Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)

Cyhig

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But it will always be an inferior product to the NFL. You already have the NFL. Trying to recreate it has always failed time and time again.
I don’t think you understand my point. Nobody is trying to recreate the NFL. Rather the media rights could be reworked among the networks similar to that of the NFL.
 

Cyclonepride

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I agree more schools is better for college football. But, there is a believe fans want elite events.

I don't feel ESPN & FOX are limited by running out of money as much as advertisers are going to need to be stepped up over time from college football rates and ad rates that are a multiplier.

There's a pretty big gap between CFB media rights and NFL media rights. Some entity or person is going to promote the idea of a college football super league of 30-40 schools.

Not saying it's a good idea, but Greg Norman was able to convince some top golfers to join LIV. If Texas, Ohio State, Alabama, USC, etc. feel they can join an CFB Super League and TV $ are a significant multiplier of what they make today, some schools will jump.
I guess that league would just need a fabulously wealthy foreign despot that was willing to lose truckloads of money over the span of several years.
 

jdoggivjc

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College football has become a multi-billion dollar industry and has been ruined by NIL, realignment, big media, and transfer portals. SEC has won CFP 13 out of the last 17 years. Big12 was beaten 65-7 by SEC last year in CFP final - largest bowl game margin ever. The odds are 500,000 to one that ISU will ever win a CFB championship against this rigged system. A megaconference is exactly what is needed to collapse the CFB bubble and restructure the game back to its previous regions, rivalries, bowl games, and parity. What needs to happen is for the expansion of alternate media packages such as Apple, ATT, Bally, Comcast, etc. This counteracts the monopoly of Disney/Fox when they try to dictate what gets televised . People will prefer their own schools, their own regions, and will control their own entertainment expenditures. Hopefully, a completely separate association with separate bowl games, rules, contracts, polls, and non-conference games will be set up. In this group, ISU will be frequently ranked, and will have legitimate NC opportunities (similar to NCAA BB today: anyone can make a FF). Maybe these lower caste schools forgo NIL, or have coaching/player salary caps, or allow player trades, or have a better system of assigning new HS players. Eventually, viewers will get tired of the blueblood monotony and there be a day of reckoning.

If anything college football was ruined long before NIL, and it’s easy to make the 1980s and OU suing the NCAA the starting point.

NIL is nothing more than the beginning of the removal of the facade and revealing that the NCAA is nothing more than a professional sports league masquerading as an amateur league, and has been that way for decades.
 

KidSilverhair

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I don't feel ESPN & FOX are limited by running out of money as much as advertisers are going to need to be stepped up over time from college football rates and ad rates that are a multiplier.

It’s not so much they’re running out of money; it’s where the money is coming from. There’s definitely a ceiling as to how much they can get from advertising - so next will be some kind of subscription model, where fans will be paying directly to watch college football.

This isn’t necessarily worse (although it feels like it is, and not just because a college football subscription will also continue to have commercials), but it’s going to make it a much starker decision for fans. Paying $$$ right out of your pocket is a much more immediate choice that requires consideration compared to giving up your time to watch ads during a game on TV.
 

KidSilverhair

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A super conference is the final play, which, ultimately will benefit Iowa State. Here’s what I see:

Eventually, the Alabamas of the world will believe there is an even bigger pile of money waiting for them if they didn’t have to play (ie ‘carry’) the Mizzous and the Vanderbilts of the world.

All they need is the biggest 12-16 biggest brands from the old Power 5 and it’s a done deal. Guarantee this happens within the next 10 years.

Here’s my likely suspects of the Top 12
Alabama
LSU
Georgia
Florida St
Clemson
Oregon
USC
Ohio State
Michigan
Texas
Oklahoma
Penn State

The 4 maybes to get to 16: (mostly due to their historical success and not necessarily recent success):
Nebraska
Miami
Tennessee
Auburn


Good news: No one from the current B12 would be remotely considered and we would only add more teams for our own conference.

I think this happens- money and greed are inevitable in this game.

* Edit- what do you want to bet the serial conference ruiners from Austin lead the way on this?

