I agree with you that the UCLA move will stand. But the "theater" you refer to is in the delay, threat of reversal, and suggestions of monetary punishment toward UCLA. I think this is the Regents' clumsy play to get Cal included. It has to be slapped down.
They won't have to "scramble." All twelve PAC members have approached The B1G about invitations to join. In the coming weeks expect more expansion and additional media deals for The B1G.
As for UC's liability for queering the proposed multi-billion dollar media deals, I wish I knew. That is a question for lawyers, but I hope somebody in Berkeley raises it.
Sets a bad precedent of allowing politicos to dictate conference membership. If these Regents indicate that they want Cal B. included in the expansion, The B1G must absolutely exclude them. Even if the plan was to consider that move, they must demonstrate that political pressure will cause a 180 degree pushback. This situation could present itself again in the states of Oregon, Washington, and possibly Arizona, Virginia, North Carolina, etc. Establish a clear precedent.
I agree with you about Phoenix. And here is how the Big Ten might approach TX, FL, and GA.
Gene Smith said the FB schedule will become a year-to-year function rather than the current long-term method. I will suggest that the Big Ten might attempt to make this easier by establishing some pre-arranged matchups that will involve one OOC school (i.e. TCU) playing a rotation of Big Ten teams in a neutral site. The recent buzz about the TCU AD visiting Chicago provoked this idea.
In 2018 OSU played TCU in Dallas and the ratings were spectacular. It was the highest rated game with 7.58 million viewers (ABC, 8 pm) and easily beat second place Texas vs USC (Fox) which garnered only 2.?? million, about one third.
TCU would likely enjoy the exposure and the payday, playing a different Big Ten opponent every year without having to travel, and NBC might like the ratings on Saturday nights.
Maybe this arrangement would also work with Clemson in Atlanta or FSU in Jacksonville, although those teams are very successful with home game crowds. But they both might warm to the idea of regular Big Ten opponents near home.
For the Big Ten this would get them into the southeastern and southwestern advertising footprint on a regular basis. Until the ACC breaks up, the Big Ten has no other way to intrude into that territory.
No real inside knowledge, but I have thought all along that these schools are continually talking about realignment through proxies, lawyers, agents, etc. Two years ago USC AD Brohm(sp?) warned the PAC 12 that he was expecting to be paid like Alabama and Ohio State, and that he would definitely exit the conference to achieve that. Would he have stuck his neck out like that without knowing he had a landing spot? I would bet there is endless scheming among all the usual suspects in college football.
ND is not coming to The B1G, not this time around. But I saw some speculation that after The B1G (16 team B1G) gets this current negotiation put to bed, they will invite Stanford, Cal, Oregon, Washington and take that group to market as a separate package aiming at $250 Million ($62.5 each). The B1G will have a two-tiered media pay-out structure.
If NBC doesn't give ND a decent contract, ESPN will buy them for ABC just to keep them away from The B1G. ESPN has extra media cash to throw around since they whiffed on The B1G.
ESPN won't agree to that. SEC will now see what it feels like to live on a fixed income for the next 12 years. Bigger payday than the ACC but same situation. B1G negotiations have been brilliant.
ESPN ad rates will tank without The B1G. They cannot make that up by grabbing PAC and Big XII content. Their best play might be to embrace their regional identity and stuff all their Saturday windows with SEC and ACC which is all bought-and-paid-for through 2034 and 2036 respectively. They don't need to spend another nickel for the next decade. The B1G might crush The SEC in media earnings, but ESPN will be fine. They have bargain rates for all of their football properties.
ND must be brought in by attraction, not coercion. Make them think it was their idea.
Play vicious hardball with ESPN for B1G media rights. They need The B1G and we have all the leverage. (CBS, NBC,& others can consume whatever ESPN leaves on the table. If ESPN won't pay, we (Fox/BTN) should bid against them for PAC12 (2024) and Big 12 (2025). Even if ESPN wins the bidding, make sure they are paying maximum rate.
Tx & Ok join the SEC in '24. The payout amount for that deal (now exclusively ESPN) has likely already been finalized. From now until 2034 the SEC is on a fixed income. They will experience ESPN's starvation/strangulation technique just as the ACC has felt for these last six years. Inflation is not their friend. The SEC intends to supplement their income with playoff money. The B1G and other conferences must make sure that if the playoff is expanded to eight (likely) or twelve, that the SEC nor any other conference can occupy more than two spots. This is actually the crowning achievement of "The Alliance."
B1G should limit the next two media deals to five years each in order to get more frequent pay raises and align with the next SEC renewal in 2034. Again putting pressure on ESPN.
When ACC properties become available, engage the most attractive programs and force The SEC to double-up in GA, SC, and FL. Breaking The SEC/ESPN monopoly on advertising in the Southeast would cause them to panic. Make best efforts to capture UVa and UNC. Consider Ga Tech and any Florida school.
ESPN is college football's worst enemy. Make them return to the role of media company and stop them trying to be kingmaker.
Howard's responsibility at the end of that game, W or L, is to lead his players through the handshake line and end the competition in a respectful manner, regardless of any emotional discomfort. He can be angry, but the expression of his feelings in the handshake line is inappropriate. The handshake line was started, in the first place, to impose a peaceful end to the competition. All the anger, handwringing, name-calling, and bitching can be vented in the press room afterwards. If he had done this simple job, walk the line, none of the other offenses that everyone points to, would have happened. Juwan is 100% responsible for everything in that humiliating video.
Howard's responsibility at the end of that game, W or L, is to lead his players through the handshake line and end the competition in a respectful manner, regardless of any emotional discomfort. He can be angry, but the expression of his feelings in the handshake line is inappropriate. The handshake line was started, in the first place, to impose a peaceful end to the competition. All the anger, handwringing, name-caller, and bitching can be vented in the press room afterwards. If he had done this simple job, walk the line, none of the other offenses that everyone points to, would have happened. Juwan is 100% responsible for everything in that humiliating video.
The idea of the handshake line is to force these athletes and coaches to swallow whatever anger, resentments, etc. they are feeling and to face the opponent in a non-antagonistic posture and SHAKE THE DAMN HAND. It's why we do this. It has worked for a long time exactly the way it should. JH's behavior was embarrassingly adolescent.
