But that goes against his statement that pooling already happens. The lack of pooling between conferences is what gives the networks leverage. They know they’ll can say no to one because there’s always another option.
Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)
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But that goes against his statement that pooling already happens. The lack of pooling between conferences is what gives the networks leverage. They know they’ll can say no to one because there’s always another option.
He's said:
1. The conferences as we know them will cease to exist beyond around 2031, they'll be disintegrated and there will be 7 conferences of 10 teams regionally based.
2. The SEC's current media deal with ESPN will be cut short by 3-4 years when all the conferences are blown up in favor of the 7x10 model. ESPN will just be sh*t out of luck.
3. All of college football's media rights will be pooled together and bid out to the networks NFL style.
If you ignore that recent $50M "loan" from the university to the AD.
Pooling already happens. It is how these conferences make money, arguably the only thing that a conference is for. Schools or different valuations pool rights. Even more, they pool rights, and then share equally the revenue, meaning big brands are subsidizing others
So when fans of certain P2 schools scream why would the P2 “conferences” do it, they’re ignoring that the underlying concept is already occurring. Just not at the scale and format to have maximum leverage. And that the conferences aren’t stakeholders. It’s the schools
With unequal revenue sharing and better scheduling options to networks, greater pooling can mean at worst parity, with most increasing
The cost isn’t to the elites. It would be that lower P2 schools don’t have a monopoly on befitting from being bundled with elites
Doing so would be the best outcome for the majority of teams in the P-4, but the B10 and SEC would never agree to it, unless their network backers Fox and ESPN can be shown they will make even more money under the 7 conference plan, or Congress gets involved and forces it to happen.
Really congress making it happen has the best chance to occur and that is very doubtful. But there are a lot of representatives in states that would be left out if the B10 and SEC force the issue here, so it could get interesting.
Like the Big 12 and PAC wouldn’t agree to the emergence of P2?
Schools make the decisions. Namely, a small set of elite brands.
For the group of schools not in the P2, any changes they seek must align with interests of the elite, otherwise those elite will fight to keep to status quo, choosing to subsidize their historical peers
That is true, but only to a point, why should Vanderbilt, Ol Miss, Missouri and few others not band together to make sure their interests are heard also? As far as I remember all these conferences have to have so many votes to get something passed in their league, so unless that changed, the elites have power, but not unlimited power to do what they want to the rest of the schools in the league.
As previously posted, 7x10 (or something close to it) is a preferred end game and Cruz-Cantwell does explicitly encourage regional conference realignment in conjunction with media rights pooling.
And regarding the SEC and ESPN, what's funny is that Sankey recently went on the record as stating the SEC deal is undervalued and he is absolutely correct. And he is stuck with that deal through 2034. It would certainly behoove his conference members financially that he aggressively pursue the termination of that contract and join the media rights pooling party to max out the revenues of his conference membership, especially the Legacy 10 SEC members with 7x10.
And then you have the B10 who is presumably beholden to Fox for as long as Fox owns the majority stake in the B10 rights holder, BTN. Nothing like having your rights holder negotiating against your majority stakeholder and then having to resort to sublicensing to get more revenues and hosing those sublicensees in the process.
Both conferences are obviously leaving a lot of money on the table with the status quo.
You're talking about what you think should happen. I've pointed out what you've said will happen. I hope you're not softening.
Just stop with 7x10, it's not happening.
You seem to think those schools already aren’t. They are, it’s called the BIG and SEC. Thus far those interests align with the elites interests too, and so the conference exists.
In large part because it has been the best option for the elites (due to desires of two networks).
Fundamentally, what the M2 should be trying to do is give the elites a better offer. Single entity pooling does that. Either it ends the P2 as we know it, similar to how better offers ended B12/PAC, or brings unequal revenue sharing to P2
Attempting to use legislation to do this, without making it transparent the benefits to elite, is more likely to galvanize the P2. Or worse, actually force revenue equality on the sport- that’s a huge political misstep. Arguably a shakedown by top M2 hoping that such an attempt just gets more P2 invites sent
7x10 would be awesome but it's not happening without severe government intervention that's wildly unlikely.
The way you would get pooling to happen is by eliminating equal revenue sharing. The big dogs get more money.
At the end of the day, what this would mean is that the actual elites would get more than everyone else, regardless of conference. The schools most adversely affected would be the lower class of the Big 10 and SEC - IE the schools that are basically Big 12 or ACC schools that are historically lucky.
Theoretically you'd have the Big 12 and ACC support this because it stops the elevation of their peer schools by association with the blue bloods, and the blue bloods are on board because they'd make more money. The Big 12 and ACC wouldn't likely make any less, but the gap between them and the artificially propped up schools in the back half of the SEC and Big 10 go away, and I think at the end of the day, that's really what the Big 12 and ACC want to see.
Any realistic person understands that Ohio State, Michigan, Texas, LSU, etc are the economic drivers of the sport and in any capitalist sense have a right to the bigger share of the pie. The pain point is seeing the Purdues, Mizzous, and Marylands of the world being rewarded at the expense of the West Virginia's, Virginia Tech's, and Kansas States of the world.
The schools who would oppose divvying revenue on the basis of actual revenue generation are outnumbered by their Big 12/ACC counterparts, and overruled by their in-conference overlords.
But at this point, no one on the "pro pooling" side of the fence is proposing such a model.
LOL, you can check back with me in 2031 and we'll see where things stand at that time relative to what should happen vs what actually happened.
'Atta boy. Stand firm. But I think we'll probably know before 2031 what is and isn't going to happen. Lol.
I legit don't care.
The Plains Midwest type of pod ISU would end up in would likely never field a national champion unless OU was part of it, but the national championship has never been the part of college football I cared about. I care about playing schools in the same part of the country that I've seen ISU play against my whole life that I've developed strong feelings about.
I'm far more interested in games outside this area when it's a regional match up. The idea of Penn State, Pitt, WVU, Maryland, Rutgers, Cuse, etc in the same spot sounds awesome to me.
Rational realignment would have Miami FL and UCF as part of a "Big East" conference. And with an element of unequal revenue sharing, Miami FL would likely make more money than anyone else in that league and be a happy camper.
I think this is just such a funny post as most on here have been bemoaning how college sports is now the haves and have nots (P2 vs the rest) and then you have posts like this desiring even more unequal rev share and creating a permanent separation of the top which just takes what’s happening today and makes it so you don’t get an Indiana, or Miami, or others who rise up.
So in reality you don’t want more parity, or any type of balance as people claim you just want more people to be along side you with zero chance to ever compete.
Wild take, I get it, it’s very British of you all but I understand. Just nice to have people say it