You left out Iowa in your list.





/s
 

KidSilverhair

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For the most part I agree, however, every major super power in history has succumbed to over extended or prematurely extended supply lines.
It’s kind of funny to see the argument being ”soon there’ll be so much money schools won’t even care about getting more!”

Greed has been driving this from the start. A quick look at human nature shows us that will never change. If Ohio State or Michigan or Georgia or USC sees the chance at $75 million or $100 million more a year, they will take it, even if they don’t have any idea how they’re going to spend it.
 

jdoggivjc

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Because the level of back door maneuvering to make that happen is borderline impossible. Plus the money for the AD has diminishing returns. The presidents of the pac didn’t want to leave a sinking ship you really think big ten presidents would leave a super yacht? Borderline insane to think that way. Like I’ve said texas is already giving extra money back to the university, the same thing is being proposed at Michigan with the new deal. All these amazing facilities and coaching salary’s are with the old contracts. With the new ones who the hell knows what they are going to spend all the money on and yet your still thinking that they are going to “need” more and the big ten presidents would go for blowing it all up? No way.

Don’t say that kind of back door maneuvering isn’t impossible - it’s exactly that kind of back door maneuvering that nearly allowed ESPN getting OuT into the SEC - and the Big 12 would have been completely blindsided by it had A&M not raised the red flag to the sus activity.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if one of the reasons why ESPN agreed to negotiating the new media deal with the Big 12 early and why we got the deal we got was due to lawsuit mitigation. That was how badly ESPN nearly ****** over the Big 12 and nobody ever saw it coming.
 
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CascadeClone

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The 2020 article appearing in Forbes suggests that we have already hit "peak football" about 10 years ago. Viewership, game attendance, and participation in football is declining at all levels - youth, high school, college, and professional. This does not bode well for growing TV deals. Perhaps a Super Conference will insulate some programs from this trend (?).

The Decline Of Football Is Real And It’s Accelerating
This is a critical point.

And its a key reason Yormarks strategy to really focus on and leverage value from basketball is both smart and correct. 20 years from now the Big12 might be the most valuable conference...
 

AuH2O

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Sep 7, 2013
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I agree more schools is better for college football. But, there is a believe fans want elite events.

I don't feel ESPN & FOX are limited by running out of money as much as advertisers are going to need to be stepped up over time from college football rates and ad rates that are a multiplier.

There's a pretty big gap between CFB media rights and NFL media rights. Some entity or person is going to promote the idea of a college football super league of 30-40 schools.

Not saying it's a good idea, but Greg Norman was able to convince some top golfers to join LIV. If Texas, Ohio State, Alabama, USC, etc. feel they can join an CFB Super League and TV $ are a significant multiplier of what they make today, some schools will jump.
The problem is right now these are elite events because fans from a league of 60 plus teams watch a couple teams play a fairly rare matchup after building up good records after a bunch of non-elite matchups. Big viewership numbers are driven by fans outside the two schools.

So if these big matchups start matching teams with poor records, or in an explicitly separate league from most colleges, the viewership isn’t going to be what they are for the same matchup now. It might be a game against two big names, but it’s not an elite event anymore.

A lot more goes into an elite event than just the two teams. It’s the teams, what’s on the line, records, and rarity.
 

mark82

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Jun 19, 2006
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This is a critical point.

And its a key reason Yormarks strategy to really focus on and leverage value from basketball is both smart and correct. 20 years from now the Big12 might be the most valuable conference...
Interesting.....
 

Die4Cy

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Jan 2, 2010
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If anything college football was ruined long before NIL, and it’s easy to make the 1980s and OU suing the NCAA the starting point.

NIL is nothing more than the beginning of the removal of the facade and revealing that the NCAA is nothing more than a professional sports league masquerading as an amateur league, and has been that way for decades.

The NCAA is a basketball tournament management firm primarily, with a role as a kind of HR department for other college sports, but its control over football is in name only.
 

SEIOWA CLONE

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The super conference stuff starts to draw lots of congressional intervention and an insane amount of lawsuits.

