powers-that-be calculate exactly what a school brings to the Big Ten financially (I am sure a school's academics is financially additive in some way, getting BTN into a new market isn't AS important anymore but is still a chunk of money, there is probably some type of NPV given to a school's "potential" like the ratings a good Illini team could draw in Chicago, etc.). However, I think it is very clear that no school is getting added with full shares if that school does not increase EACH school's share.

In the example given earlier, if the Big Ten "pot" is $14 million and we each get $1 million at the end of the year, Oregon HAS to bring in an additional $1.1 million for the existing members to support it. And, even though those numbers are made up for illustrative purposes, there are not that many schools that "move the needle" in this sense. I do not know if Oregon does, but I am inclined to believe the list consists of just a handful of targets, and the only one I would be sure about (that isn't in the Big Ten, SEC or headed to either one soon) is Notre Dame.

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Oregon does not "move the needle," from a purely financial perspective. It's a very, very short list of schools that do: ND, FSU and Clemson.

Obviously, there are many other factors (new market, quality of program, culture/fit, academics) to consider. But financial impact is at or very close to the top of the list.

Joel Goodson said:

give it some time
citing specific cases (e.g. Lightfoot) doesn't adhere to the Central Limit Theorem

when the BIG starts paying its players (~10% of media revenues?), that will supercharge the transition

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Lightfoot was being used more as an example of the current norm. I just don’t have the desire to look up all the recruits, who they committed to, and their true offer list. That being said, I think just a glance at team recruiting rankings makes it clear that conference affiliation is still weighted toward Group of 5 generally instead of “Big2”. Though I take your point that we are still at the beginning of this.

Joel Goodson said:

because adding them with full shares would be dilutive

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Sorry to again echo something Gritty already said (which is hard not to do on any topic) but I also wonder about the long term kingmaker effect. It’s like the old proverb, you don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun the guy next to you. Membership in the P2 is like having a motorcycle when everyone outside the P2 is on foot. In what way does it serve our interests to hand out more more motorcycles.

Epsilon said:

Why would bringing in UO and UW at full shares be a debacle? UO at least has strong national brand recognition. Another poster posted the most watched football programs and UO was 12th, ahead of USC, UCLA, and even FSU and Nebraska. We’re all acting like we’re throwing them a bone, but we would be lucky to have UO in the fold. Also, 48% of their student population isn’t even from Oregon. UO alumni are all over the country.

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AB1G has limited number of prime spots & Prime spots are what is bringing in the big numbers...bring in Oregon and putting them in a prime spot and that pushes someone else down to tier 2 & a tier 2 to tier 3...so the plus value of any school needs to cover their share + lost revenue from pushing someone else to Tier 2 and someone to Tier 3.

That is also nice thing with ND...they bring another NBC prime spot with them.

Joel Goodson said:

because adding them with full shares would be dilutive

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Is there no provision for change in membership? Seems like there should be some language to address that given how much change there has been over the last several years. And even if there isn’t, wouldn’t it be possible to negotiate an amendment to the existing contract if there is a mutually beneficial outcome?

Overly simplistic take:

The top brands from the ACC will only be available once between the B1G/SEC. If you want MIA, CLEM, UNC, FSU - you might need to bite the bullet now in terms of dilution for future security.

The same can't be said for Oregon and UW who would end up in the B12 and not the SEC. A B12 with those schools but no OU/TX is still a tier below.

I'd love to see a big group somehow join now (UNC, MIA, CLEM // Oregon, UW, Stan) and figure out the rest over time like we did with divisions.

Greensboro said:

AB1G has limited number of prime spots & Prime spots are what is bringing in the big numbers...bring in Oregon and putting them in a prime spot and that pushes someone else down to tier 2 & a tier 2 to tier 3...so the plus value of any school needs to cover their share + lost revenue from pushing someone else to Tier 2 and someone to Tier 3.

That is also nice thing with ND...they bring another NBC prime spot with them.