I think it is beyond funny that you are worried about losing Gattis to some SEC blueblood program because of his stellar achievements as the Michigan Head Coach. Maybe see if he can blow the whistle at practice first.
I think it is beyond funny that you are worried about losing Gattis to some SEC blueblood program because of his stellar achievements as the Michigan Head Coach. Maybe see if he can blow the whistle at practice first.
Who knows where this NIL business will take us? Difficult to predict the Big Picture, but I imagine some of these issues will develop:
Some schools will experience a decrease in donations to the endowment fund as alums divert some of their regular largess to the NIL booster fund.
Top rated recruits may be kept out of the transfer portal if their sponsor requires a "no-compete" element in the contract.
An entire new type of consulting will arise to organize and manage NIL operations at institutions that are worried about policing and controlling who has access to their student athletes. (Gambling enterprises and other disallowed parties)
Big-money sponsors may withdraw with buyer's remorse if they invest in a kid who can't crack the starting line-up or wants to transfer. Transfers will affect local businesses who want to engage, but large national companies will be less concerned about it.
As with any new enterprise that causes lots of money to change hands, there will be opportunists, and scammers, and people will get hurt.
Pantoni is not a recruiter. The coaches evaluate and recruit the talent. That is why there is a salary disparity between Pantoni and Jim Knowles. His role is administration, tracking, scheduling, dispatching, communicating. It requires skills that not everyone has, but it is not recruiting. Rather than poaching Pantoni, mimic his system. Hire one of his underlings an try to duplicate his operation. If he left Columbus, that operation might not miss a beat. It's the system that matters.
I suggest that you disregard rankings when picking/betting games. Iowa was #2 for a while; was that legit? Cincy is #2 now; is that legit? These rankings are every bit as meaningful as those recruiting "Stars" that everyone obsesses over. Look at the body of work and watch video, but never, never, never include rankings in you methodology.
I'll argue the other side of this issue. Not because I think you're wrong, I believe you are more likely right than I am. But there is a wake-up call coming for the ACC. They will be desperately motivated to find a way out of that GoR.
The conversation online is always about the $30 million discrepancy for the next fifteen years. That's the way the message boards present it. But the university leaders know that the discrepancy is going to far exceed that $30 million. And it will happen soon. For any leader of an ACC university to stand pat and leave $40~$50 million per year on the table is fiscal malpractice. That is especially true for Clemson and Florida State who have very modest endowment funds relative to the rest of the conference members. And those two schools need successful football in order to keep attracting donations. Even Virginia and UNC, wealthy as they are, would be negligent to just stand by as that opportunity rolled by.
I don't know what kind of legal Armageddon would ensue, but I expect the ACC schools who have realignment value to engage ESPN, SEC, B1G and their lesser conference mates in negotiations, threats, lawsuits, and subversion rather than just sit back and Take It.
Something happened in the last round of media contracts which has gone largely unnoticed and it has remained a constant puzzle to me. Now I think I get it. The B1G GoR is not between the schools and the BigTen Conference. The schools' media rights were assigned directly to the BTN, who in turn marketed them to FOX and ESPN.
Couldn't BTN establish a GoR with The PAC 12 and offer those media rights to the market in a bundle with the B1G media rights. This would reinforce and capitalize on the "alliance" scheduling without the need to bring PAC 12 schools into the B1G.
Couldn't they also include media rights from the remainder of the Big12, The Ivy League, etc. The BTN could broker these deals for the conferences and sell unclaimed individual games to regional or local TV/cable or deliver them on available slots on the BTN. Streaming is the future, but cable has a lot of mileage left.
The B1G has the most valuable media properties and they should exploit that advantage any way possible.
The GoR certainly looks like a dead end, but let's not be absolutist about it. It's a "contract," after all. We may get to see a GoR tested in court if TX/OK want to leave the Big XII next season. The Away games for these two schools could get so ugly (fan behavior) that a move needs to happen. TX/OK could amplify the issue by removing their teams from the field if they are targeted with thrown objects, or if the home fans abuse the visiting fans.
Not sure what everyone was expecting. The SEC pulled a fast one and the rest of them had to respond. This was predictable pro-forma "doonsumnaboudit."
The B1G is the least affected or threatened by the SEC, among the other conferences. Walking out of there unencumbered by any new contracts is to our advantage.
Mutual consideration in scheduling can have an effect on TV audience and value to advertisers, though it will not be an immediate game-changer. But it gives these three some reasons to consult and spitball ideas in a way that may have seemed unnecessary before. Announcing the continued emphasis on academic excellence could be viewed as a heads-up to the Oregon States and Louisville's of the world. These conferences will evolve to their optimum configuration, which is most easily achieved by culling the herd.
Up until the very time that the TX/OK move was announced, the Big XII message board fans insisted that the conference was stable and financially robust to a degree that nobody would ever consider moving. They were unable to apply the obvious lessons of Neb, Col, A&M, and Missouri. It was a strange form of willful blindness. I see a lot of that in The ACC, tempered by a few realists.
Yes, I know, 2036. There are ever-increasing pressures against that calendar and I don't think it will hold.
Yeah, Delany thought that Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland were awesome ideas. If you disagree, then you haven't been paying attention. The B1G has the highest per-school media payout in college sports. That's not an accident. Jim Delany kicked ESPN's ass every time he got in room with them. They told him if he didn't like their offer for B1G TV rights to "start your own network." He did just that. The last two rounds of contract negotiations saw ESPN dragging their feet and trying to pay The B1G less than The SEC. In the end, ESPN had to face the reality that their national advertisers demand to be seen in the B1G geographical footprint. The SEC has added Texas and Oklahoma to their conference footprint, but that doesn't alter the necessity for ESPN to pay "B1G Bucks" to the Big Ten.
When Delany added Maryland to the B1G, ESPN, The SEC, and The ACC peed their pants in unison. The threat of Delany getting a B1G school in The South (UVA, UNC, whatever) was a nightmare to them all. It still is. If the B1G can sell ads in that territory, how does the SEC respond? Pitt, Syracuse, Cincinnati? Those are all media content midgets.
