Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)

[FinalFourCy]

The fight could very well be over UV and UNC, does it help the SEC to take Clemson and Florida St. when they already have teams in both states or are both conferences looking at adding UV and UNC? I would think that if the B10 does not get UV and UNC then they would be fine with taking Clemson and Florida St just to grow their TV markets, but the other two schools would be their top choice, very good academics and they build a wall with Rutgers, Maryland and the then UV and UNC.

The SEC or BIG will definitely take FSU and Clemson imo

Both the P2 HQ and their networks want to eliminate the top brands being outside the P2

Combining the best of ACC and best of Big 12 is how a new entrant starts a Superleague. Start with those schools, then overpay to lure a disgruntled or frustrated P2 mercenary like A&M, and you now have a third conference that can be used as a way to execute a hostile takeover of college football rights.

 

[cykadelic2]

Both the P2 HQ and their networks want to eliminate the top brands being outside the P2

Yeah and fortunately there is a growing number of Feds and Presidents/ADs, including within the B10 and SEC, that will nuke those plans.

 

[FinalFourCy]

Yeah and fortunately there is a growing number of Feds and Presidents/ADs, including within the B10 and SEC, that will nuke those plans.

Doubtful. Just standard political lip-service

The P2 will add what they want from ACC, and perhaps Big 12, and the the networks will give the M1 a tenable enough offer it doesn’t bring federal intervention, just a silent decay

 

[Clonehomer]

The SEC or BIG will definitely take FSU and Clemson imo

Both the P2 HQ and their networks want to eliminate the top brands being outside the P2

Combining the best of ACC and best of Big 12 is how a new entrant starts a Superleague. Start with those schools, then overpay to lure a disgruntled or frustrated P2 mercenary like A&M, and you now have a third conference that can be used as a way to execute a hostile takeover of college football rights.

I understand the goal is to certainly do that. But even early on into this new normal, we’re already seeing those top teams stumble in the SEC and new teams begin to fill that void left by OuT. What happens if Tech is able to sustain their purchasing power? Or if TCU or SMU continues to bring in better coaches than OuT? Or if BYU takes a spot on the national stage again? The P2 can’t just keep adding teams to squash the Big12 and ACC. The opportunities those conferences create means there’s always a chance for that next team to ascend to a power brand. And likewise, the crowded room of the P2 means there’s always a chance those top teams turn into Nebraska.

 

[FinalFourCy]

I understand the goal is to certainly do that. But even early on into this new normal, we’re already seeing those top teams stumble in the SEC and new teams begin to fill that void left by OuT. What happens if Tech is able to sustain their purchasing power? Or if TCU or SMU continues to bring in better coaches than OuT? Or if BYU takes a spot on the national stage again? The P2 can’t just keep adding teams to squash the Big12 and ACC. The opportunities those conferences create means there’s always a chance for that next team to ascend to a power brand. And likewise, the crowded room of the P2 means there’s always a chance those top teams turn into Nebraska.

I said top brands, TV ratings, not top teams.

Programs that pull ratings being outside the P2 is a liability and inefficiency for networks

And each time they consolidate brands to P2, they’re consolidating the premium TV windows needed to draw top ratings. They need to in order to monetize the matchups in the P2.

There are only so many casual football fans, and the networks do not want them having a 3rd appealing option to choose from in best tv windows. They don’t want to kill off fans though either, so they give a livable wage based on off-peak tv windows to maintain interest/hope from M1 constituency

They’ll even do things like schedule two appealing Big 12 games in the same window, like last Friday, forcing Big 12 fans to cannibalize

So even if the M1 has top teams, they won’t consistently get good enough exposure to become top brands. That only gets more true with cord cutting and less linear TV

After 5 to 10 years, the P2 brand itself is such a value-add to schools, it will be extremely difficult to see outside programs rise like in previous eras

That doesn’t even get to things like the revenue sharing cap increasing to levels only P2 can meet with approved revenue streams. Why do you think the big brand, wealthy P2 want to eliminate inducement NIL? Making it based primarily off actual AD revenue is a huge advantage for them

 

[cykadelic2]

Doubtful. Just standard political lip-service

The P2 will add what they want from ACC, and perhaps Big 12, and the the networks will give the M1 a tenable enough offer it doesn’t bring federal intervention, just a silent decay

It’s not political lip service when there is plenty of evidence to suggest that media revenues will at least double for all of FBS by breaking up the B10/Fox and ESPN/SEC duopoly.

 

[FinalFourCy]

It’s not political lip service when there is plenty of evidence to suggest that media revenues will at least double for all of FBS by breaking up the B10/Fox and ESPN/SEC duopoly.

