Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)

[20eyes]

Coast to coast conferences are a fiasco. The only reason they exist is to create a few more additional prime TV matchups on an annual basis for ESPN and Fox. That is it. Everything else about them (excessive & unnecessary travel expense for starters, unbalanced scheduling, etc.) basically sucks. And worse, the last round of realignment unnecessarily destroyed Oregon St and Washington St.

And Fox and ESPN want to further consolidate and reduce the number of P4 schools so they don't have to pay as many schools and Sankey/Petitti are their puppets in achieving that goal.

And I am willing to bet the majority of existing P4 schools would vote in favor of this when you consider every ACC and B12 would vote for it and a % of B10 (e.g. Iowa) and SEC (e.g. Vanderbilt/UK) schools would do so as well.

Not if you're hell bent on creating NFL lite...which is all this is going to become. The B1G & SEC have the ability to play the NFC and AFC roles right now.

This is what "fairness" looks like. This is what a "One True Champion" playoff system looks like. Anyone whose ever complained about players not getting paid has brought this. Anyone whose complained about journalist selected national champions has brought this. I've spent years on this site defending the traditional Bowl system's ability to determine a national champion from the traditional conferences (pre Big 12). It's what made college football the greatest sport ever. But of course the American sports consumer, with the help of sports media, has gutted the goose that was laying golden eggs. I watched more NFL and less CFB last season than ever because I'm not interested in NLF lite. Is there any doubt that the CFB National Championship will be either B1G/SEC or SEC/SEC? F*cking yawn.

 

[cykadelic2]

You have lost your marbles.

So you think that the list of CST Board Members and their Ambassadors (including Tennessee's AD) have lost their marbles?

What CST is doing is saying eff U to ESPN and Fox in order to end their stranglehold on CFB which has manipulated conference realignment to their benefit and destroyed Oregon St and Washington St in the process (with more schools to follow if they have their way).

JP was quoted in the latest Athletic article on CST as saying the SEC and B10 (i.e. ESPN and Fox) are clearly trying to swallow up the B12 and ACC. He also mentioned on Coaches Corner that destruction of Oregon St and Wazzu wasn't enough to trigger Fed intervention but if there ends up being more schools being relegated and destroyed, that intervention will take place.

 

[CascadeClone]

I have trouble seeing where media partners are going to pay top dollar for a 70ish team Super League. Here is viewership by week.

With only 12-15 games each week attaining 1M+ viewers and another 10 games over 500k viewers- why would TV executives pay big money for 30-35 games each week?

With realignment to date, the Big10 and SEC have 34 teams. There might be 5-10 Big12/ACC teams that the Big10/SEC might view as high value targets. And that assumes NIL and employee status don't make some lower tier Big10 & SEC Presidents think twice about investing what it'll take to be competitive in a Super League.

Just not seeing a Super League being more than 40-50 schools.

You are onto it. I've posted about this before but to lazy to look it up.

There's about 6-7 really prime slots (network and time) that draw huge audiences (about 3-5M viewers). Then about 6 more that draw ~2M viewers, and a boatload that are like 1M and lower.

20 teams, with byes, would pretty much be enough to cover those biggest slots.

Remember value of a game is more exponentially than linearly related to # of viewers. So you want to have as many maximum viewer games as possible to maximize value. How to do that? Combine best slots with best brands. So get rid of the lesser brands - better revenue and you can cut costs too.

That's what the TV money wants to do.

 

[Kinch]

This is extremely wrong. In what world is Vanderbilt or miss state getting more money in this situation? There won’t be the big ten and sec anymore which is the point. Those bottom and mid teams would never agree to it.

I mean this has zero chance of happening anyways but your logic on this part doesn’t even make sense

It only happen if Ohio state and Michigan say so. And they don’t have any incentive to say so.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

So you think that the list of CST Board Members and their Ambassadors (including Tennessee's AD) have lost their marbles?

What CST is doing is saying eff U to ESPN and Fox in order to end their stranglehold on CFB which has manipulated conference realignment to their benefit and destroyed Oregon St and Washington St in the process (with more schools to follow if they have their way).

JP was quoted in the latest Athletic article on CST as saying the SEC and B10 (i.e. ESPN and Fox) are clearly trying to swallow up the B12 and ACC. He also mentioned on Coaches Corner that destruction of Oregon St and Wazzu wasn't enough to trigger Fed intervention but if there ends up being more schools being relegated and destroyed, that intervention will take place.

As long as every FBS school has playoff access, and they do, there isn't a damn thing the feds can do about it. They aren't freezing anybody out from Alabama to Sam Houston State. Everyone has access.

 

[Gonzo]

Coast to coast conferences are a fiasco. The only reason they exist is to create a few more additional prime TV matchups on an annual basis for ESPN and Fox. That is it. Everything else about them (excessive & unnecessary travel expense for starters, unbalanced scheduling, etc.) basically sucks. And worse, the last round of realignment unnecessarily destroyed Oregon St and Washington St.

And Fox and ESPN want to further consolidate and reduce the number of P4 schools so they don't have to pay as many schools and Sankey/Petitti are their puppets in achieving that goal.

And I am willing to bet the majority of existing P4 schools would vote in favor of this when you consider every ACC and B12 would vote for it and a % of B10 (e.g. Iowa) and SEC (e.g. Vanderbilt/UK) schools would do so as well.

Vote in favor of what?

 

[rosshm16]

Why do B10 and SEC need so many guaranteed spots, if they’re so good?

 

[1UNI2ISU]

Why do B10 and SEC need so many guaranteed spots, if they’re so good?

Hell of a lot easier to attract Private Equity when you can guarantee giant revenue number.