The next media deal for the B1G will be interesting. ESPN can't afford to pay us and they can't afford not to. If just one school (likely USC) from the PAC 12 applies for B1G membership, the floodgates will open. Their brethren will have to follow and the B1G will have a coast to coast footprint and the SEC will have Dixie. To be fair they have Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. The SEC strategy has been that the quality of their collective football programs makes their footprint more valuable than their populations should indicate. It is true that the "density" of their fan following in their states is unmatched vs the other conferences. But the only path for growth of the SEC is among ACC schools. These are properties that ESPN has indentured for the next fifteen years at comical rates. Rumor has it that John Swofford gets a fruit basket and a sleeve of Titleists every Christmas from the ESPN brass. ESPN does not want to end this sweetheart arrangement. But the ACC schools are already grumpy about the media money disparity. Wait 'til Clemson ($31 million) gets a look at South Carolina's payout from their next contract; could be $80 million. They are all watching for the litigation of the Big 12 GoR and hoping that it is judged to be waste paper. Then we have some fun.
Yeah, Delany thought that Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland were awesome ideas. If you disagree, then you haven't been paying attention. The B1G has the highest per-school media payout in college sports. That's not an accident. Jim Delany kicked ESPN's ass every time he got in room with them. They told him if he didn't like their offer for B1G TV rights to "start your own network." He did just that. The last two rounds of contract negotiations saw ESPN dragging their feet and trying to pay The B1G less than The SEC. In the end, ESPN had to face the reality that their national advertisers demand to be seen in the B1G geographical footprint. The SEC has added Texas and Oklahoma to their conference footprint, but that doesn't alter the necessity for ESPN to pay "B1G Bucks" to the Big Ten.
When Delany added Maryland to the B1G, ESPN, The SEC, and The ACC peed their pants in unison. The threat of Delany getting a B1G school in The South (UVA, UNC, whatever) was a nightmare to them all. It still is. If the B1G can sell ads in that territory, how does the SEC respond? Pitt, Syracuse, Cincinnati? Those are all media content midgets.
The next media deal for the B1G will be interesting. ESPN can't afford to pay us and they can't afford not to. If just one school (likely USC) from the PAC 12 applies for B1G membership, the floodgates will open. Their brethren will have to follow and the B1G will have a coast to coast footprint and the SEC will have Dixie. To be fair they have Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. The SEC strategy has been that the quality of their collective football programs makes their footprint more valuable than their populations should indicate. It is true that the "density" of their fan following in their states is unmatched vs the other conferences. But the only path for growth of the SEC is among ACC schools. These are properties that ESPN has indentured for the next fifteen years at comical rates. Rumor has it that John Swofford gets a fruit basket and a sleeve of Titleists every Christmas from the ESPN brass. ESPN does not want to end this sweetheart arrangement. But the ACC schools are already grumpy about the media money disparity. Wait 'til Clemson ($31 million) gets a look at South Carolina's payout from their next contract; could be $80 million. They are all watching for the litigation of the Big 12 GoR and hoping that is is judged to be waste paper. Then we have some fun.
The B1G has larger media payouts than the SEC. That didn't happen because they lacked horsepower or fortitude. The SEC can continue to add properties as far as the eye can see. It will make them bigger, but not necessarily more profitable. They can declare a New World Order and change the rules to their advantage. But so can the B1G and anyone else who chooses not to fall in line. Who's to say the B1G, PAC, and others couldn't withdraw from the NCAA and form a regulatory body for themselves. It could be in cooperation with the SEC or not. I think the panic and despair about Texahoma to the SEC is waaaay overdone.
SEC/ESPN will want to defer decisions on more expansion until after they deal with the GoR ramifications in the case of Texahoma. Soon, some court will establish the calculus for pricing a realignment settlement. The potential magnitude of the unknown is what has kept GoRs sacrosanct up until now. Let's hide and watch...
M-Dog, calm yourself. The SEC can add Clemson, Florida State, and "The U", for all we care. That doesn't hurt The B1G, beyond the fact that those schools are then not available to us. Remember that adding programs to your conference isn't free. Once they're in, you have to pay them a full share of media money. Will Clemson/FL ST enrich the conference enough to justify the move? Maybe, but it is up to the media companies who buy the content. In truth, if the SEC adds a school, the move has likely been pre-approved by their media overlords at ESPN.
The B1G occupies a geographical footprint that is impossible to ignore if you are a media company selling ads to national advertisers. ESPN absolutely MUST have some amount of B1G content in their national ad package. The B1G, under Jim Delany, understood that and played appropriate hardball vs ESPN and Fox.
Texas, in particular, and Oklahoma improved the value of the SEC ad footprint. But it, in no way, diminished the value of the B1G footprint. The B1G need not rush in to anything. Deliberate consideration of expansion with PAC schools or eventually with ACC schools is something they have been kicking about for at least three decades. They know the territory and they are looking for the right deal. Feel better?
"Most people" who reference the ACC/ESPN media contract and declare that "there are several ways to break this" would list at least one of those "ways". You begin: "First, SEC decides to poach... " Then we arrive at: "Second, even if ESPN... " whereby you admit that the first "way" isn't really plausible. I'll help you out with some "ways" that might actually happen.
ESPN owns ALL of the media rights to ALL of the ACC content until 2036. ACC teams could leave the conference and join the SEC and ESPN would be fine with that because they own SEC content as well. The only dispute would be internally in the ACC. Litigation, to be sure. But in the end those renegade ACC schools would become well-paid members of the SEC. But the impetus for these moves must not be viewed, at least overtly, as SEC poaching.
If, however those teams chose to move from the ACC to The B1G, ESPN and the ACC, together, would set upon them in an ungodly way. The motives for this move may not be strong enough to justify the unavoidable legal war. But here are the motives: The impending B1G media auction will bring riches to Maryland and Rutgers beyond any hopes that Clemson, UNC, or Virginia can dare to dream. The discrepancy will be somewhere in the low gazillions. Any schools who are willing to fight their way out of the ACC/ESPN harem would need to be extremely resentful and mistrustful of ESPN, and harbor a longing for a place in a more academic oriented conference. Who fits that bill? Who has the courage to start that fight?