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But wouldn’t that just mean that a UO matchup might get preferenced over a less interesting matchup? If it draws more of an audience than the original matchup is that a bad thing for the B1G and/or the network?

Epsilon said:

Is there no provision for change in membership? Seems like there should be some language to address that given how much change there has been over the last several years. And even if there isn’t, wouldn’t it be possible to negotiate an amendment to the existing contract if there is a mutually beneficial outcome?

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not a lawyer, but...sure, you can have all sorts of performance clauses in a contract (happens all the time with professional athletes). when it comes to adding new members that are dilutive, best believe that there are gonna be a bunch of performance milestones in the contract. I think the days of simple adds with partial shares automatically becoming full shares after X years is probably a vestige of the past.

no bones about it, the BIG is in the catbird seat. they're going to set the terms (doesn't mean there won't be a dialog) and it'll be take it or leave it. totally different story when it comes to non-dilutive adds

Qwiksilvur said:

Lightfoot was being used more as an example of the current norm. I just don’t have the desire to look up all the recruits, who they committed to, and their true offer list. That being said, I think just a glance at team recruiting rankings makes it clear that conference affiliation is still weighted toward Group of 5 generally instead of “Big2”. Though I take your point that we are still at the beginning of this.

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Another way to look at this is team recruiting for 247 - 2023

First non B1G/SEC
7 Miami (who is suppossedly killing it with NIL)
9 Oregon
11 Clemson
12 ND ( not counting, since they are their own animal)
19 FSU
20 TCU
21 Utah

So 80% of top 10; 75% of top 24 (throwing out ND) are SEC/B1G...so still looks >> to B1G/SEC & top 3 of others is NIL/Nike & coming off a couple of National championships

Epsilon said:

Is there no provision for change in membership?

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Like, kicking teams out?

We are not stupid enough to open that door.

A majority of today's 14 B1G schools know they have no business in the College Football Premier League.

Epsilon said:

But wouldn’t that just mean that a UO matchup might get preferenced over a less interesting matchup? If it draws more of an audience than the original matchup is that a bad thing for the B1G and/or the network?

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the point is the bar is not to draw more eyeballs than the replacement, they need to draw enough more eyeballs to cover any loss of revenue from the teams that are pushed down to lower tiers or you are looking at a net loss - adding additional teams at this point don't add more Prime or tier 2 slots...end of the day it will be 1 more game getting pushed to the bottom of Big Ten Network.

ChiefGritty said:

Like, kicking teams out?

We are not stupid enough to open that door.

A majority of today's 14 B1G schools know they have no business in the College Football Premier League.

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If only Northwestern would just voluntarily give up sports!!

Epsilon said:

But wouldn’t that just mean that a UO matchup might get preferenced over a less interesting matchup? If it draws more of an audience than the original matchup is that a bad thing for the B1G and/or the network?

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Less interesting to whom? It's nice to see Illinois-Wisconsin on national TV, and if more of those spots are going to Oregon-Michigan, and we're on some overflow streaming service, that's worse for us even if the money is rolling in. Like AutoPoster3000 said, the current B1G "product" is compelling enough that there's no reason to hand out more motorcycles.

One note about athletic revenue that should cause people to take it worth a grain of salt: you really have to look into those high level numbers a bit more. For example, last year Illinois had $146 million in total revenue last year vs. Iowa's $151 million ... is Iowa "more valuable" in this regard than Illinois? I would argue definitely not. Iowa had over 1.6 times the ticket revenue that Illinois had, and they were both very close to one another in total because Illinois had $40 million in contributions vs. a little over $30 million for Iowa. Considering the string of great football Iowa has put together for over two decades and the HUGE room Illinois still has to grow if Bret keeps winning and we are consistently getting over 55k in the stands, we would quickly overtake Iowa.

Conversely, Indiana had total revenues of $167 million, technically closer to Penn State than to Illinois and Iowa! However, their contributions jumped from $62 million in 2022 from just $19 million in 2021 ... according to what I read on their board a while back, IU states this included a "one-time, generous gift of $30 million." Can IU depend on that every year? Without that, their revenues would be about $137 million, more comparable with Minnesota.

