Wild idea, new B12/PAC12 super conf ... after 2025

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jbhtexas

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The reason that the Pac-12 is struggling revenue-wise now is because their teams for the most part have small fan bases. I've made a few posts about this in the past. They have a network that nobody watches.

If the new model is going to be about actual eyeballs watching and not about size of the TV market, then the Pac-12 is not really a great alliance.

Years ago, when geographic TV market size was the only driver, I was a fan of some sort of Pac-12 / Big 12 alliance, but not so much any more. 12 schools in that geographic footprint should be tearing it up. The fact that they aren't is a big red flag.
 
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DFWClone

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I would take 2 or 4 teams or so from the PAC but that's about it. It's just an area of the US that doesn't care as much about college sports as the Big12, B1G, and SEC/southern region of the US.

Maybe take the 2 Arizona schools or the 2 Arizona schools and CU and BYU. That would make the most sense I would think.
 

JP4CY

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The B12 is in a phenomenal position. Sure, maybe not as financially big as the B1G but Maryland and Rutgers are so worthless athletically. When TV sets don’t matter as much in 5 to 10 years, they’ll be anchors.
SEC is still the big dog.
The ACC is maybe in a little better shape than the PAC but not by much.

If the B12 poaches in the future I say swing hard for UCLA and Florida State.
Having a footprint in Cali, Florida, and Texas would be Amazing. Would be a very strong baseball, football, and basketball conference.
 
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I would take 2 or 4 teams or so from the PAC but that's about it. It's just an area of the US that doesn't care as much about college sports as the Big12, B1G, and SEC/southern region of the US.

Maybe take the 2 Arizona schools or the 2 Arizona schools and CU and BYU. That would make the most sense I would think.

Jesus. Sorry, DFWClone ... but got some news for you. YOU DON"T GET TO PICK.

I don't get to pick either. And ISU doesn't get to pick. And even worse ... we don't get chosen either.

The discussion here is about 2023-25. Even if we did get to pick today and the Az schools were to listen, why would they bite when in a few years, the entire drawing board is going to be ripped up and thrown away. Why would those schools want to join the B12 today ... knowing drastic change is just a few years down the road ?

The choice upcoming is whether conferences survive at all and if they do ... in what configuration ... OR ... and that's the actual choice ... OR the elites ... like UT/OU ... the top 30-40 teams ... dump ISU and sign a deal with Amazon and keep everything to themselves. That's the actual choice.

So if we ... the average teams in the B12 ... the ISU's, KSUs, OSUs, WVs, the Baylors and about 7 similar teams in the PAC and yes that includes the AZ schools ... we all throw our lots in together and come up a deal where we can keep the Elites in our conferences ... in with us ... so we win and they win too. That's the deal. What can we do to make that happen ? Do we need to bring in a few patsy's they can beat up on to pad their record ? Check. How do we do that without wrecking the financials for everyone ? How do we encourage those teams to join and be a wrecking ball ... while padding their bottom lines ?

That's the choice really. The top 30 teams sign with Netflix and ISU gets nothing. OR. ISU aligns themselves with others in the same situation and we get 2/3 of what we get today and get to keep our standing.

That's the choice. Come up with a conference configuration where UT, OU, USC, UCLA, Stanford ... want to stick around and keep the others around them.
 

usedcarguy

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A few points to add to the discussion:

One, because of the changing landscape, mega conferences have proven not to be all they're cracked up to be. If schools don't want to play more than eight conference games, there is no point in having a 14 or 16 team conference. The Big 12 has proven that a 10 team league can be equally as profitable on a per school basis.

Two, while everyone is talking about Amazon and Netflix stepping in and plucking the UTs and OUs of the world and possibly destroying the conference concept, the bigger threat is teams bypassing the middleman and controlling their own rights. Not sure how it will play out, but conference branding has an economic value and rivalries do attract more eyeballs than just another top 25 matchup. Not being a part of a conference today doesn't help the UTs of the world. Whether that changes in the future remains to be seen.