The most peaceful path is for the ACC to ask ESPN to void the GoR in exchange for safe passage for selected schools to the SEC and for big, fat financial considerations for the weaklings who remain. Maybe that means just leaving the media payout at the current level for the duration of the original contract. But, again, this idea has to come from the conference, not from ESPN.
There might be other "ways" but "SEC decides to poach" isn't one of them.
Selecting only premier programs is a rare opportunity to cull the herd. Some programs consume more than they produce. Texas Tech, Kansas State, etc. were not among "the fittest." Such is the case with Oregon State.
With Texas off the board, my two preferred candidates are ND and Stanford. ND is still out of range, so this 14 team conference should add a seven team Western division:
Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, USC, UCLA, Arizona
Those western schools would function much like they do today. The travel will be less of a problem than (I think) everyone imagines. Teams can take days-long tours of the other regional divisions without missing classes by using Zoom from hotel meeting rooms or on-campus facilities provided by the host school. Like it or not Zoom is here to stay and it will be the athlete's standard method. I can foresee massive manipulation of the course catalogue to keep lots of undergrad courses from being scheduled on Mondays, just to make for longer weekends. Just fill Mondays with graduate courses and maybe Fine/Applied Arts, something that will not likely involve too many athletes. (How many of you have vomited in your mouth?) I know this is exactly the kind of intrusion into the academic apparatus that sports were never supposed to do. But I think it will happen, maybe not exactly in the way I described it, but accommodations will be made wherever necessary.
I think it is absolutely impossible that The B1G, The PAC 12 and UT, OU, and countless other parties have not been plotting, scheming and spying through back channels, proxies and God-knows-what regarding realignment. Just because Commissioner Warren seems unaware of things doesn't mean it hasn't been going on. This is billions of dollars for those who make the right moves. Nobody in major college football has been sittin' it out over these last couple of decades.
USC would sell-out in a heartbeat and start the whole thing tumbling down. Choose very selectively among the best programs. No need take the conference intact. Just enough to make a Western Division.
Cal Chancellor Carol Christ has said she doesn't much approve of the money chase aspect of college athletics. If you want to add California schools, take the two privates, USC and Stanford. The legislature there is prone to weaponize the travel budgets of state gov't bodies.
As for the ACC, they are indentured to ESPN for fifteen more years at starvation rates. ESPN could release them from those bonds if the better programs agree to join the SEC. For the B1G to acquire UNC, Virginia, et al. would require a messy violation of GoR and conference exit litigation the likes of which we have never seen.
Your take is not more simple. It is more considered, more rational. The OP spent more time typing his words than he spent contemplating the consequences of adding the likes of Syracuse or BC.
Your take is not more simple. It is more considered, more rational. The OP spent more time typing his words than he spent contemplating the consequences of adding the likes of Syracuse or BC.
Why do you think adding Rutgers was a "terrible impulse decision?"
According to my research, every year, every conference has a last-place team. If they get the boot, somebody else becomes the worst team. So then we boot the new last-place team? Soon we will have a very exclusive organization.
Rutgers has a huge student body and a correspondingly huge alumni population. The academics are sterling and they are located in an attractive destination neighborhood. When selecting a new conference member, FB won/lost record isn't everything.
Texas and Oklahoma will give the best possible boost in media value. The B1G should be deliberate and focus on maximizing media revenue with the existing roster. Adding schools will not necessarily make the conference more profitable. Notre Dame is a money-maker, UNC and Virginia are somewhat marginal. Anybody else is a step backwards.
Michigan is not a contender in the annual dick-measuring contest for "No. 1 Recruiting Class." Once a kid commits to UM we should be looking at his rank vs. the other players on our team, not the other players on the internet. Hoping that Marlin Klein rises from TE #27 to, what... TE #22? That's a sad little vanity play that marks us as a mediocre program. We need to get back in the hunt for the top tier players before we start tracking the rise and fall of our recruits.
The "Five Star" designation is assigned by a consensus of recruiting somebodies, who have biases and agenda. People on these message boards treat it as though it were a law of physics.
Each year the seven rounds of the NFL draft selects 224 candidates to audition for NFL jobs. Track the 250 top rated recruits for given year and see where they are drafted compared to their recruiting rank. (I know, still imprecise) Count those who go undrafted and track the drafted players who were ranked outside of the top 250. Maybe just focus on the first five rounds (160 players.)
Do you remember, in the run-up to the most recent B1G expansion; all of the meticulous polling, surveys, and focus groups administered by the conference; to ensure that their choice to add Rutgers and Maryland was fully supported and approved by the Michigan fanbase? Of course you don't remember. It didn't happen. And it won't happen... ever!
The B1G will expand again coincident with their next media contract. Nobody is getting kicked-out. The schools added will be select for their value as sports media products and for their academic fitness for mingling with the snooty administrators of current member schools. Nebraska was marginally qualified academically, but the B1G held their nose and added them anyway because they thought Notre Dame was going to be #12. Twenty one years later PSU became #12. The B1G might hold their nose again to add Oklahoma, especially if Texas came along. (OK State ain't gettin' in under any circumstances.)
Conferences will get larger and there will be fewer of them. Media money demands it.
Keep checking you mail for the opinion survey and final voting ballot from the conference.
I can hardly believe that:
Multiple posters suggested the addition of West By God Virginia to the Big Ten Conference. (This can only happen as part of a package that includes Boise State.)
Somebody thought it sensible to add UMass and BC (and pay out two conference revenue shares) to reach alumni in Massachusetts.
There's also the question of who represents (agent) these kids when they are ready for the NBA. IMG virtually "owns" the pro tennis field because they reach these kids at a very young age. The same model could benefit the investors here. NBA salaries are real good.
The existing structure of AAU makes it possible for that organization to quickly replicate this model, assuming it succeeds. NCAA hoops will be dominated by The Ivy League.
Recent Comments
Yes they have, and it must not be tolerated by The B1G in this case.
I agree with you that the UCLA move will stand. But the "theater" you refer to is in the delay, threat of reversal, and suggestions of monetary punishment toward UCLA. I think this is the Regents' clumsy play to get Cal included. It has to be slapped down.
