***OFFICIAL BIG 12 EXPANSION THREAD 2.0***
- Thread starter Boxerdaddy
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I don't know who the 12th would have been...but I really think we missed out with Louisville.
Yep. Louisville as a bridge to West Virginia and we don't invite TCU...perfect
As far as I can tell, the label of "commuter school" was the single irrational justification for WVU over Louisville to make 10. The real WTF is that we didn't just add both and forget TCU.
FIFY
Their AD is laughing all the way to the bank. If their football team hadn't tanked mid-season, you wouldn't hear a peep about Big 12 buyer's remorse over there. They're just butt-hurt that they joined a real conference and turned out to be average.
If you go back to the fall of 2011, WVU was a CLEAR choice over Louisville. Bigger name/fanbase, better ratings, better results in both major sports, a better money maker for the Big 12. Louisville has one really good year and everyone forgets they were a mid-major with terrible attendance a decade ago. With TCU, they were the only obviously available team at the time and they helped the strong Texas presence for the league, which makes sense when its one of the nation's fastest growing states. People talk about not having states in the league, but Texas alone counts for like 4 or 5 southeastern states. TCU was a stop gap that was A) there and B) provided quality football matchups.
In hindsight its easy to look at Louisville and think a mistake was made, but if you look at the landscape at the time of both the TCU and WVU additions, its easy to see why they got the nod over Louisville.
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Missouri was still in the conference when we added TCU. They were in the midst of their SEC flirtation, but the official announcement hadn't come yet and we thought they would stay. We were temporarily at 10 again after the addition of TCU. It was never a choice of TCU OR WVU OR Louisville. TCU was in already. Then Missouri flew the coop and it became a choice of WVU or Louisville.
What seems to go unmentioned is that TCU never fit the expansion mantra at the time, which was "new markets, new markets, new markets." Granted, there was some desperation that existed in the Big 12 at the time, so I understood. We needed bodies, period, and I didn't have a big beef with adding TCU. But Louisville was there for the taking, and I always liked the idea of WVU and Louisville as a pair.
Personally, geography was (and continues to be) very important to me, and I liked the bridge that they provided, along with their solid athletics. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but the fact that their home state shares a border with an old Big 8 state always made it feel right, which in turn would have made WVU feel more right. Hell, Louisville was a former member of the Missouri Valley conference, so it never felt like a ridiculous geographic stretch, which I think has come to epitomize this conference reallignment saga.
All this, combined with Louisville's recent surge in the national spotlight, makes the failure to add Louisville feel like a real miss. I don't think that's a ridiculous position whatsoever.
Personally, geography was (and continues to be) very important to me, and I liked the bridge that they provided, along with their solid athletics. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but the fact that their home state shares a border with an old Big 8 state always made it feel right, which in turn would have made WVU feel more right. Hell, Louisville was a former member of the Missouri Valley conference, so it never felt like a ridiculous geographic stretch, which I think has come to epitomize this conference reallignment saga.
All this, combined with Louisville's recent surge in the national spotlight, makes the failure to add Louisville feel like a real miss. I don't think that's a ridiculous position whatsoever.
"New markets" was never the Big 12's expansion mantra. "Names" and "availability" were. We were desperate when we added TCU, and we were FAR more interested in interesting matchups (and if you question this, check the ratings on the Texas/WVU game) than new markets, given our league's financial model.
Look back on the chatter while it was all going down. Almost no one viewed Louisville as a miss at the time. Hindsight has changed that view (perhaps rightfully so), but I think it pointless to judge decisions on the basis of information that came to light well after said decision was made. Louisville has a great athletic department, but its pretty clear that the networks do not believe they add financial value to the Big 12, and conference strength is pretty much equivalent with finances.
Dammit, Al, I don't want to argue with you. :smile: I agree, it is hard to argue with the decision at the time. As I said, I didn't have a huge beef with it. But, the fact that it can be debated now does indicate that there may have been a degree of shortsightedness in the decision making at the time.
I would have preferred Louisville even prior to their recent surge, so I'm sympathetic to current unrest. That doesn't necessarily mean I have significant buyer's remorse for adding TCU.
I would have preferred Louisville even prior to their recent surge, so I'm sympathetic to current unrest. That doesn't necessarily mean I have significant buyer's remorse for adding TCU.
This will need to be more completely hashed out over a few beers, but I won't argue that there was a bit of shortsightedness involved in the decision.
That said, when you're fighting for your life, there is no such thing as long-term thinking. On top of that, I think that assuming that Louisville will sustain this level of success might be a little presumptuous. WVU has been a big football brand for a long time, and had been consistent in basketball for about a decade. TCU has been a good football brand as long as Patterson has been there, and is located in the middle of the football talent belt.
Louisville was great with Petrino, awful with Kragthorpe, and pretty good with Strong. If he stays, they could be great, but who knows what will happen there. It wasn't that long ago that they were averaging about 40K per game for football attendance. I guess I'm just not convinced that they have the staying power of WVU or the sustainability of TCU.
Let's not forget, ISU and the other northernmost schools were the ones who wanted TCU in, for recruiting purposes. It's very important for ISU to sell two games a year in Texas to recruits. I was one who was not hot on adding Louisville, I was wrong. Had we done that, the ACC would have been in a much worse position than they are now.
The ACC is in the same position now as before they added Louisville. It will survive as long as the B1G doesn't raid UNC. No team was going to leave the ACC for the BigXII until the ACC falls apart. That was true then and is now.
Both wVU and TCU had more network/ratings cache than Louisville and given that Louisville is now the only commuter school in a "power" conference with their invite by the desperate ACC, the commuter label was not irrational given college Presidents have the final say on expansion.
Louisville is not the reason for the ACC GOR. ESPN getting tired of realignment is.
If the Big 12 had added Louisville, the ACC would have added UConn or Cincy. Not a huge difference to them either way.
ESPN is/was getting what they want in conference realignment and now that the public is speaking out in a not positive way, they are now pulling back the reigns and saying they are getting tired of it. It is all just a poker face, cause eventually conferences will disband from the NCAA.
If the big paycheck did not come from the networks schools would not have been driven to do so cause of money and the arms race of keeping up with the jone's. At the same time those big paychecks have helped Iowa State tremendously, so it is a double edge sword, but is more bullcrap to come?
If the big paycheck did not come from the networks schools would not have been driven to do so cause of money and the arms race of keeping up with the jone's. At the same time those big paychecks have helped Iowa State tremendously, so it is a double edge sword, but is more bullcrap to come?
I'm starting to think not. The networks made a pretty swift decision to end conference realignment. It was starting to become negative, and hurting the product, which in turn makes them less money.
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