Conference Realignment

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#504      
ChiefGritty
ILL_INI said:
@ChiefGritty outed (not that way, his real identity!)

Opinion: Big Ten should reject 'manifest destiny' in realignment, with fan interest in college sports at risk
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Ha, I've been exposed!

One note about Iowa State for whatever its worth is that they have been very aggressive in recent years with recruiting and scholarships in attracting students from Chicago suburban high schools, and are now getting kids at the level of an Iowa or Wisconsin if not more so. A friend of mine who teaches at a high school in the NW suburbs told me they had like 30 kids go to Iowa State last year, the most of any four year school.

Anyway, I think the thing that defines my thinking on this is the question of whether these moves are intended to harvest and monetize interest in Big Ten sports and college sports writ large in the immediate term, or whether they're intended to grow that interest over the longer term. Is it a dividend or is it an investment?

There's a sort of fuddy-duddy quasi-moral dimension to that, and you can analogize it to our broader culture if you want to, but I think it's particularly important in college sports because at a very basic level the wild success of college sports doesn't make a ton of sense, given that no other minor league sport has anywhere near the same popularity. You can put a very pretty flower arrangement in a vase, but by taking them out of the soil that grew them, it's a matter of time until they wilt and die.

NASCAR is a cautionary tale here. Had a moment of growth and excitement in the 90's, reached for bigger bigger bigger, more more more, forgot who it was, alienated its core audience and now it's in a much weaker position in the very competitive sports and entertainment field than it had been.
 
#506      
GilThorpe
nice blog today by Frank the Tank, who as many know is a fellow alum of the beloved
I dont for a minute doubt Bowlsby's accusations against ESPN yesterday. I have learned to really dislike most things about that network now, and beliefve they are a driving force in this UT-OU move to the SEC.

If Texas thinks its going to do better overall in that league in football, they are going to be very surprised.

One thing no one has tried to guess yet, and that is where does the SEC make the East-West division line? geogaphically and move Bama & Auburn to the east and UT & OU to the west ? or some other hybrid ?
 
#507      
champaignchris
ChiefGritty said:
Ha, I've been exposed!

One note about Iowa State for whatever its worth is that they have been very aggressive in recent years with recruiting and scholarships in attracting students from Chicago suburban high schools, and are now getting kids at the level of an Iowa or Wisconsin if not more so. A friend of mine who teaches at a high school in the NW suburbs told me they had like 30 kids go to Iowa State last year, the most of any four year school.

Anyway, I think the thing that defines my thinking on this is the question of whether these moves are intended to harvest and monetize interest in Big Ten sports and college sports writ large in the immediate term, or whether they're intended to grow that interest over the longer term. Is it a dividend or is it an investment?

There's a sort of fuddy-duddy quasi-moral dimension to that, and you can analogize it to our broader culture if you want to, but I think it's particularly important in college sports because at a very basic level the wild success of college sports doesn't make a ton of sense, given that no other minor league sport has anywhere near the same popularity. You can put a very pretty flower arrangement in a vase, but by taking them out of the soil that grew them, it's a matter of time until they wilt and die.

NASCAR is a cautionary tale here. Had a moment of growth and excitement in the 90's, reached for bigger bigger bigger, more more more, forgot who it was, alienated its core audience and now it's in a much weaker position in the very competitive sports and entertainment field than it had been.
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Iowa State is quite easily the most Big 10-ish university not currently in the Big 10. They would fit into the conference in pretty much every respect and it's something of a historical fluke that they haven't already been in the conference for decades. The Big 10 picked Michigan State over Iowa State to join the conference after University of Chicago left.

So as a fan, I'd love to see Iowa State in the Big 10. But the reality is, Iowa St doesn't bring in any addition money. So it will probably not happen. The way I see it, it would take 2 things for Iowa State to get into the Big 10:

1. Iowa would have to be 110% on board. Not just a little bit. They would have to be actively campaigning for Iowa St's inclusion the way Virginia did for Virginia Tech's inclusion to the ACC. And for that to happen, there would probably have to be pretty significant political pressure coming down from Iowa's state government. I know nothing about Iowa politics or the relationship between U of Iowa and Iowa State, but if there's been any lobbying in favor of Iowa State on the part of the state government or U of Iowa, it hasn't reached a level to make any news outside of that state.

2. Iowa State would have to be coming in as a pair with another school and that other school would have to be an absolute, no doubt, home run, touchdown, slam dunk of an addition. i.e., Notre Dame.
 
#508      
TheChief4Life
ChiefGritty said:
It's so crystal clear to me what the answers are, and yet everything in this conversation here and in the media just blindly presumes the opposite.
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Because your scenario is based on a wide hypothetical. While technically everything is hypothetical, most people on this board are basing their hypothetical on the reality of what is and what history has shown us in regards to how, or if, the B1G expands. As of right now, at 1:28 CST, there is no way any PAC-12 team is joining the B1G. There is no way any ACC team is joining the B1G. There is no way any non-AAU team (except ND) is joining the B1G.