 

[FriendlySpartan]

Hell of a lot easier to attract Private Equity when you can guarantee giant revenue number.

That’s not happening in the big ten

 

[cykadelic2]

This is extremely wrong. In what world is Vanderbilt or miss state getting more money in this situation? There won’t be the big ten and sec anymore which is the point. Those bottom and mid teams would never agree to it.

I mean this has zero chance of happening anyways but your logic on this part doesn’t even make sense

No, you have an inability to comprehend and accept an overall higher revenue pie with aggregation of P4 regular season and CFP inventory and bidding it out NFL style. That increased revenue pie and an element of unequal revenue sharing will result in higher payouts for 10 team B10 and SEC members (instead of dividing it by 16 or 18 members). It is the primary tenet for CST support.

The fact that bidding for the recent extension of the CFP deal with only ESPN submitting a far below market value bid is all you need to know that millions of TV dollars are being left on the table in the existing model that is controlled by ESPN and Fox. It is an absolute fiasco that happened for the 2nd highest American TV property.

 

[CascadeClone]

Geographic proximity is #1, but we just happened to jump over two entire states' worth of schools to make sure Ohio State and Michigan aren't in the same division.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5809686/2024/10/01/college-football-super-league-student/

This is far from perfect, but just the idea of having a central authority, and putting geographic / historical rivals back together is too beautiful to believe.

 

[Kinch]

Why do B10 and SEC need so many guaranteed spots, if they’re so good?

Because it keeps your middling schools and their ADs and coaches from grumbling and it guarantees money.

 

[ClubCy]

No, you have an inability to comprehend and accept an overall higher revenue pie with aggregation of P4 regular season and CFP inventory and bidding it out NFL style. That increased revenue pie and an element of unequal revenue sharing will result in higher payouts for 10 team B10 and SEC members (instead of dividing it by 16 or 18 members). It is the primary tenet for CST support.

The fact that bidding for the recent extension of the CFP deal with only ESPN submitting a far below market value bid is all you need to know that millions of TV dollars are being left on the table in the existing model that is controlled by ESPN and Fox. It is an absolute fiasco that happened for the 2nd highest American TV property.

As pointed out, there wont be a SEC or Big 10. So why would these teams give up making equal money, the prestige of being in those conferences, the recruiting that comes with being in those conferences, the tickets sold when Alabama and Ohio State come to town, ect…

I’m sure Texas, A&M, and Oklahoma are just dying to be in a conference with TCU, Baylor, and SMU.

 

[Gorm]

Ohio State and Michigan aren't in the same division.

Good luck getting those two schools to sign up for the possibility that they may not play each other on some years.

 

[theshadow]

Good luck getting those two schools to sign up for the possibility that they may not play each other on some years.

They'd play each other in "non-conference", where the loss wouldn't count, and they could both still win their own division and qualify for the playoff.

 

[Gorm]

You have lost your marbles.

 

[Gorm]

They'd play each other in "non-conference", where the loss wouldn't count, and they could both still win their own division and qualify for the playoff.

Every situation where I've heard of a team purposing that, the other team has always backed out. (E.G. Nebraska / Oklahoma trying to do this in 1996 only for Oklahoma to back out.)

 

[ClonerJams]

I don't know how else there is to frame this.

WE ALREADY HAVE OUR TWO 'SUPER' LEAGUES.

If there was anything else of great value left, those properties would be in the SEC/Big Ten. If there was some grand conspiracy from TV networks, don't you think that ESPN would have tipped the scales to get FSU/Clemson/Miami/whoever else out of the ACC agreement and into the SEC by now. Instead they locked those properties into a crazy long term deal that they knew was going to be way undermarket, to the network's benefit.

I also believe that your Ohio States, Alabamas, Georgias, etc are more that fine with the bottom of their leagues getting the same money they do because those blue bloods know they have built in advantages over your Mississippi States, South Carolinas and Indianas of the world that those lower tier programs are never going to be able to overcome, especially since NIL is going to remain the wild, wild west even after they're paying players.

This is the final form. Sure there may be some jockeying around the edges in the P2 or some kind of ACC/Big 12 merger in the future (giant mistake IMO) but the networks have the 34 schools they want.

I agree with most of this, except for the bolded. There is never a final form - if more money can be made with a few moves, it will happen. If the SEC offered Ohio State $25 million more a year than the Big 10, they would bolt. Do I think that happens in the near future? No, but changes will always happen as long as the sport continues to make money.

 

[Gorm]

I agree with most of this, except for the bolded. There is never a final form - if more money can be made with a few moves, it will happen. If the SEC offered Ohio State $25 million more a year than the Big 10, they would bolt. Do I think that happens in the near future? No, but changes will always happen as long as the sport continues to make money.

How does the SEC purpose to fill the massive hole in research dollars that would be gone from Ohio State's budget after leaving the BTAA in this scenario?

It would be very, VERY challenging for the SEC to try and pry a school away from the Big 10. The move to the SEC might benefit school athletics, but it will have a devastating, detrimental impact on the academic side.

Big Ten Academic Alliance - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[FinalFourCy]

How does the SEC purpose to fill the massive hole in research dollars that would be gone from Ohio State's budget after leaving the BTAA in this scenario?

It would be very, VERY challenging for the SEC to try and pry a school away from the Big 10. The move to the SEC might benefit school athletics, but it will have a devastating, detrimental impact on the academic side.

Big Ten Academic Alliance - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

For one thing, Michigan would be right behind them, and then Penn St and so on.

At which point, new research alliances would form. Likely with most of the same schools, regardless of what conference football is in, plus some new heavyweights like UT.