So, essentially you come to the same conclusion I did, where if UT/OU/OSU/TTU had bolted for the PAC, ISU is left out of the new power league?
In 2011, Big 12 / Big East Leftovers Merger Planned
- Thread starter CyFan61
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So, essentially you come to the same conclusion I did, where if UT/OU/OSU/TTU had bolted for the PAC, ISU is left out of the new power league?
I think Iowa State's future will always be linked to Kansas, and KState (and to a lesser degree, Baylor). As long as all 4 schools stay together I would feel better about any conference move. However, if it all breaks up to h@ll, then I don't like the chances of ISU looking for a new home by ourselves. I think all 4 schools make an attractive package, but not individually. Would hate to end up going to the MAC, MVC, or some crap like that.
If that happens, there are going to be a ton of big time schools left out, and we would work together with them. KU, Kansas State, and Iowa likely wouldn't make that cut either.
Probably wouldn't be that big of a deal.
The proposed league value would have been ugly compared to this one. Think back to $10mm league payouts rather than the Big12's $22mm and up going forward. Football would have really struggled. Be glad this never happened. And remember, Iowa may have vetoed any potential for ISU to the Big10 opting for KU instead. ISU and K-State would have been stuck playing Air Force, Boise and New Mexico.
That conference wouldn't be as good as the current Big 12, but it would be better than the Big 10 in football and basketball imo. K-State, Baylor, UCF, Louisville, and WVU have all enjoyed very recent success in football, all winning conference championships and making BCS Bowl appearances in the last three seasons. As others have said, basketball would be great, with Louisville, KU, UConn, Cincy, ISU, KSU, and Baylor. It wouldn't have the name brands and tradition that the Big 10 has in OSU and Michigan, but it would be better than the Big 10 in terms of football and bball competition.
The TV markets would be good as well. DFW, KC, Cincy, Orlando, Hartford, NYC/NJ are all big markets. Obviously, we all prefer the Big 12, but that wouldn't have been a bad fall back.
The TV markets would be good as well. DFW, KC, Cincy, Orlando, Hartford, NYC/NJ are all big markets. Obviously, we all prefer the Big 12, but that wouldn't have been a bad fall back.
Very true. Just a reference point, a google search turns this up as Forbes most valuable teams in 2013. Lots of good teams still left to re-organize around.
1. Texas
2. Notre Dame
3. Alabama
4. LSU
5. Michigan
6. Florida
7. Oklahoma
8. Georgia
9. Ohio State
10. Nebraska
11. Auburn
12. Arkansas
13. USC
14. Texas A&M
15. Penn State
16. Wisconsin
17. Washington
18. South Carolina
19. Oregon
20. Tennessee
The Big East scenario would have absolutely killed our football program. We would have been saying bye bye to a lot of extra money and our recruiting would have taken a big hit.
While Iowa may not have supported ISU in such a deal, I really think that they may have gotten a lot of political pressure (Chuck Grassley, anyone?) to avoid any sort of veto of an Iowa State bid.
In a way you're correct, but the Pac 12 commissioner was on record wanting 4x16 with his new Pac 16 being one of them. He came out of the gates incredibly aggressive thinking of NCAA football as a second NFL. He's tempered it since but I doubt he said that stuff because he didn't mean it and you'd have to put him as one of the most influential people in college football.
And not a horrible place. We could have been competitive in a decent top 6 conference. That conference is arguably as good football wise as the big 10. Not money wise of course. Travel would not have been that bad either.
How does losing by 60 help recruiting. I actually would think having a few less guaranteed losses on our schedule would have been a good thing. Though it will be great to be a high caliber team, it's kind of hard when your best best year has 9 wins.
Losing by 60 does nothing to help recruiting, but neither does not playing anyone throughout the season. We sure would stop seeing Texas and Oklahoma recruits in the Big East. Those states help make our recruiting classes somewhat respectable from year to year.
Assume that this site has the relative size of the fan bases of each school right:
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/20...-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/
Additionally, assume the size of the fan base has a strong correlation with the value of the school for media rights purposes. The most valuable school is Ohio State (big alumni base, very connected to athletics, "only show in town" in some very college football and football interested cities like Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati) with 3.1 million fans. Iowa State has around 535,000, so Ohio State is worth about 5.9x than Iowa State in a media deal.
I also know this is not perfect--the Big 10 model depends on # of TV sets, not so much the intensity of the fan base, for example. Maryland and Rutgers have very little intensity to their fan bases compared to ours, and ours might even be larger, but they bring automatic cable subscriptions to the Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and NYC media markets, so that's that. The Pac-12 and Big 10 are supposed to care about academics, too, in theory, but for argument's sake...
