Ya no to that noise.
Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)
- Thread starter ISUcyclones11
- Start date
Ya no to that noise.
Nice try but here is some simple math for you:
If/when 30 existing P4 schools get relegated, their annual TV revenues drop from around $35M to $10M which is $750M annually in lost gross revenue to those schools and an estimate of $150M/yr in lost athlete revenue sharing opportunities. And that doesn't include the destructive impacts at those 30 schools for funding non-rev sports (and resulting lost opportunities for those athletes), enrollment impacts, ticket revenue impacts, state/local economic impacts, etc. resulting from that financial and competitive relegation. Plenty of evidence already of the short-term and long-term destructive impacts at Wazzu and Oregon St.
That type of destruction certainly doesn't lend itself to Congressional and Judicial favors for the existing ESPN/Fox duopoly and its stranglehold/manipulation on CFB as you naively suggest.
So when is all of this going to happen with the duopoly being dismantled?
Later on this decade before the B10, B12 and CFP TV deals expire in 2031-32 but the lobbying and groundwork has already started to some extent with the CST and Rudy/Smash initiatives.
That timing will likely be accelerated if ESPN doesn't pick up the 2027 ACC option by the end of FEB25 and the ACC blows up as a result with potentially 8 ACC schools being relegated in 2027.
I think it's more likely ESPN, Clemson/FSU and the ACC settle on a revised ACC contract that moves GOR expiration from 2036 to 2030-31.
So in like 3-4 years then? And what exactly is going to happen? Are ESPN and FOX going to be broken up, or will the B1G and SEC be forced to include a bunch of current non-members, or will it just be ESPN/FOX being forced to give an equal revenue split between the B1G, SEC, and all the other non-P2 schools/conferences?
Yeah, the goal is rights aggregation and realignment for all P4 schools and bidding out those rights NFL style (including the CFP) with new deals replacing the existing deals starting in the 2031-32 timeframe. The process and lobbying to achieve that goal has already started as previously posted. And that process gets accelerated if the ACC blows up in 2027.
So the B1G and SEC won't necessarily cease to exist, they're just going to have to give an equal share of the pie to everyone else?
And I'm starting to think there should be a drinking game for every time you type "aggregation" and "NFL style."
I’m a little nervous. I’ve never done it NFL style before.
I just don't see it happening.
Would the entire FBS be better off aggregating media rights? Of course, by a lot.
But the elite (i.e. the P2, Fox, ESPN) have all the money and power as is. The P2 would get more money but less advantage/power. The media buyers would be out a ton of money and lose big time! So all of them have approximately zero interest in changing the status quo.
You think government is going to come in on the side of the smaller schools to force things back to the way they were in 1980? A ton of money will come in on both sides (PE probably for the little guys), but the current elite will spend more to protect what they have. And the NCAA will provide cover "for the good of the athletes" nevermind they should be representing the majority of the schools, not just the elite. The government will go do what the money wants them to do in a case like this. You will hear arguments like "maybe not every school SHOULD have football, they should focus on academics". There's a lot of Gordon P. Eatons in government.
So you have to convince the SEC and B1G that it is in their long term best interests to let go of their current competitive advantage. That's a hard argument to make to people swimming in Scrooge McDucks olympic sized money filled pool.
I think it is more likely that the Top 20 break away to do their own thing, and then the leftovers might be able/willing to aggregate their rights. You'd just have 2 leagues. I have posted that concept before in this ulysses of a thread.
Oregon St and WSU think you’re being naive
Regardless, you continue to ignore that relegation can occur via a growing revenue and linear coverage disparity, without actually any formal relegating. Keep paying the leftovers around their current rate, plus more CFP access and more in CFP postseason revenue than ever before means it’s very difficult to argue relegation and damages have occurred
Courts aren’t going to mandate all conferences get equal revenue or access or brand exposure
It is already well underway. Talk of P2 separation, then talk of legal recourse…with a compromise of inclusion, but unequal revenue. Next it will be unequal autos. All on top of unequal TV deals and unequal premium exposure
Salary caps or NIL intervention would help mitigate the informal relegation somewhat, falling behind in the arms race and coaching salaries, but at least able to pay players around the same salary
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He’s conflating two things. Federal intervention in realignment, and college athletics being vulnerable to a PE or a similar takeover
The latter is much more likely
If a single entity aggregated enough rights, they could pull in others that otherwise wouldn’t want to disrupt current setup.
As I think Fluguar alluded, some think that’s going after and combining the P2 brands first. I mean, if a SEC power jumped to BIG, or if espn made a run at adding top BIG, it would quickly result in a P1 that can rewrite everything.