5G is going to turn everything on it's head. Who's to say that that someone wouldn't pay $10 per game or a bar a few hundred dollars to cut a chord and watch CycloneTV when the time comes where bandwidth is no longer an issue? A semi successful program like ISU controlling their own rights could make more money than they do now under the current contracts. Whatever happens, whether the conference concept survives or not, it seems to me that the days of semi-equal revenue sharing will soon be over because schools will have more power by being able to go direct to consumer....UNLESS those schools who are outside the top somehow weaponize the NCAA to somewhat level the playing field by giving it the power to meddle.
 
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CyCrazy

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Jesus. Sorry, DFWClone ... but got some news for you. YOU DON"T GET TO PICK.

I don't get to pick either. And ISU doesn't get to pick. And even worse ... we don't get chosen either.

The discussion here is about 2023-25. Even if we did get to pick today and the Az schools were to listen, why would they bite when in a few years, the entire drawing board is going to be ripped up and thrown away. Why would those schools want to join the B12 today ... knowing drastic change is just a few years down the road ?

The choice upcoming is whether conferences survive at all and if they do ... in what configuration ... OR ... and that's the actual choice ... OR the elites ... like UT/OU ... the top 30-40 teams ... dump ISU and sign a deal with Amazon and keep everything to themselves. That's the actual choice.

So if we ... the average teams in the B12 ... the ISU's, KSUs, OSUs, WVs, the Baylors and about 7 similar teams in the PAC and yes that includes the AZ schools ... we all throw our lots in together and come up a deal where we can keep the Elites in our conferences ... in with us ... so we win and they win too. That's the deal. What can we do to make that happen ? Do we need to bring in a few patsy's they can beat up on to pad their record ? Check. How do we do that without wrecking the financials for everyone ? How do we encourage those teams to join and be a wrecking ball ... while padding their bottom lines ?

That's the choice really. The top 30 teams sign with Netflix and ISU gets nothing. OR. ISU aligns themselves with others in the same situation and we get 2/3 of what we get today and get to keep our standing.

That's the choice. Come up with a conference configuration where UT, OU, USC, UCLA, Stanford ... want to stick around and keep the others around them.

You don't know this and I can't figure out why you think this is the only option but whatever. We can always join the MAC and finally be the bully on the block.
 

LivntheCyLife

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Jesus. Sorry, DFWClone ... but got some news for you. YOU DON"T GET TO PICK.

I don't get to pick either. And ISU doesn't get to pick. And even worse ... we don't get chosen either.

The discussion here is about 2023-25. Even if we did get to pick today and the Az schools were to listen, why would they bite when in a few years, the entire drawing board is going to be ripped up and thrown away. Why would those schools want to join the B12 today ... knowing drastic change is just a few years down the road ?

The choice upcoming is whether conferences survive at all and if they do ... in what configuration ... OR ... and that's the actual choice ... OR the elites ... like UT/OU ... the top 30-40 teams ... dump ISU and sign a deal with Amazon and keep everything to themselves. That's the actual choice.

So if we ... the average teams in the B12 ... the ISU's, KSUs, OSUs, WVs, the Baylors and about 7 similar teams in the PAC and yes that includes the AZ schools ... we all throw our lots in together and come up a deal where we can keep the Elites in our conferences ... in with us ... so we win and they win too. That's the deal. What can we do to make that happen ? Do we need to bring in a few patsy's they can beat up on to pad their record ? Check. How do we do that without wrecking the financials for everyone ? How do we encourage those teams to join and be a wrecking ball ... while padding their bottom lines ?

That's the choice really. The top 30 teams sign with Netflix and ISU gets nothing. OR. ISU aligns themselves with others in the same situation and we get 2/3 of what we get today and get to keep our standing.

That's the choice. Come up with a conference configuration where UT, OU, USC, UCLA, Stanford ... want to stick around and keep the others around them.

I don't see how you can believe the choice for the big schools is either less dilute schedules with fewer patsies or a more dilute schedule with more patsies. Why bring other teams in even if for a lower share when you can just schedule them for almost nothing? The Big 12 is set up nicely with 10 teams with many quality matchups for content. I firmly believe compelling matchups is going to be much more important than geographical footprint in the future.
 
