Most conferences make little geographic sense these days. Of course it's pretty silly, but why should conferences be forced to align schools based on geography vs. athletic and academic brands? Shouldn't that be left up to the conference?
Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)
- Thread starter ISUcyclones11
- Start date
Yes, Stanford and Cal seem totally happy with their east coast conference home in the ACC that was forced on them by B1G poaching regional rivals over football TV money.
Just GTFO. Big Ten fan opinions on this are invalid. Gonzo coming in here and being like, "Why shouldn't TV networks determine conference membership?" is exactly what's wrong with putting up with their whole "We gotta find who did this" act to begin with. It's tiresome.
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Of course, they don't make sense due to ESPN and Fox manipulation. The SEC and B10 are now solely made for TV clustereffs, especially the B10.
The core B10 and SEC membership will realize the financial benefits of downsizing back to 10 with unequal revenue sharing based on TV ratings. The big draws remain in the core with revenue sharing amongst 10 members instead of diluting those shares with 16 or 18 members.
As it stands today, these are still 'Student Athletes' and just seeing the travel itinerary today of the West Coast teams in the ACC is just plain stupid IF anyone cares about the 'Student' part. Of course that opinion would change if they become employees of the school; in which case academics would be considered a side-show.
Michigan and tOSU are the only big draws in the core. USC, Penn St., Oregon are also big draws that they'd be cutting loose.
Member Universities
btaa.org
University of Chicago isn't even listed on the Big 10 Academic Alliance page.
Yeah I both agree with this and disagree with it as well. I totally agree the large coast to coast conferences are stupid and the travel that comes along with it is just the icing on the stupid cake.
For football and basketball teams traveling this far for conference play I also don’t feel bad because those athletes would take their NIL check every time over cutting that and down and not traveling.
For the non revenue sports this is the cost of having your sport funded by the others. You also are getting a free education and other potential NIL deals for sports that don’t have a post collegiate future so I think it’s still a fair trade.
Also athletes now can transfer pretty easily so if they really don’t like it they can always go somewhere new but still don’t love the expanded conferences
U of Chicago was one of the founding members of the Big 10. Other guy was saying they should go back to the core 10.
They left and ultimately landed in a superior conference.
You think it's funny that Memphis is "West" in the NBA... Nashville is "West" in the NHL.
Have you seen games on channels other than Fox and ESPN? NBC? CBS? TNT? CW?
While its true Fox and ESPN control more, and its fun to make them the villain in this, they are not exactly a duopoly as you continue to repeat over and over. I am sure they are aware of this too.
So when in the next 3-4 years, as you say is the timeline for this to happen, are they going to force out the others to form an actual duopoly? Considering NBC and CBS have contracts through this cycle I doubt it happens.
And if ESPN does opt out of the ACC media deal, as you predict, it just opens that up to more competition from other media members, assuming some form of the ACC remains like the PAC.
Wait, what?
Like I said, I agree with almost everything said. At least, I believe much of it is possible, if not probable.
I just don’t believe that decimating the athletic budgets of universities would constitute “destruction”. The states would likely step in to ensure loan defaults and the like don’t actually harm the universities.
Even more so I don’t believe the federal government will step in and nullify media deals, nor will this result in some sort of “natural” regional conferences.
It isn’t that I wouldn’t *want* this outcome, just that it is delusional to think that’s what Greg Sankey will recommend Ted Cruz do.
Yeah that's my point, if my posting here offends you, just put me on ignore. Not hard.
It's kind of funny that some of you think I'm being all gloaty about Iowa being in the B1G like I go to sleep every night with warm fuzzies about all the $$$ from the media and CFP deals. I honestly couldn't care less about Iowa's athletic revenues, unless it means I'll stop getting donation requests from university advancement but I doubt that. Other than that it has zero impact. All this massive conference realignment and expansion means to me is that Iowa will likely never sniff a B1G football title in my lifetime.
I just think it's funny watching people shouting at the rain and predicting it'll all go away and things will go back to those bucolic, bygone college football days of 40 years ago, courtesy of the U.S. Congress.
You're displaying your ignorance on this topic. ESPN controls 100% of SEC rights through the mid 2030s. Fox controls 100% of B10 rights through an indefinite period. Whatever rights that other networks have for televising SEC or B10 CFB are sublicensed from ESPN and Fox. In addition, ESPN controls CFP rights through 2031-32. And if ESPN opts out the ACC deal, they will move schools to the SEC as they see fit. Remaining ACC schools will not get competitive bids from other networks because those networks don't have CFP access until 2032 at the earliest. They will be looking at $10M/yr per school payouts or less.
It is a duopoly and they control the sport as they see fit including realignment and relegation.
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So, what are they going to do? Again split it up, to networks that dont want the content or are not willing to pay more than ESPN or Fox? They control it because they pay the most, and are sports networks with multiple sports channels to fill content on. Others are either not sports only channels, or have 1 subchannel that is sports, but is a very low value channel, at least at this point that paying huge amounts for content on those channels doesnt make sense.
Are you saying they will break up ABC/ESPN? Fox? How does that equal more money for everyone? They have content in a lot of sports, but because of 1 sport they are going to be broken up? Are they going to force ESPN to give up its rights to another network? That wants to pay less?
Are they going to throw out the Supreme Court decision that took the media negotiations away from the NCAA and now allow them to be a central media negotiator, similar to the NFL?
Seriously, I may be ignorant on the fine details on what qualifies of a duopoly, but you may be on the reality of the situation and what exactly would be the answer, and how that answer would be a benefit for anyone, and really what and how exactly anything is done to change the system.
Unless you believe that Congress or the Supreme Court is going to become the new NCAA and govern the entire system, and revert it back to something from decades ago, I dont see it happening.
You hate the duopoly but want to create a monopoly that controls the entire system. It makes no sense.