(I purposely did not compare any Big Ten schools to non-Big Ten schools so as to try to neutralize the conference payouts.)

And of course none of this considers "what a school brings financially" outside of their athletic revenues, but it is just illustrating the point that I think in general, you need to be careful looking at simplified lists like schools with the highest revenues or schools with the most TV viewers ... there are a lot of lurking variables here.

EDIT: This also got me thinking that I think one of the greatest things about the Big Ten is that there really isn't any school that is TOTAL dead weight. Even our school with the smallest fan base (Northwestern) is an elite academic institution that no doubt provides a lot of value to this conference. No offense to these schools, but we really don't have anyone like Oregon State or Mississippi State or Oklahoma State that aren't elite academically, do not command large fan bases, are not covered in major markets, etc. You could argue the closest is Purdue, I guess, sharing the state with Indiana and (from my experiences) having somewhat of an "alumni-only" fan base, which limits your viewer potential.

AutoPoster 3000 said:

Sorry to again echo something Gritty already said (which is hard not to do on any topic) but I also wonder about the long term kingmaker effect. It’s like the old proverb, you don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun the guy next to you. Membership in the P2 is like having a motorcycle when everyone outside the P2 is on foot. In what way does it serve our interests to hand out more more motorcycles.

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I agree with this. Why should the B1G rush to add Washington or Oregon? Doing so won't be accretive financially to the existing B1G members; the most notable advantage is it would make USC and UCLA's travel a bit less onerous (but more onerous for everyone else).

If the PAC falls apart, let UW and UO go join the Big 12 and see how things play out for a few years. The B1G can always take another run at those two (or others) when the Big-12's media deal nears its end in 2031.

This is a marathon, not a sprint.

Add schools that only add to the value of the B1G. B1G should not consider themselves as a "safe harbor" for institutions who find themselves in an imploding conference. The Big 12 needs to add schools to hopefully raise revenue and value for themselves, and also provide a buffer in number of schools in case the SEC or the B1G becomes raid-y again.

citing Oregon/UW viewership numbers without acknowledging the positive impact a move to the B1G would have on them is unfair. Guarantee casual Oregon/UW fans are more likely to tune into the high profile matchups the B1G can offer and, to be honest, I'm more excited about watching a UW/Oregon matchup than us versus Nebraska or Rutgers. That's what has made the Rose Bowl so successful. There is definitely a component of novelty that should boost viewership numbers for new PAC12 additions at least during their first couple years in the conference

ChiefGritty said:

Like, kicking teams out?

We are not stupid enough to open that door.

A majority of today's 14 B1G schools know they have no business in the College Football Premier League.

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That was not a part of my discussion. I’m asking about adding.

Greensboro said:

AB1G has limited number of prime spots & Prime spots are what is bringing in the big numbers...bring in Oregon and putting them in a prime spot and that pushes someone else down to tier 2 & a tier 2 to tier 3...so the plus value of any school needs to cover their share + lost revenue from pushing someone else to Tier 2 and someone to Tier 3.

That is also nice thing with ND...they bring another NBC prime spot with them.

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More PAC schools allows the BIG to add a late night window. Which would be pretty darn funny, cause USC and UCLA want to avoid those late starts.

Greensboro said:

the point is the bar is not to draw more eyeballs than the replacement, they need to draw enough more eyeballs to cover any loss of revenue from the teams that are pushed down to lower tiers or you are looking at a net loss - adding additional teams at this point don't add more Prime or tier 2 slots...end of the day it will be 1 more game getting pushed to the bottom of Big Ten Network.

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Yes, we all seem to be assuming that we don’t add eyeballs with some teams’ additions. It’s all gut based arguments. I’m not saying anyone is wrong, I’d just want to see the data.

Epsilon said:

That was not a part of my discussion. I’m asking about adding.

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doomsday is part of his schtik