They won't have to "scramble." All twelve PAC members have approached The B1G about invitations to join. In the coming weeks expect more expansion and additional media deals for The B1G.
As for UC's liability for queering the proposed multi-billion dollar media deals, I wish I knew. That is a question for lawyers, but I hope somebody in Berkeley raises it.
Sets a bad precedent of allowing politicos to dictate conference membership. If these Regents indicate that they want Cal B. included in the expansion, The B1G must absolutely exclude them. Even if the plan was to consider that move, they must demonstrate that political pressure will cause a 180 degree pushback. This situation could present itself again in the states of Oregon, Washington, and possibly Arizona, Virginia, North Carolina, etc. Establish a clear precedent.
I'd bet this is the case. Some impatient boosters funded the move just to get it done immediately.
I agree with you about Phoenix. And here is how the Big Ten might approach TX, FL, and GA.
Gene Smith said the FB schedule will become a year-to-year function rather than the current long-term method. I will suggest that the Big Ten might attempt to make this easier by establishing some pre-arranged matchups that will involve one OOC school (i.e. TCU) playing a rotation of Big Ten teams in a neutral site. The recent buzz about the TCU AD visiting Chicago provoked this idea.
In 2018 OSU played TCU in Dallas and the ratings were spectacular. It was the highest rated game with 7.58 million viewers (ABC, 8 pm) and easily beat second place Texas vs USC (Fox) which garnered only 2.?? million, about one third.
TCU would likely enjoy the exposure and the payday, playing a different Big Ten opponent every year without having to travel, and NBC might like the ratings on Saturday nights.
Maybe this arrangement would also work with Clemson in Atlanta or FSU in Jacksonville, although those teams are very successful with home game crowds. But they both might warm to the idea of regular Big Ten opponents near home.
For the Big Ten this would get them into the southeastern and southwestern advertising footprint on a regular basis. Until the ACC breaks up, the Big Ten has no other way to intrude into that territory.
No real inside knowledge, but I have thought all along that these schools are continually talking about realignment through proxies, lawyers, agents, etc. Two years ago USC AD Brohm(sp?) warned the PAC 12 that he was expecting to be paid like Alabama and Ohio State, and that he would definitely exit the conference to achieve that. Would he have stuck his neck out like that without knowing he had a landing spot? I would bet there is endless scheming among all the usual suspects in college football.
Am I the only one amused that he is honing his sharpening skills?
ND is not coming to The B1G, not this time around. But I saw some speculation that after The B1G (16 team B1G) gets this current negotiation put to bed, they will invite Stanford, Cal, Oregon, Washington and take that group to market as a separate package aiming at $250 Million ($62.5 each). The B1G will have a two-tiered media pay-out structure.
If NBC doesn't give ND a decent contract, ESPN will buy them for ABC just to keep them away from The B1G. ESPN has extra media cash to throw around since they whiffed on The B1G.
ESPN won't agree to that. SEC will now see what it feels like to live on a fixed income for the next 12 years. Bigger payday than the ACC but same situation. B1G negotiations have been brilliant.
ESPN ad rates will tank without The B1G. They cannot make that up by grabbing PAC and Big XII content. Their best play might be to embrace their regional identity and stuff all their Saturday windows with SEC and ACC which is all bought-and-paid-for through 2034 and 2036 respectively. They don't need to spend another nickel for the next decade. The B1G might crush The SEC in media earnings, but ESPN will be fine. They have bargain rates for all of their football properties.
ND must be brought in by attraction, not coercion. Make them think it was their idea.
Play vicious hardball with ESPN for B1G media rights. They need The B1G and we have all the leverage. (CBS, NBC,& others can consume whatever ESPN leaves on the table. If ESPN won't pay, we (Fox/BTN) should bid against them for PAC12 (2024) and Big 12 (2025). Even if ESPN wins the bidding, make sure they are paying maximum rate.
Tx & Ok join the SEC in '24. The payout amount for that deal (now exclusively ESPN) has likely already been finalized. From now until 2034 the SEC is on a fixed income. They will experience ESPN's starvation/strangulation technique just as the ACC has felt for these last six years. Inflation is not their friend. The SEC intends to supplement their income with playoff money. The B1G and other conferences must make sure that if the playoff is expanded to eight (likely) or twelve, that the SEC nor any other conference can occupy more than two spots. This is actually the crowning achievement of "The Alliance."
B1G should limit the next two media deals to five years each in order to get more frequent pay raises and align with the next SEC renewal in 2034. Again putting pressure on ESPN.
When ACC properties become available, engage the most attractive programs and force The SEC to double-up in GA, SC, and FL. Breaking The SEC/ESPN monopoly on advertising in the Southeast would cause them to panic. Make best efforts to capture UVa and UNC. Consider Ga Tech and any Florida school.
ESPN is college football's worst enemy. Make them return to the role of media company and stop them trying to be kingmaker.
Howard's responsibility at the end of that game, W or L, is to lead his players through the handshake line and end the competition in a respectful manner, regardless of any emotional discomfort. He can be angry, but the expression of his feelings in the handshake line is inappropriate. The handshake line was started, in the first place, to impose a peaceful end to the competition. All the anger, handwringing, name-calling, and bitching can be vented in the press room afterwards. If he had done this simple job, walk the line, none of the other offenses that everyone points to, would have happened. Juwan is 100% responsible for everything in that humiliating video.
Howard's responsibility at the end of that game, W or L, is to lead his players through the handshake line and end the competition in a respectful manner, regardless of any emotional discomfort. He can be angry, but the expression of his feelings in the handshake line is inappropriate. The handshake line was started, in the first place, to impose a peaceful end to the competition. All the anger, handwringing, name-caller, and bitching can be vented in the press room afterwards. If he had done this simple job, walk the line, none of the other offenses that everyone points to, would have happened. Juwan is 100% responsible for everything in that humiliating video.
The idea of the handshake line is to force these athletes and coaches to swallow whatever anger, resentments, etc. they are feeling and to face the opponent in a non-antagonistic posture and SHAKE THE DAMN HAND. It's why we do this. It has worked for a long time exactly the way it should. JH's behavior was embarrassingly adolescent.