That’s a non sequitur

Feds aren’t normally going to interfere simply because parties are not commercially savvy, willingly missing out on revenues. Especially since they can argue less revenue but a bigger revenue advantage, is in their interest

Other schools seeing less of an increase in revenue is hardly worth politicians using political capital to go after the P2, which represent a huge amount of votes. The networks will make it only an opportunity cost to most M schools, removing liability

It’s also unlikely Feds step in and tell private schools and state entities how to sell their rights

Now, we’ve never had a more mercurial DC, in which anything is possible, but a bunch of press bluster and halfhearted attempts to add it to a bill is very typical of pacification of minority blocs

 

[cykadelic2]

That’s a non sequitur

Feds aren’t normally going to interfere simply because parties are not commercially savvy, willingly missing out on revenues. Especially since they can argue less revenue but a bigger revenue advantage, is in their interest

Other schools seeing less of an increase in revenue is hardly worth politicians using political capital to go after the P2, which represent a huge amount of votes. The networks will make it only an opportunity cost to most M schools, removing liability

It’s also unlikely Feds step in and tell private schools and state entities how to sell their rights

Now, we’ve never had a more mercurial DC, in which anything is possible, but a bunch of press bluster and halfhearted attempts to add it to a bill is very typical of pacification of minority blocs

If/when the SBA gets amended, it won’t be done to maintain the duopoly status quo. It will be done to facilitate full FBS media rights pooling.

 

[FinalFourCy]

If/when the SBA gets amended, it won’t be done to maintain the duopoly status quo. It will be done to facilitate full FBS media rights pooling.

There’s no indication it’s likely the SBA gets amended, let alone how that necessarily results in schools deciding to pool. Schools are more interested in hanging out in their desired country club than maximize TV revenue

It’s going to take a lot of up front investment to entice schools to pool. Not Fed intervention. And that better occur quickly, as once the top ACC are locked into the P2, it becomes very difficult to unwind

Campbell should spend his money on getting a fund together that can double the P2 rate for the first 12 schools willing to accept. Forcing the P2 at least go to unequal revenue sharing in order to not lose schools. Perhaps he can offer his pal Trump equity in the venture

 

[cykadelic2]

There’s no indication it’s likely the SBA gets amended, let alone how that necessarily results in schools deciding to pool. Schools are more interested in hanging out in their desired country club than maximize TV revenue

It’s going to take a lot of up front investment to entice schools to pool. Not Fed intervention. And that better occur quickly, as once the top ACC are locked into the P2, it becomes very difficult to unwind

Campbell should spend his money on getting a fund together that can double the P2 rate for the first 12 schools willing to accept. Forcing the P2 at least go to unequal revenue sharing in order to not lose schools. Perhaps he can offer his pal Trump equity in the venture

LOL, P2 Boy threatened by the rational mind of Cody Campbell. And suggesting that schools would rather hang out in a country club than maximize revenue is quite the gem.

 

[FinalFourCy]

LOL, P2 Boy threatened by the rational mind of Cody Campbell. And suggesting that schools would rather hang out in a country club than maximize revenue is quite the gem.

I understand why you resort to this. You can’t refute anything because you’re reliant on blind faith more than reason. I agree it’s a frustrating situation.

You’ve missed the point on Campbell. I support his efforts, but SBA amendment isn’t sufficient, or requisite. Money external to the networks is needed to pool in order to lure P2 schools away from the duopoly, that is required and sufficient.

You’re not getting away from the duopoly, even with pooling, most of the rights will be sold to them. The duopoly money, historically used to pool the schools they want, needs to be replaced, with the investor putting up that money getting roi by selling the pool back to the duopoly and others.

This “threat” of PE+pooling seems as though it most likely results in the duopoly adding more schools to the P2 and increasing the P2 payouts.

 

[Al_4_State]

The SEC or BIG will definitely take FSU and Clemson imo

Both the P2 HQ and their networks want to eliminate the top brands being outside the P2

Combining the best of ACC and best of Big 12 is how a new entrant starts a Superleague. Start with those schools, then overpay to lure a disgruntled or frustrated P2 mercenary like A&M, and you now have a third conference that can be used as a way to execute a hostile takeover of college football rights.

This is exactly what I think is coming.

UVA and GA Tech to the Big 10 for 20. FSU, Clemson, UNC, and Miami to the SEC for 20.

Louisville, Pitt, NCSU, Cuse, VA Tech, and SMU are going to hook up with the Big 12 for whatever that becomes.

Duke feels like a total wild card that I could going to any of those places.

Wake and BC will probably end up like Wazzu and Oregon State. Who knows about CalFord.

 

[CascadeClone]

It’s not political lip service when there is plenty of evidence to suggest that media revenues will at least double for all of FBS by breaking up the B10/Fox and ESPN/SEC duopoly.

Exactly. That's why Google and Microsoft are going to start sharing all their search ad revenue with Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Baidu, etc. It's pretty much a truism in business that if you are the top dog, you definitely want to help the competition as much as possible.

