Rumor: ND in talks to join as Full member of ACC

[Sigmapolis]

Its not your fault, I would think some of the teams would be willing to travel a bit more in order to stay out of such power loaded conferences. It also isn't just a football thing, The Great Lakes is stacked in basketball too.

Do not worry. I do not take personal insult. I think it is fun to discuss.

I could not imagine my Great Lakes Conference above is much worse than the Big 12 was last year, for instance. Just running down the line on NCAA seeds...

#2 Kentucky // #1 Kansas
#2 Louisville // #3 Baylor
#4 Purdue // #4 West Virginia
#5 Notre Dame // #5 Iowa State
#6 Cincinnati // #10 Oklahoma State
#7 Michigan // #11 Kansas State
#9 Vanderbilt // NIT TCU
#9 Michigan State // Texas Tech
NIT Indiana // Oklahoma
Ohio State // Texas

While the Big 12 has fewer tournament teams, I am pretty sure that OSU, KSU, and TCU would have matched up well with the Midwestern teams on the other side from them.

Neither side "over-played" their seeds much -- most of them were "right" or under-performed.

A few Big 12 teams slipped because the top-half of the conference beat them up -- Oklahoma State was far better than a #10, and TCU was better than many tournament teams.

I bet KenPom-wise the two conference would be pretty equal to each other. I think having a super-conference in a double round-robin like that would be quite very fun.

The same thing would happen in a IN-KY-MI-OH conference like that. Having something that covers that "diamond" of four states just makes geographical and historical sense. That region just has a ton of great basketball. Watching a full round-robin each year between Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State (and lately, Louisville) would be great fun, as well, when it comes to football. If you want stadiums filled, well, there you go.

 

[ISUalum2012]

Made a few changes to my original, then put it on a map.

 

[BMWallace]

Here is an 8x10 that I liked (80 instead of the 72 in your 8x9)...

View attachment 47861

Pretty similar overall, though. The cores and regions of emphasis for the eight conferences is the same. Not having KU/Miz and UF/UGA in conferences hurts me to see. Putting the Oklahoma schools in with California schools (and not Texas schools) hurts, as well.

I always struggle with what to do with the service academies when theorycrafting like this. It feels weird to include Navy, but leaving out Army and Air Force.

 

[jbhtexas]

So...I guess there is an implicit assumption in all of these regional conference models that the media rights are going to be singly negotiated for the whole group...otherwise if these conferences are going to negotiate their own media rights, you are going to end up with some hella-rich conferences and some hella-poor conferences...and the ones that I'm seeing ISU typically in are not going to be on the hella-rich side of things. Unequal money is why the whole mess started in the first place.

The TV distribution model is not going to go 100% a la carte. There are still going to be broadcast and cable networks that need content, and are going to pay good money for media rights.

 

[mctallerton]

Do not worry. I do not take personal insult. I think it is fun to discuss.

I could not imagine my Great Lakes Conference above is much worse than the Big 12 was last year, for instance. Just running down the line on NCAA seeds...

#2 Kentucky // #1 Kansas
#2 Louisville // #3 Baylor
#4 Purdue // #4 West Virginia
#5 Notre Dame // #5 Iowa State
#6 Cincinnati // #10 Oklahoma State
#7 Michigan // #11 Kansas State
#9 Vanderbilt // NIT TCU
#9 Michigan State // Texas Tech
NIT Indiana // Oklahoma
Ohio State // Texas

While the Big 12 has fewer tournament teams, I am pretty sure that OSU, KSU, and TCU would have matched up well with the Midwestern teams on the other side from them.

Neither side "over-played" their seeds much -- most of them were "right" or under-performed.

A few Big 12 teams slipped because the top-half of the conference beat them up -- Oklahoma State was far better than a #10, and TCU was better than many tournament teams.

I bet KenPom-wise the two conference would be pretty equal to each other. I think having a super-conference in a double round-robin like that would be quite very fun.

The same thing would happen in a IN-KY-MI-OH conference like that. Having something that covers that "diamond" of four states just makes geographical and historical sense. That region just has a ton of great basketball. Watching a full round-robin each year between Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State (and lately, Louisville) would be great fun, as well, when it comes to football. If you want stadiums filled, well, there you go.