Yeah, I get it now. He's like that quail who pretends to have a broken wing and leads the coyote away from her chicks. What a clever S.O.B.
I think it is beyond funny that you are worried about losing Gattis to some SEC blueblood program because of his stellar achievements as the Michigan Head Coach. Maybe see if he can blow the whistle at practice first.
I think it is beyond funny that you are worried about losing Gattis to some SEC blueblood program because of his stellar achievements as the Michigan Head Coach. Maybe see if he can blow the whistle at practice first.
Birmingham, not Atlanta
Who knows where this NIL business will take us? Difficult to predict the Big Picture, but I imagine some of these issues will develop:
Some schools will experience a decrease in donations to the endowment fund as alums divert some of their regular largess to the NIL booster fund.
Top rated recruits may be kept out of the transfer portal if their sponsor requires a "no-compete" element in the contract.
An entire new type of consulting will arise to organize and manage NIL operations at institutions that are worried about policing and controlling who has access to their student athletes. (Gambling enterprises and other disallowed parties)
Big-money sponsors may withdraw with buyer's remorse if they invest in a kid who can't crack the starting line-up or wants to transfer. Transfers will affect local businesses who want to engage, but large national companies will be less concerned about it.
As with any new enterprise that causes lots of money to change hands, there will be opportunists, and scammers, and people will get hurt.
The chance of their return is "NIL"
Thank you.
Pantoni is not a recruiter. The coaches evaluate and recruit the talent. That is why there is a salary disparity between Pantoni and Jim Knowles. His role is administration, tracking, scheduling, dispatching, communicating. It requires skills that not everyone has, but it is not recruiting. Rather than poaching Pantoni, mimic his system. Hire one of his underlings an try to duplicate his operation. If he left Columbus, that operation might not miss a beat. It's the system that matters.
I suggest that you disregard rankings when picking/betting games. Iowa was #2 for a while; was that legit? Cincy is #2 now; is that legit? These rankings are every bit as meaningful as those recruiting "Stars" that everyone obsesses over. Look at the body of work and watch video, but never, never, never include rankings in you methodology.
I'll argue the other side of this issue. Not because I think you're wrong, I believe you are more likely right than I am. But there is a wake-up call coming for the ACC. They will be desperately motivated to find a way out of that GoR.
The conversation online is always about the $30 million discrepancy for the next fifteen years. That's the way the message boards present it. But the university leaders know that the discrepancy is going to far exceed that $30 million. And it will happen soon. For any leader of an ACC university to stand pat and leave $40~$50 million per year on the table is fiscal malpractice. That is especially true for Clemson and Florida State who have very modest endowment funds relative to the rest of the conference members. And those two schools need successful football in order to keep attracting donations. Even Virginia and UNC, wealthy as they are, would be negligent to just stand by as that opportunity rolled by.
I don't know what kind of legal Armageddon would ensue, but I expect the ACC schools who have realignment value to engage ESPN, SEC, B1G and their lesser conference mates in negotiations, threats, lawsuits, and subversion rather than just sit back and Take It.
Something happened in the last round of media contracts which has gone largely unnoticed and it has remained a constant puzzle to me. Now I think I get it. The B1G GoR is not between the schools and the BigTen Conference. The schools' media rights were assigned directly to the BTN, who in turn marketed them to FOX and ESPN.
Couldn't BTN establish a GoR with The PAC 12 and offer those media rights to the market in a bundle with the B1G media rights. This would reinforce and capitalize on the "alliance" scheduling without the need to bring PAC 12 schools into the B1G.
Couldn't they also include media rights from the remainder of the Big12, The Ivy League, etc. The BTN could broker these deals for the conferences and sell unclaimed individual games to regional or local TV/cable or deliver them on available slots on the BTN. Streaming is the future, but cable has a lot of mileage left.
The B1G has the most valuable media properties and they should exploit that advantage any way possible.
The GoR certainly looks like a dead end, but let's not be absolutist about it. It's a "contract," after all. We may get to see a GoR tested in court if TX/OK want to leave the Big XII next season. The Away games for these two schools could get so ugly (fan behavior) that a move needs to happen. TX/OK could amplify the issue by removing their teams from the field if they are targeted with thrown objects, or if the home fans abuse the visiting fans.
Stanford please.
Not sure what everyone was expecting. The SEC pulled a fast one and the rest of them had to respond. This was predictable pro-forma "doonsumnaboudit."
The B1G is the least affected or threatened by the SEC, among the other conferences. Walking out of there unencumbered by any new contracts is to our advantage.
Mutual consideration in scheduling can have an effect on TV audience and value to advertisers, though it will not be an immediate game-changer. But it gives these three some reasons to consult and spitball ideas in a way that may have seemed unnecessary before. Announcing the continued emphasis on academic excellence could be viewed as a heads-up to the Oregon States and Louisville's of the world. These conferences will evolve to their optimum configuration, which is most easily achieved by culling the herd.
Up until the very time that the TX/OK move was announced, the Big XII message board fans insisted that the conference was stable and financially robust to a degree that nobody would ever consider moving. They were unable to apply the obvious lessons of Neb, Col, A&M, and Missouri. It was a strange form of willful blindness. I see a lot of that in The ACC, tempered by a few realists.
Yes, I know, 2036. There are ever-increasing pressures against that calendar and I don't think it will hold.
Yeah, Delany thought that Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland were awesome ideas. If you disagree, then you haven't been paying attention. The B1G has the highest per-school media payout in college sports. That's not an accident. Jim Delany kicked ESPN's ass every time he got in room with them. They told him if he didn't like their offer for B1G TV rights to "start your own network." He did just that. The last two rounds of contract negotiations saw ESPN dragging their feet and trying to pay The B1G less than The SEC. In the end, ESPN had to face the reality that their national advertisers demand to be seen in the B1G geographical footprint. The SEC has added Texas and Oklahoma to their conference footprint, but that doesn't alter the necessity for ESPN to pay "B1G Bucks" to the Big Ten.
When Delany added Maryland to the B1G, ESPN, The SEC, and The ACC peed their pants in unison. The threat of Delany getting a B1G school in The South (UVA, UNC, whatever) was a nightmare to them all. It still is. If the B1G can sell ads in that territory, how does the SEC respond? Pitt, Syracuse, Cincinnati? Those are all media content midgets.