 

[cykadelic2]

You’ve missed the point on Campbell. I support his efforts, but SBA amendment isn’t sufficient, or requisite. Money external to the networks is needed to pool in order to lure P2 schools away from the duopoly is required and sufficient.

You’re not getting away from the duopoly, even with pooling, most of the rights will be sold to them. The duopoly money, historically used to pool the schools they want, needs to be replaced, with the investor putting up that money getting roi by selling the pool back to the duopoly and others.

This “threat” of PE+pooling seems as though it most likely results in the duopoly adding more schools to the P2 and increasing the P2 payouts.

You have completely missed the boat on pooling on multiple counts:

Money external to the networks is not needed to lure some existing SEC/B10 schools away from the duopoly. The new money will come in from CBS/Skydance, Amazon, NBC, Apple, etc. with the pooling mechanism and 7x10 realignment where the top brands aren't all concentrated in the SEC and B10.

Pooling and rational realignment go hand in hand with those 7 conference packages bid out individually or bundled together in 2-conference packages. And in both scenarios, a portion of annual CFP rights would be included in those bid packages NFL-style to max out revenues. And this is exactly why revenues would be at least doubled and possibly tripled.

The Saga Of TN's QB Reveals Brokenness Of College Sports

The saga surrounding Tennessee's Nico Iamaleava reveals the fundamental brokenness of college sports in this country.

thefederalist.com

 

[1UNI2ISU]

Three points.

1) CBS/Skydance and NBC are already paying what they want to pay for college football. Why would they up their spend to have to take games that they don't want? They want Big Ten football, they've got Big Ten football at a price they want to have it at.

2) I'd be pretty damn careful about opening up the SBA. The NFL has 10x the lobbying power college football does and the result of opening up the SBA is NFL football every night from Sept 1 through Feb 1 and nothing is going to hurt college football revenue more than an NFL game on Friday night and a tripleheader every Saturday that eats your exclusivity.

3) I still haven't heard a convincing argument about how you bring the SEC/Big Ten to the negotiating table for something they are vehemently against and how you force the G6 into a different subdivision with a different playoff that they don't want.

 

[FinalFourCy]

You have completely missed the boat on pooling on multiple counts:

Money external to the networks is not needed to lure some existing SEC/B10 schools away from the duopoly. The new money will come in from CBS/Skydance, Amazon, NBC, Apple, etc. with the pooling mechanism and 7x10 realignment where the top brands aren't all concentrated in the SEC and B10.

The Saga Of TN's QB Reveals Brokenness Of College Sports

The saga surrounding Tennessee's Nico Iamaleava reveals the fundamental brokenness of college sports in this country.

thefederalist.com

You don’t understand how these type of deals get executed

No P2 school is going jump for a concept. Particularly when they’re already comfortable. There has to be certainty.

Some entity has to in essence pre-sell the pooled rights to viable offtake. Streaming isn’t that, and it’s not likely P2 benefactors like CBS and NBC will help facilitate pooling when the whole notion is it means TV right fees go up. Why help make a single pool and pay more, when they can help the P2 pool, and pay less?

There is an inefficiency there, that espn has long exploited, conference HQs and schools just happy to make more than before, and one in which PE is now looking to carve out their share

Private capital buys the pre-sell, providing guarantees. If the investor pools enough pertinent rights, they can extract max revenue from networks. They likely have to overspend the first round to aggregate enough pertinent rights, then make ROI on future rounds. Spending billions to kill competition is SAP though

 

[cykadelic2]

Three points.

1) CBS/Skydance and NBC are already paying what they want to pay for college football. Why would they up their spend to have to take games that they don't want? They want Big Ten football, they've got Big Ten football at a price they want to have it at.

2) I'd be pretty damn careful about opening up the SBA. The NFL has 10x the lobbying power college football does and the result of opening up the SBA is NFL football every night from Sept 1 through Feb 1 and nothing is going to hurt college football revenue more than an NFL game on Friday night and a tripleheader every Saturday that eats your exclusivity.

3) I still haven't heard a convincing argument about how you bring the SEC/Big Ten to the negotiating table for something they are vehemently against and how you force the G6 into a different subdivision with a different playoff that they don't want.

1) CBS/Skydance has new ownership who weren't involved in their existing deal with Fox. And their new ownership has made it well known that they will spend more than what they currently do for live sports including the #2 most watched sport in the US. And NBC/Peacock have been actively growing their sports portfolio and have the bandwidth with NBC/Peacock/USA to accommodate an entire conference in addition to ND if they have also have access to CFP rights. Same with Amazon and Apple.

2) Your Point #2 has no merit at all. The NFL won't be impacted by CFB pooling granted under the SBA amendment. In fact, pooling and 7x10 rational realignment would facilitate a CFP format that doesn't conflict with NFL and enable more CFP revenues.