I think the Big Ten and SEC can live with this setup.
The Big easy and the SEC are content now because the money from their tv deals continues to rise every time they do a new deal. Schools get used to having an ever-increasing set amount of dollars. Say because of cord cutting both leagues are told by FOX and ESPN that the money is just not there for an increase for the next contract? Does Ohio State and Michigan just set back and say OK, or do they start to think that they are the reason for those large contracts and maybe the Purdue's, Maryland's and Rutgers should take less so their slice of the pie continues to go.

Everyone loves working for the business when the bonuses increase every year, only when that stops happening does trouble start.
 

isucy86

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Apr 13, 2006
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I guess that league would just need a fabulously wealthy foreign despot that was willing to lose truckloads of money over the span of several years.
It wouldn't take the LIV model, there are a lot of billionaires in the US. There are a lot of very wealthy individuals who would like to own NFL franchises, but can't because there are only 32 available.

I don't like the idea, but I can see it potentially happening. Jack Swarbrick, Notre Dame's AD, discussed a possible path earlier this year when speaking about the current state of college athletics. He mentioned because of pay-for-play NIL and student-athlete employee status, there are universities that may not participate in such a model because it is beyond the core mission of their universities. What he described was football programs divested from the University and operating as a separate for-profit entity. It's under that scenario where I think a super league could develop.

SI Article -ND Athletic Director
 

Cyclonepride

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It wouldn't take the LIV model, there are a lot of billionaires in the US. There are a lot of very wealthy individuals who would like to own NFL franchises, but can't because there are only 32 available.

I don't like the idea, but I can see it potentially happening. Jack Swarbrick, Notre Dame's AD, discussed a possible path earlier this year when speaking about the current state of college athletics. He mentioned because of pay-for-play NIL and student-athlete employee status, there are universities that may not participate in such a model because it is beyond the core mission of their universities. What he described was football programs divested from the University and operating as a separate for-profit entity. It's under that scenario where I think a super league could develop.

SI Article -ND Athletic Director
Quite the stupid idea. It would kill national interest in college sports. If your team isn't competing on the same playing field as the "super league", most fans wouldn't continue to follow it. Hope they do it and lose their asses.
 

Die4Cy

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The Big easy and the SEC are content now because the money from their tv deals continues to rise every time they do a new deal. Schools get used to having an ever-increasing set amount of dollars. Say because of cord cutting both leagues are told by FOX and ESPN that the money is just not there for an increase for the next contract? Does Ohio State and Michigan just set back and say OK, or do they start to think that they are the reason for those large contracts and maybe the Purdue's, Maryland's and Rutgers should take less so their slice of the pie continues to go.

Everyone loves working for the business when the bonuses increase every year, only when that stops happening does trouble start.

Just wait until one of the two (probably SEC by going to a nine game schedule and the large number of low value games in the B1G) gets a media deal a good bit larger than the other. This is the basis for nearly every realignment move of all time. Media entities know how and when to turn the screws.
 
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Gonzo

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Because the level of back door maneuvering to make that happen is borderline impossible. Plus the money for the AD has diminishing returns. The presidents of the pac didn’t want to leave a sinking ship you really think big ten presidents would leave a super yacht? Borderline insane to think that way. Like I’ve said texas is already giving extra money back to the university, the same thing is being proposed at Michigan with the new deal. All these amazing facilities and coaching salary’s are with the old contracts. With the new ones who the hell knows what they are going to spend all the money on and yet your still thinking that they are going to “need” more and the big ten presidents would go for blowing it all up? No way.
It's an idea based on the premise 'anything could happen.' So in that sense, they're not wrong. Just like I could bump into Cindy Crawford at an airport and we instantly fall in love with one another and jet off to St. Barts together.

I know that if some concentration of the best programs into one conference were actually to happen that Iowa would be left at the kiddies table, no doubt. I just don't think it's going to happen for many logical reasons, and if I'm wrong, it'll be many years down the road and by that time KF and BF will be gone and I'll be just as happy.
 

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