That’s very attractive to PE and shareholders, particularly as CBA or spending caps are implemented, as then a lot of rich people get more rich by carving out a nice profit- which is generally good for getting political
I personally think it’s more likely to occur by initially going after the disgruntled. Offering top of Big 12, ACC, and even disgruntled P2 a large amount in next deal, plus top basketball only (getting control of CBB postseason is a leverage point)
The need to keep up in the coming era of paying athletes is being used as a lever in getting schools to move, so NIL intervention would impact this, no doubt in part why the NCAA is lobbying so hard for it. They’re done without it
But imo it’s too late, and as mentioned, a player compensation caps really increase the ability for investors to monetize from college athletics restructuring
The NFL opening up PE is interesting. First it will be about things like stadiums, but not implausible it impacts college athletics
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The press coverage focuses on two areas of government intervention:
Employment status and antitrust exemptions for the NCAA and conferences.
If the government intervenes, particularly in what is tenuously being labeled a partisan fashion, it will be to grant antitrust exemptions. This essentially allows the NCAA and conferences to set and enforce their own rules.
“The broad outlines of a bill have been debated for years, with those conversations influenced by millions of dollars in lobbying by the NCAA and the wealthiest athletic conferences.”
This helps ISU and the Big 12 only in the sense they have common cause with the Big 10 and SEC. It will do nothing to influence inter-conference power dynamics or broadcast deals.
College sports reform could advance in GOP-controlled Congress, with Sen. Ted Cruz as NCAA ally
The NCAA’s yearslong efforts to get lawmakers to address myriad problems in college sports could pay off in the new, Republican-controlled Congress. GOP Sen.
Inviting PE into college sports is just inviting the wolf inside. They ruin everything they touch as a sole goal is profit. This is the NFL’s goal, it’s not the goal of a University.
A P1, whether it includes just current P2 or has more schools, can rewrite rules, and hence it can be more profitable to those that fund to create it
Although we had the split in the 1970’s, things ending up in separate divisions of P2 and then everyone else is more difficult to occur imo.
If for no other reason the top (P2) is able to get their cake and eat it too. Basically, the Big 12 and ACC are already on an eat-what-they-kill deal. Giving CFP access to those conferences is a fairly cheap subsidy donated by networks and P2 . The top may currently be missing out on revenue right now because of inclusion of Big 12 and ACC, but not much, and the Big12/ACC would give up revenue before being formally separate from top
I don’t think we know who will be against what. In 5 to 10 tears, will the SEC have benefited from NIL era? All historical blue bloods?
The SEC had a leg up on illicit compensation. Not only have they lost that advantage, now any booster anywhere can offer a recruit compensation to offset geography or history advantages. Given how historically effective geography and branding have been as moats for the same programs for 50 years, the current changes aren’t good for them
Wild times, but imo one of the most unlikely outcomes is a separate level of the top 20 schools
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Good god man, look around. The wolf is already inside and it isn’t PE
We have all the negatives associated with PE- everyone trying to “get theirs” with little regard to the long term greater good of the sport
Prisoners dilemmas. Decades of arms race spending. No rules. Student athletes in name only.
Schools making $150 million in revenue needing fans to pay more or contribute to NIL and likely needing to cut sports. Schools making $100 million in revenue still needing to draw on millions in student fees to play sports
Schools being required to show a profit by their PE overlords (aka keep costs down) is hardly worse than what we will have going forward
So go back to the way it was before the NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma case and those cases involved with it and the CFA?
The NCAA controlled the media rights similar to the way the NFL controls them now, I dont see them voiding that law and giving the NCAA more power to negotiate media contracts.
This is part of the issue here, the NFL negotiates as a league. In CFB since that case the schools and conferences hold their rights, so each is negotiated separately. So properties deemed more valuable get more.
All the many losses by the NCAA just makes it more and more unlikely that CFB will come together as a unit like the NFL.
Yeah, the B10 and SEC would continue to exist but preferably down to their core 10 members to eliminate the absurdity of Rutgers being in the same conference as USC solely for the benefit of Fox.
And both CST and Rudy/Smash propose an element of unequal revenue sharing based on TV ratings so those ten B10 and ten SEC schools would all likely make more money than they do now with rights aggregation and NFL style bidding of those rights and also make more money than the other 50 existing P4 schools.
So take a drink Gonzo boy.
Have already clearly explained in a prior post the financial destruction of having 25-30 existing P4 schools being relegated including ISU. The probability of that destruction clearly warrants Congressional and Judicial intervention in conjunction with NIL guardrails, etc.
So the feds will make the B1G give the boot to Penn St., Nebraska, USC, Oregon, etc., and bring back the University of Chicago?
This is going to be quite the shake up.
Drinking.