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cyclonedave25

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We could be seeing a glimpse of the future with Facebook paying MLB $30-35 million to live stream 25 games this season.
 

JM4CY

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There’s a lot of old people with a lot of deep pockets at every school that would be too confused to go for that
 
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SoapyCy

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Ive been reading a lot of articles like this recently. It seems like some people (not OP) want want one conference of Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, and USC. The rest can drop dead.
 

aeroclone

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Ive been reading a lot of articles like this recently. It seems like some people (not OP) want want one conference of Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, and USC. The rest can drop dead.

Sure, some casual fans may love that idea, but I bet those schools don't! The last thing they want is a schedule full of opponents who are actually on an equal playing field. And they aren't going to enjoy 8-4 being considered a good season either.
 

Gorm

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Let the PAC12 fend for themselves.

I'm beginning to think that a 10 team conference where nearly all members care about the number 1 revenue sport is more attractive to the TV partners than the bloated ones with dead weight.
 

surly

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Much more likely, I believe, that the conferences form some sort of alliance than do an actual merger. An alliance that would expand the PAC12N into the Plains states and give ESPN an LHN out. This would also allow the western (liberal) schools to keep their academic independence from schools like - well, you fill in the names.
 
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Let the PAC12 fend for themselves.

I'm beginning to think that a 10 team conference where nearly all members care about the number 1 revenue sport is more attractive to the TV partners than the bloated ones with dead weight.

Gorm ... I spent a lot of time thinking about this, obviously. I'm not sure the perfect number is 10 ... a lot of conferences used to have 8 and I think that might actually be better than 10. The perfect balance of power would be 2 elites out of 8, 4 teams that are decent to good, and 2 bottom feeders.

That's what I tried to do with my arrangement which is actually kinda weird and unique ... which is why I posted it. There are really 2 conferences in my arrangement ... North/South really is like is a 16 team conference and East/West is a separate 16 team conference. In football they are pretty much independent until you get to the conference championship game.

And you can even think as the North division as being an 8 team conference in its own ... with an alliance to the South division which in turn is its own 8 team conference. Ditto for the East and West.

Its really like an alliance of 4 separate 8 team conferences. With strong alliances in football (N/S, E/W) and a looser alliance in basketball and other sports. In my arrangement #1 priority is your 8 team division ... that's what really counts. Win your division first !!!

The hardest part was making the divisions balance out ... which would have been perfect. Each having 8 teams ... 2 elites, 4 in the middle, 2 at the bottom. But it didn't work out that way. Its pretty close though ... the East could use some beefing up ... but I couldn't think of a way to do it ... without poaching.

Guess I should have put that in my assumptions ... we wouldn't be able to poach from other P5 conferences and they wouldn't poach anyone from us. If we were able to get FSU, Clemson, etc to put in the East ... that would change everything. But I don't think is every going to happen.
 
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cyclonedave25

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Ive been reading a lot of articles like this recently. It seems like some people (not OP) want want one conference of Alabama, Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, and USC. The rest can drop dead.
Which one of those heavy hitters volunteers to be the losers? Every conference has the top dogs, the good-average teams, and the bottom feeders, this would even include a conference of Bama, OSU, Michigan, OU, LSU, Clemson, Auburn, Texas, USC, Florida, Georgia etc.
It sounds backwards, but in the end, those big dogs need teams to beat up on as much as the average-bottom teams need them.
 
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CyCrazy

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Much more likely, I believe, that the conferences form some sort of alliance than do an actual merger. An alliance that would expand the PAC12N into the Plains states and give ESPN an LHN out. This would also allow the western (liberal) schools to keep their academic independence from schools like - well, you fill in the names.


So every school but ISU, KU, and UT?
 
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CyCrazy

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I believe OU has already made their case as well. But the two Christian schools would certainly be out of bounds, don't you think?

I was just quoting the schools with actual academics and AAU standards. Ou never will be one of those.