I went back ten years on 4 metrics that I could easily research with ESPN and Wiki, and compared the Great Lakes with the Great Plains (2 of the top three basketball confs, didn't include ACC).

Top 4 NCAA Tournament Seeds
GP 22 (7 Ones, 6 Twos, 5 Threes, 4 Fours)
GL 34 (8 Ones, 8 Twos, 4 Threes, 14 Fours)

Conf Championships (Regular Season)
GP 12 (10 Big12, 2 Big10)
GL 15 (8 Big10, 5 SEC, 1 ACC, 1 AAC)

Recruiting Class Ranking (ESPN)
GP 24 teams ranked in Top 25
GL 41 teams ranked in Top 25

Final Fours
GP 4
GL 11

Not the most scientific research and it would be interesting to compare those numbers against how many opportunities they had (ie 14 conf championships split amongst 4 confs vs 12 between 3). But looking at the raw numbers over a 10 year period the Great Lakes is an absurdly stacked basketball conference.

 

[FinalFourCy]

So...I guess there is an implicit assumption in all of these regional conference models that the media rights are going to be singly negotiated for the whole group...otherwise if these conferences are going to negotiate their own media rights, you are going to end up with some hella-rich conferences and some hella-poor conferences...and the ones that I'm seeing ISU typically in are not going to be on the hella-rich side of things. Unequal money is why the whole mess started in the first place.

The TV distribution model is not going to go 100% a la carte. There are still going to be broadcast and cable networks that need content, and are going to pay good money for media rights.

I agree. I wouldn't mind for CFB to go to the NFL model, although it likely would have to be with unequal revenue sharing. These large conferences exist to bundle rights for increased leverage, and as cable becomes more a la carte (but never totally imo), if CFB bans together they'll get more regions to sign up. Of course, one could argue a certain (national) group of X college teams could get enough subscribers to make more money per school than a group 64, but at a certain point there is no way around the fact that the most TV friendly programs will be subsidizing other programs.

 

[Sigmapolis]

I went back ten years on 4 metrics that I could easily research with ESPN and Wiki, and compared the Great Lakes with the Great Plains (2 of the top three basketball confs, didn't include ACC).

Top 4 NCAA Tournament Seeds
GP 22 (7 Ones, 6 Twos, 5 Threes, 4 Fours)
GL 34 (8 Ones, 8 Twos, 4 Threes, 14 Fours)

Conf Championships (Regular Season)
GP 12 (10 Big12, 2 Big10)
GL 15 (8 Big10, 5 SEC, 1 ACC, 1 AAC)

Recruiting Class Ranking (ESPN)
GP 24 teams ranked in Top 25
GL 41 teams ranked in Top 25

Final Fours
GP 4
GL 11

Not the most scientific research and it would be interesting to compare those numbers against how many opportunities they had (ie 14 conf championships split amongst 4 confs vs 12 between 3). But looking at the raw numbers over a 10 year period the Great Lakes is an absurdly stacked basketball conference.

Wow. You are really into this with me. Lets be friends. <3

I will try to make it a little more scientific -- just for last year from KenPom. Obviously, programs ebb and flow in their quality, but just to give us an idea.

http://kenpom.com/

I am going to use his adjusted-efficiency margin -- the average points this team would score, +/-, relative to the average Division I team over 100 possessions.



Yay, we came in second in the hypothetical conference! A road game every year in Madison would be a lot of fun for everybody, too. Much better than Lubbock.

The GL conference last year and the Big 12 conference last year were almost the same. You could graph the two of them up against each other, too...



If the Big 12 is not somehow flawed for its strength in this way and actually a lot of fun, well then, I think having a conference with UK, UL, PU, UM, UC, ND, and MSU together in basketball would be fun for everybody invovled, rather than spread around four different leagues.

 

[isucy86]

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.

ND has a pretty strong national fan base, so proximity to other conference schools is less of an issue. IMO from a recruiting standpoint ND is better off in the ACC. It gives them a greater presence in the recruiting rich SE, in addition to the upper MW.