Original Big 12 (12 teams, N/S divisions) = 11.865 million total; 989,000 on average
Big 12 of 10 (Colorado and Nebraska left) = 10.139 million total; 1.014 million on average
Current Big 12 (+WVU, +TCU) = 8.354 million total; 835,000 on average*
*Texas A&M is the big loss here (>2 million fans, TCU ~370k, WVU and Mizzou are actually about an even trade by these numbers, if not slightly advantaged to WVU)
Now for the hypothetical mergers between the Big 12 and the Big East football schools...
14 (Baylor, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Iowa State, Kansas, KSU, Louisville, Mizzou--presuming no SEC, Rutgers, SMU, South Florida, TCU, UCF, WVU) = 7.726 million overall; 552,000 on average
12 (which is what Oliver Luck described) = 6.478 million overall; 540,000 on average
That 550,000 fans per school is about half as valuable as the Big 12 stuff, so I could imagine this maybe in the $8 million to $10 million per year per school as the "baby major" conference. It's comparable in numbers to what the old Big East was before it essentially collapsed as a football conference--around 500k on average, and they were offered a television deal in that range before collapsed. It would cover some good-sized media markets, too, with Dallas, Kansas City, Louisville, Cincinnati, Tampa, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, New York, and Hartford. It would certainly be weaker than what became of the Pac-X, Big 10, ACC, and SEC, but probably not too far off the ACC for #4/#5 in the pecking order.
So we came out better for ending up with our friends in Austin and Norman, though that does mean steeper competition, but ending up in a *much* better American conference equivalent with the remnant Big 8 schools and half the Big East wouldn't have been the end of the world. We'd be in a "high major" instead of a power conference, or a weak power conference, instead of the cream world we have right now.
A basketball conference with Baylor, Cincinnati, Kevin Ollie, Hoiball, Bill Self/blue birdies, KSU, Pitino, Mizzou (before they started to decline again), Larry Brown, Huggy Bear, Georgetown, Marquette, and the rest of the Catholic schools would be pretty nuts, though.
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/20...-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/
Additionally, assume the size of the fan base has a strong correlation with the value of the school for media rights purposes. The most valuable school is Ohio State (big alumni base, very connected to athletics, "only show in town" in some very college football and football interested cities like Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati) with 3.1 million fans. Iowa State has around 535,000, so Ohio State is worth about 5.9x than Iowa State in a media deal.
I also know this is not perfect--the Big 10 model depends on # of TV sets, not so much the intensity of the fan base, for example. Maryland and Rutgers have very little intensity to their fan bases compared to ours, and ours might even be larger, but they bring automatic cable subscriptions to the Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and NYC media markets, so that's that. The Pac-12 and Big 10 are supposed to care about academics, too, in theory, but for argument's sake...
Original Big 12 (12 teams, N/S divisions) = 11.865 million total; 989,000 on average
Big 12 of 10 (Colorado and Nebraska left) = 10.139 million total; 1.014 million on average
Current Big 12 (+WVU, +TCU) = 8.354 million total; 835,000 on average*
*Texas A&M is the big loss here (>2 million fans, TCU ~370k, WVU and Mizzou are actually about an even trade by these numbers, if not slightly advantaged to WVU)
Now for the hypothetical mergers between the Big 12 and the Big East football schools...
14 (Baylor, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Iowa State, Kansas, KSU, Louisville, Mizzou--presuming no SEC, Rutgers, SMU, South Florida, TCU, UCF, WVU) = 7.726 million overall; 552,000 on average
12 (which is what Oliver Luck described) = 6.478 million overall; 540,000 on average
That 550,000 fans per school is about half as valuable as the Big 12 stuff, so I could imagine this maybe in the $8 million to $10 million per year per school as the "baby major" conference. It's comparable in numbers to what the old Big East was before it essentially collapsed as a football conference--around 500k on average, and they were offered a television deal in that range before collapsed. It would cover some good-sized media markets, too, with Dallas, Kansas City, Louisville, Cincinnati, Tampa, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, New York, and Hartford. It would certainly be weaker than what became of the Pac-X, Big 10, ACC, and SEC, but probably not too far off the ACC for #4/#5 in the pecking order.
So we came out better for ending up with our friends in Austin and Norman, though that does mean steeper competition, but ending up in a *much* better American conference equivalent with the remnant Big 8 schools and half the Big East wouldn't have been the end of the world. We'd be in a "high major" instead of a power conference, or a weak power conference, instead of the cream world we have right now.
A basketball conference with Baylor, Cincinnati, Kevin Ollie, Hoiball, Bill Self/blue birdies, KSU, Pitino, Mizzou (before they started to decline again), Larry Brown, Huggy Bear, Georgetown, Marquette, and the rest of the Catholic schools would be pretty nuts, though.
That proposed Big East would have given us a game every year in Texas (via TCU and Baylor) and a game every year in Florida (via USF and UCF). I don't think our recruiting would have been significantly impacted by that. We already are competing primarily against the schools that would have made up that version of the Big East for recruits.
Us playing in the Big 12 in one of the best conferences in college football is a huge huge selling point to recruits. Playing in the Big East would significantly hurt recruiting.