The next media deal for the B1G will be interesting. ESPN can't afford to pay us and they can't afford not to. If just one school (likely USC) from the PAC 12 applies for B1G membership, the floodgates will open. Their brethren will have to follow and the B1G will have a coast to coast footprint and the SEC will have Dixie. To be fair they have Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. The SEC strategy has been that the quality of their collective football programs makes their footprint more valuable than their populations should indicate. It is true that the "density" of their fan following in their states is unmatched vs the other conferences. But the only path for growth of the SEC is among ACC schools. These are properties that ESPN has indentured for the next fifteen years at comical rates. Rumor has it that John Swofford gets a fruit basket and a sleeve of Titleists every Christmas from the ESPN brass. ESPN does not want to end this sweetheart arrangement. But the ACC schools are already grumpy about the media money disparity. Wait 'til Clemson ($31 million) gets a look at South Carolina's payout from their next contract; could be $80 million. They are all watching for the litigation of the Big 12 GoR and hoping that it is judged to be waste paper. Then we have some fun.
Yeah, Delany thought that Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland were awesome ideas. If you disagree, then you haven't been paying attention. The B1G has the highest per-school media payout in college sports. That's not an accident. Jim Delany kicked ESPN's ass every time he got in room with them. They told him if he didn't like their offer for B1G TV rights to "start your own network." He did just that. The last two rounds of contract negotiations saw ESPN dragging their feet and trying to pay The B1G less than The SEC. In the end, ESPN had to face the reality that their national advertisers demand to be seen in the B1G geographical footprint. The SEC has added Texas and Oklahoma to their conference footprint, but that doesn't alter the necessity for ESPN to pay "B1G Bucks" to the Big Ten.
When Delany added Maryland to the B1G, ESPN, The SEC, and The ACC peed their pants in unison. The threat of Delany getting a B1G school in The South (UVA, UNC, whatever) was a nightmare to them all. It still is. If the B1G can sell ads in that territory, how does the SEC respond? Pitt, Syracuse, Cincinnati? Those are all media content midgets.
The next media deal for the B1G will be interesting. ESPN can't afford to pay us and they can't afford not to. If just one school (likely USC) from the PAC 12 applies for B1G membership, the floodgates will open. Their brethren will have to follow and the B1G will have a coast to coast footprint and the SEC will have Dixie. To be fair they have Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. The SEC strategy has been that the quality of their collective football programs makes their footprint more valuable than their populations should indicate. It is true that the "density" of their fan following in their states is unmatched vs the other conferences. But the only path for growth of the SEC is among ACC schools. These are properties that ESPN has indentured for the next fifteen years at comical rates. Rumor has it that John Swofford gets a fruit basket and a sleeve of Titleists every Christmas from the ESPN brass. ESPN does not want to end this sweetheart arrangement. But the ACC schools are already grumpy about the media money disparity. Wait 'til Clemson ($31 million) gets a look at South Carolina's payout from their next contract; could be $80 million. They are all watching for the litigation of the Big 12 GoR and hoping that is is judged to be waste paper. Then we have some fun.
The B1G has larger media payouts than the SEC. That didn't happen because they lacked horsepower or fortitude. The SEC can continue to add properties as far as the eye can see. It will make them bigger, but not necessarily more profitable. They can declare a New World Order and change the rules to their advantage. But so can the B1G and anyone else who chooses not to fall in line. Who's to say the B1G, PAC, and others couldn't withdraw from the NCAA and form a regulatory body for themselves. It could be in cooperation with the SEC or not. I think the panic and despair about Texahoma to the SEC is waaaay overdone.
SEC/ESPN will want to defer decisions on more expansion until after they deal with the GoR ramifications in the case of Texahoma. Soon, some court will establish the calculus for pricing a realignment settlement. The potential magnitude of the unknown is what has kept GoRs sacrosanct up until now. Let's hide and watch...
M-Dog, calm yourself. The SEC can add Clemson, Florida State, and "The U", for all we care. That doesn't hurt The B1G, beyond the fact that those schools are then not available to us. Remember that adding programs to your conference isn't free. Once they're in, you have to pay them a full share of media money. Will Clemson/FL ST enrich the conference enough to justify the move? Maybe, but it is up to the media companies who buy the content. In truth, if the SEC adds a school, the move has likely been pre-approved by their media overlords at ESPN.
The B1G occupies a geographical footprint that is impossible to ignore if you are a media company selling ads to national advertisers. ESPN absolutely MUST have some amount of B1G content in their national ad package. The B1G, under Jim Delany, understood that and played appropriate hardball vs ESPN and Fox.
Texas, in particular, and Oklahoma improved the value of the SEC ad footprint. But it, in no way, diminished the value of the B1G footprint. The B1G need not rush in to anything. Deliberate consideration of expansion with PAC schools or eventually with ACC schools is something they have been kicking about for at least three decades. They know the territory and they are looking for the right deal. Feel better?
"Most people" who reference the ACC/ESPN media contract and declare that "there are several ways to break this" would list at least one of those "ways". You begin: "First, SEC decides to poach... " Then we arrive at: "Second, even if ESPN... " whereby you admit that the first "way" isn't really plausible. I'll help you out with some "ways" that might actually happen.
ESPN owns ALL of the media rights to ALL of the ACC content until 2036. ACC teams could leave the conference and join the SEC and ESPN would be fine with that because they own SEC content as well. The only dispute would be internally in the ACC. Litigation, to be sure. But in the end those renegade ACC schools would become well-paid members of the SEC. But the impetus for these moves must not be viewed, at least overtly, as SEC poaching.
If, however those teams chose to move from the ACC to The B1G, ESPN and the ACC, together, would set upon them in an ungodly way. The motives for this move may not be strong enough to justify the unavoidable legal war. But here are the motives: The impending B1G media auction will bring riches to Maryland and Rutgers beyond any hopes that Clemson, UNC, or Virginia can dare to dream. The discrepancy will be somewhere in the low gazillions. Any schools who are willing to fight their way out of the ACC/ESPN harem would need to be extremely resentful and mistrustful of ESPN, and harbor a longing for a place in a more academic oriented conference. Who fits that bill? Who has the courage to start that fight?
The most peaceful path is for the ACC to ask ESPN to void the GoR in exchange for safe passage for selected schools to the SEC and for big, fat financial considerations for the weaklings who remain. Maybe that means just leaving the media payout at the current level for the duration of the original contract. But, again, this idea has to come from the conference, not from ESPN.
There might be other "ways" but "SEC decides to poach" isn't one of them.
Selecting only premier programs is a rare opportunity to cull the herd. Some programs consume more than they produce. Texas Tech, Kansas State, etc. were not among "the fittest." Such is the case with Oregon State.
With Texas off the board, my two preferred candidates are ND and Stanford. ND is still out of range, so this 14 team conference should add a seven team Western division:
Washington, Oregon, Stanford, Cal, USC, UCLA, Arizona
Those western schools would function much like they do today. The travel will be less of a problem than (I think) everyone imagines. Teams can take days-long tours of the other regional divisions without missing classes by using Zoom from hotel meeting rooms or on-campus facilities provided by the host school. Like it or not Zoom is here to stay and it will be the athlete's standard method. I can foresee massive manipulation of the course catalogue to keep lots of undergrad courses from being scheduled on Mondays, just to make for longer weekends. Just fill Mondays with graduate courses and maybe Fine/Applied Arts, something that will not likely involve too many athletes. (How many of you have vomited in your mouth?) I know this is exactly the kind of intrusion into the academic apparatus that sports were never supposed to do. But I think it will happen, maybe not exactly in the way I described it, but accommodations will be made wherever necessary.
I think it is absolutely impossible that The B1G, The PAC 12 and UT, OU, and countless other parties have not been plotting, scheming and spying through back channels, proxies and God-knows-what regarding realignment. Just because Commissioner Warren seems unaware of things doesn't mean it hasn't been going on. This is billions of dollars for those who make the right moves. Nobody in major college football has been sittin' it out over these last couple of decades.
USC would sell-out in a heartbeat and start the whole thing tumbling down. Choose very selectively among the best programs. No need take the conference intact. Just enough to make a Western Division.
Cal Chancellor Carol Christ has said she doesn't much approve of the money chase aspect of college athletics. If you want to add California schools, take the two privates, USC and Stanford. The legislature there is prone to weaponize the travel budgets of state gov't bodies.
As for the ACC, they are indentured to ESPN for fifteen more years at starvation rates. ESPN could release them from those bonds if the better programs agree to join the SEC. For the B1G to acquire UNC, Virginia, et al. would require a messy violation of GoR and conference exit litigation the likes of which we have never seen.
Your take is not more simple. It is more considered, more rational. The OP spent more time typing his words than he spent contemplating the consequences of adding the likes of Syracuse or BC.
Your take is not more simple. It is more considered, more rational. The OP spent more time typing his words than he spent contemplating the consequences of adding the likes of Syracuse or BC.
Why do you think adding Rutgers was a "terrible impulse decision?"
According to my research, every year, every conference has a last-place team. If they get the boot, somebody else becomes the worst team. So then we boot the new last-place team? Soon we will have a very exclusive organization.
Rutgers has a huge student body and a correspondingly huge alumni population. The academics are sterling and they are located in an attractive destination neighborhood. When selecting a new conference member, FB won/lost record isn't everything.
Texas and Oklahoma will give the best possible boost in media value. The B1G should be deliberate and focus on maximizing media revenue with the existing roster. Adding schools will not necessarily make the conference more profitable. Notre Dame is a money-maker, UNC and Virginia are somewhat marginal. Anybody else is a step backwards.
Michigan is not a contender in the annual dick-measuring contest for "No. 1 Recruiting Class." Once a kid commits to UM we should be looking at his rank vs. the other players on our team, not the other players on the internet. Hoping that Marlin Klein rises from TE #27 to, what... TE #22? That's a sad little vanity play that marks us as a mediocre program. We need to get back in the hunt for the top tier players before we start tracking the rise and fall of our recruits.
The "Five Star" designation is assigned by a consensus of recruiting somebodies, who have biases and agenda. People on these message boards treat it as though it were a law of physics.
Each year the seven rounds of the NFL draft selects 224 candidates to audition for NFL jobs. Track the 250 top rated recruits for given year and see where they are drafted compared to their recruiting rank. (I know, still imprecise) Count those who go undrafted and track the drafted players who were ranked outside of the top 250. Maybe just focus on the first five rounds (160 players.)
If Alabama can't find a spot for him at WR, at least they can gather some intel on Ohio State. His speed could make him useful as a kick returner.
Thanks, you're right.
Do you remember, in the run-up to the most recent B1G expansion; all of the meticulous polling, surveys, and focus groups administered by the conference; to ensure that their choice to add Rutgers and Maryland was fully supported and approved by the Michigan fanbase? Of course you don't remember. It didn't happen. And it won't happen... ever!
The B1G will expand again coincident with their next media contract. Nobody is getting kicked-out. The schools added will be select for their value as sports media products and for their academic fitness for mingling with the snooty administrators of current member schools. Nebraska was marginally qualified academically, but the B1G held their nose and added them anyway because they thought Notre Dame was going to be #12. Twenty one years later PSU became #12. The B1G might hold their nose again to add Oklahoma, especially if Texas came along. (OK State ain't gettin' in under any circumstances.)
Conferences will get larger and there will be fewer of them. Media money demands it.
Keep checking you mail for the opinion survey and final voting ballot from the conference.
I can hardly believe that:
Multiple posters suggested the addition of West By God Virginia to the Big Ten Conference. (This can only happen as part of a package that includes Boise State.)
Somebody thought it sensible to add UMass and BC (and pay out two conference revenue shares) to reach alumni in Massachusetts.
There's also the question of who represents (agent) these kids when they are ready for the NBA. IMG virtually "owns" the pro tennis field because they reach these kids at a very young age. The same model could benefit the investors here. NBA salaries are real good.
The existing structure of AAU makes it possible for that organization to quickly replicate this model, assuming it succeeds. NCAA hoops will be dominated by The Ivy League.