3) LOL, you're intentionally refusing to acknowledge the convincing argument for some strange reason. The convincing argument is doubling/tripling of revenues for SEC and B10 ADs while maintaining a revenue advantage over other conferences. And for sure, ESPN/Fox and their puppets will be against it but not SEC/B10 Presidents/ADs who need the extra money while ESPN/Fox obviously don't want to spend any more money than they have to with additional brand consolidation and significant B12/ACC financial relegation while keeping new entrants essentially out of the CFB space.

And as stated multiple times before, G5s also have the potential of doubling their media revenues with pooling and the added benefit of legitimately competing for national championships like every other NCAA sport.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

1) CBS/Skydance has new ownership who weren't involved in their existing deal with Fox. And their new ownership has made it well known that they will spend more than what they currently do for live sports including the #2 most watched sport in the US.

2) Your Point #2 has no merit at all. The NFL won't be impacted by CFB pooling granted under the SBA amendment. In fact, pooling and 7x10 rational realignment would facilitate a CFP format that doesn't conflict with NFL and enable more CFP revenues.

3) LOL, you're intentionally refusing to acknowledge the convincing argument for some strange reason. The convincing argument is doubling/tripling of revenues for SEC and B10 ADs while maintaining a revenue advantage over other conferences. And for sure, ESPN/Fox and their puppets will be against it but not SEC/B10 Presidents/ADs who need the extra money while ESPN/Fox obviously don't want to spend any more money than they have to with additional brand consolidation and significant B12/ACC financial relegation while keeping new entrants essentially out of the CFB space.

And as stated multiple times before, G5s also have the potential of doubling their media revenues with pooling and the added benefit of legitimately competing for national championships like every other NCAA sport.

1) I'll accept that though that ownership's first love is soccer.

2) You're absolutely naive if you don't think the NFL jumps through that open door. The moment that law is up for debate/discussion, the entire law is up for changes and review and the NFL has more leverage than college football could ever dream of. The NFL is already squawking about losing Friday night of Week 1 because of how the calendar falls the next few years.

3) The Big Ten and SEC would rather keep the advantages they have than cut everybody else in. Increasing your revenue doesn't do any good if you have to subsidize MORE mouths than you already do. If the G6 cared about playing for national championships, they'd save a **** ton of money and go the FCS. They like the setup they've got now and don't want to play in a secondary playoff that no one is going to care about.

 

[SolterraCyclone]

1) I'll accept that though that ownership's first love is soccer.

2) You're absolutely naive if you don't think the NFL jumps through that open door. The moment that law is up for debate/discussion, the entire law is up for changes and review and the NFL has more leverage than college football could ever dream of. The NFL is already squawking about losing Friday night of Week 1 because of how the calendar falls the next few years.

3) The Big Ten and SEC would rather keep the advantages they have than cut everybody else in. Increasing your revenue doesn't do any good if you have to subsidize MORE mouths than you already do. If the G6 cared about playing for national championships, they'd save a **** ton of money and go the FCS. They like the setup they've got now and don't want to play in a secondary playoff that no one is going to care about.

I’m not going into another debate Cykadelic because he doesn’t speak in reality, only what Cody Campbell says.

But this is bolded part is imo the third biggest threat to CFB today. The NFL absolutely is setting up to challenge that law as is. College football challenging it would do their work for them. The minute the NFL starts putting 2-3 games weekly on Saturday they will cut CFB’s ratings/revenue in half.

 

[cykadelic2]

2) You're absolutely naive if you don't think the NFL jumps through that open door. The moment that law is up for debate/discussion, the entire law is up for changes and review and the NFL has more leverage than college football could ever dream of. The NFL is already squawking about losing Friday night of Week 1 because of how the calendar falls the next few years.

3) The Big Ten and SEC would rather keep the advantages they have than cut everybody else in. Increasing your revenue doesn't do any good if you have to subsidize MORE mouths than you already do. If the G6 cared about playing for national championships, they'd save a **** ton of money and go the FCS. They like the setup they've got now and don't want to play in a secondary playoff that no one is going to care about.

2) There is no incentive for the NFL to further amend the SBA on their end and they aren't losing anything with CFB seeking their amendment. And do really think the Feds would further amend the SBA for the NFL to CFB's detriment shortly after amending it to CFB's significant benefit. Your argument here has no merit.

3) The overall health of college sports supersedes any foolish argument that the SEC and B10 would have in maintaining their advantages especially when the SEC and B10 double/triple their revenues with pooling and rational realignment. As JP recently stated, ADs in the SEC and B10 have no desire to financially destroy any more B12, ACC and G5 schools despite what ESPN and Fox may desire otherwise.

Watch this and get educated: