Rumor: ND in talks to join as Full member of ACC
- Thread starter Gorm
- Start date
No, it takes at least three-fourths of current members to admit a new school. If A&M wanted to block Texas or OU, it would need three more schools to vote with them...
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The only reason I can think of is posturing for the fallout in 2024-2025 when the new playoff contract comes out and most folks think that conference restructuring may take place. Perhaps Notre Dame is getting some feedback that they will not be treated in any special way for the playoffs. In other words...no conference...no playoffs. Still think they fit better in the BIG given their proximity to the other BIG schools...not the ACC.
So each conference would remain "independent," but would be linked, something called Plains-Pacific Alliance or some-such? Intriguing idea.
Move CU and Utah to Big 12 to balance the league numbers*. Play a 9-game conference schedule in FB, then an Alliance title game.
Basketball is double-round-robin in each division, plus a home/away 2-game non-league series each year for Big 12/Pac-12 Challenge.
*I’m not sure this could ever happen, simply an idea
Big 12 (“Alliance Plains Division”):
Colorado
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Texas
Tech
TCU
Utah
Pac-12 (the old Pac-10, Alliance Pacific Division)
Id be ok with this. Completely regionalize broadcasts, and have ala carte for big games outside of your region. Stadiums would be filled every game, viewership would have interest from that particular region, still enables you to watch the big game IF YOU WANT to watch the big game. (I generally do not care to watch Clemson/FSU or USC/Stanford when it is the top billed Saturday game.)Homer conference for ISU...
Illinois
Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Minnesota
Missouri
Northwestern
Nebraska
Wisconsin
= road trips every other weekend.
I dont see how this would work. You would have a watered down product. Good teams beat up on each other week after week. Story lines could not build up through the season. As much as the Wake Forrests and Mississippi States need the Florida States and Alabamas of the world, the Florida States and Alabamas need Wake and Mississippi State.
I'll consider this just posturing by ND for now. If they wanted in the ACC so badly then they would have joined as full-members in football the same time they joined for basketball and their other sports. My guess is this is two-fold, stir up interest in ND relevancy after a terrible season, and drum up interest from other conferences to show that ND is still worth pursuing.
http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/
This site has recorded TV ratings for the past 4 football seasons. Notre Dame games that were broadcast on NBC where they played against an ACC opponent averaged 2.7 million viewers per game. For comparison:
ND vs PAC12 opponent on NBC averaged 3.47 million viewers,
ND vs Big 12 opponent on NBC averaged 3.98* million viewers (worst sample - only 2 games)
ND vs Big 10 opponent on NBC averaged 3.48 million viewers
I'm sure ND is looking at the ACC and Clemson's recent success and thinking that they will compete in the upper-third of the conference and have a good chance to make the playoff in a few seasons. The trade-off would be NBCs investment takes a hit in viewership if ND were somehow able to carry that contract to the ACC.
http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/
This site has recorded TV ratings for the past 4 football seasons. Notre Dame games that were broadcast on NBC where they played against an ACC opponent averaged 2.7 million viewers per game. For comparison:
ND vs PAC12 opponent on NBC averaged 3.47 million viewers,
ND vs Big 12 opponent on NBC averaged 3.98* million viewers (worst sample - only 2 games)
ND vs Big 10 opponent on NBC averaged 3.48 million viewers
I'm sure ND is looking at the ACC and Clemson's recent success and thinking that they will compete in the upper-third of the conference and have a good chance to make the playoff in a few seasons. The trade-off would be NBCs investment takes a hit in viewership if ND were somehow able to carry that contract to the ACC.
Its the same reason why Big 12 fans don't want Houston in the Big 12.
I think this scenario is a best case win-win for the existing Pac12 schools and the added 8 B12 schools. The 8 B12 schools would buy equity shares in PACN and infuse needed cash to PACN. PACN would benefit with the added Texan and Midwest footprints and more passionate fan bases for PACN sub growth.
B12 schools eventually need a conference network to use as leverage for next round of TV deals (i.e. if the OTA T1 and T2 networks don't offer enough $$$ for content, we will keep it on the conference network). Since PACN is wholly owned by the schools, PACN will provide extreme negotiating leverage especially with content provided from 20 schools. Also, the existing regional distribution model for PACN could be tailored for Texas as a LHN replacement for a UT-only branded network.
The two divisions would only be aligned competitively with a CCG for FB that could be treated as an auto qualifier for the CFP. Non-con FB could arranged between the two divisions but would not count toward divisional play. It is my understanding that the original P10 schools would prefer to return to RR play amongst themselves. All other sports would be RR play and the two divisions would each get auto qualifying spots for NCAA tourney play.
Obviously, the biggest obstacle with this would be the exclusion of BU and WV. The negotiated transition of WV to the ACC or SEC is doable IMO. And given the issues at BU, if there is one school that could get excluded from a future P4 configuration, it is BU as a private school.
Several years ago, there was a study done that tried to determine the number of fans each college football team had. There was a lot of back and forth over how accurate the study was, but it seemed to be somewhat reasonable. One of the points that article was pushing, if I remember correctly, was that that fan bases provide the vast majority of the college football TV viewing audiences.
Assuming for a talking point that the study gave a reasonable indication of fan base size, there were some interesting things in the numbers. Looking at the current P5 + ND and BYU (66 teams):
1) The top 25 teams by fanbase size have over 60% of the college FB fans
2) The top 40 teams by fanbase size have over 80% of the college FB fans
3) The bottom 20 teams by fanbase size have just over 12% of the college FB fans
4) Not all of the teams in the top 40 are good year in and year out. A number of them have been recently down.
5) With a couple of exceptions, the teams in the bottom 20 are in close geographic proximity to a team in the top 40.
Looking strictly from the money side, you have about 20 teams that are getting full conference TV payout that don't bring (relatively) many fans to the TV viewing table. If you get rid of those teams, there is more money for everybody else in the "premier" league, with a minimal loss in viewing audience. And there are enough down teams in the top group that you don't have the problem of good teams beating up on each other every week (if that is really even a problem).
Furthermore, kicking out the bottom 20 would effectively eliminate them from participating in the play-for pay-pool because of the big revenue loss, assuring that the better recruits end up at the schools.
Down the road, after the bubble bursts (if it does) and if the TV networks start offering lesser money...is everybody going to be happy with a smaller cut? Or are the schools with the big fan bases (the ones that are bringing the viewing eyes to the table) going to get nasty and try and maintain their current TV payout?
Everybody might be well happy with a smaller TV payout, and everything goes on status quo. On the other hand, from what I see in the numbers, I don't really think the Alabamas need the Vandys, and could do perfectly fine without them around.
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I agree too, and there seem to be a number of Sooner fans that want the SEC too. The fly in the ointment for those folks is that the SEC is likely a ways down on Boren's list. He is a Rhodes Scholar who wants to hob nob with AAU-type intellectuals, not southern good ol' boys.
Was it this thing...?
https://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ege-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/?_r=0
Silver's methodology is a little "soft" for me to really prove which fanbases are going sustain their programs through tickets and a la carte when cable TV money drives up.
That is the report, and it is what it is. Until somebody does a report on how a la carte is going to affect fanbase size, there isn't much else out there...
Indeed -- but it lists ISU with 535k fans and UConn with 619k.
I have to figure we punch above our weight based on the dedication of our fans, especially to our losing football program, even if Silver says our numbers are weak-ish.
Maybe UConn "bulks up" a little based on its WBB team.
But them being 20% more attractive than us just does not feel right.
I just feel our fans are going to buy tickets, travel, and buy a la carte at a higher rate than some of the fans from the schools with nominally larger fan bases.
When you talk about making or not making a cut at 40 teams, that could matter a lot. There are a ton of teams between 400k and 800k in that middle-class.
This is true. Maybe the number is 48, maybe it is 36, maybe it is 66. Probably some TV exec or accountant out there has run the numbers and has calculated the optimum cutoff...
Overall I can somewhat believe its results, however one issue I have with it is having Rutgers so high due to NYC market. I think most fans can't see where people care about Rutgers more than many schools ranked below them.
As big of a school as USF is, there is no way that USF, UCONN and Rutgers have more money spending football fans than ISU.