Hypothetically speaking, we can all come up with crazy ideas that would show us why one scenario is more likely than another. If California has an earthquake at 1:30 that drops it into the ocean, then we can all safely assume USC is probably not joining the B1G. Hypothetically.
 
#511      
ChiefGritty
GilThorpe said:
I dont for a minute doubt Bowlsby's accusations against ESPN yesterday. I have learned to really dislike most things about that network now, and beliefve they are a driving force in this UT-OU move to the SEC.
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Oh without question. Remember, SEC on CBS goes away after 2024(5?), ESPN is going to own the SEC and ACC back-to-front, and knows that they are the only viable partner for an expanded CFP. They're on track to own the entirety of major college football, which will then almost certainly have most of the inventory go behind a paywall a la how the Premier League works in the UK.

Do some combination of Fox Sports, CBS, and/or other probably Amazon-type players have the stomach to fight?

An 8 or more team CFP is the death of the sport, no other way to say it. I'm praying something intercedes.

First tier rights to the weekly 2:30 SEC slot, everything else to Fox, and the Rose Bowl split between them for my proposed Big Ten/Pac 16 amalgamation with the Big 12 remnants. Drown the expanded CFP in the bathtub while you still can.
 
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#513      
Old.Edgy
Ransom Stoddard said:
The ones that are already bottom dwellers in the SEC, B1G, ACC, or PAC.

Would you rather play in the minors, or the worst team in the majors?
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My understanding of this 'super league' is that those that are already bottom dwellers in the SEC, B1G, ACC, or PAC wouldn't be INVITED to be in a super-league... Only the 'super-teams' would make up this league... So if only super teams from SEC, B1G, ACC, or PAC made up this new league, clearly half of those teams would end up with losing records - year after year - or at best the majority would end up with 6-6 records, defeating the purpose of having the super league in the first place.
 
#514      
ChiefGritty
Joel Goodson said:
The elephant in the room is a benevolent merger vs. a gutting.
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Give a man a fish: Iowa State and Kansas to the B1G
Teach a man to fish: B1G/Pac 1x join forces on a TV deal
Murder and eat the guy teaching you to fish: B1G raids and destroys Pac 12

Anybody who can't see the symbiotic relationship between those two conferences has had their eyeball glued to the wrong end of the telescope, I'm sorry.
 
#515      
mattcoldagelli
Joel Goodson said:
Yeah, it's not rocket surgery.
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Right, I mean, as much as I'd like to think we here at Loyalty are at the vanguard of thinking about the future of college sports, the most likely partners are the hugely similar conferences that have already partnered in various degrees for several decades and who often look askance at what traditionally football-first schools do.

Also, way too much is being made of the scheduling. Oh no, Illinois games won't start at 11 am? How will we go on?
 
#516      
ILL_INI
ChiefGritty said:
Ha, I've been exposed!

One note about Iowa State for whatever its worth is that they have been very aggressive in recent years with recruiting and scholarships in attracting students from Chicago suburban high schools, and are now getting kids at the level of an Iowa or Wisconsin if not more so. A friend of mine who teaches at a high school in the NW suburbs told me they had like 30 kids go to Iowa State last year, the most of any four year school.

Anyway, I think the thing that defines my thinking on this is the question of whether these moves are intended to harvest and monetize interest in Big Ten sports and college sports writ large in the immediate term, or whether they're intended to grow that interest over the longer term. Is it a dividend or is it an investment?

There's a sort of fuddy-duddy quasi-moral dimension to that, and you can analogize it to our broader culture if you want to, but I think it's particularly important in college sports because at a very basic level the wild success of college sports doesn't make a ton of sense, given that no other minor league sport has anywhere near the same popularity. You can put a very pretty flower arrangement in a vase, but by taking them out of the soil that grew them, it's a matter of time until they wilt and die.

NASCAR is a cautionary tale here. Had a moment of growth and excitement in the 90's, reached for bigger bigger bigger, more more more, forgot who it was, alienated its core audience and now it's in a much weaker position in the very competitive sports and entertainment field than it had been.
Click to expand...
Why do you keep calling college sports minor league sports when college football is the second most popular sport in the country, ahead of professional sports MLB, the NBA and the NHL? College football has always been popular. Memorial Stadium was built close to 100 years ago!
 
#517      
mattcoldagelli
ILL_INI said:
Why do you keep calling college sports minor league sports when college football is the second most popular sport in the country, ahead of professional sports MLB, the NBA and the NHL? College football has always been popular. Memorial Stadium was built close to 100 years ago!
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Because it is definitionally a minor league sport? It showcases players so they can be evaluated and possibly chosen by the higher-tier professional leagues, where the best players play for money.
 
#518      
Lincster27
champaignchris said:
1. Iowa would have to be 110% on board. Not just a little bit. They would have to be actively campaigning for Iowa St's inclusion the way Virginia did for Virginia Tech's inclusion to the ACC. And for that to happen, there would probably have to be pretty significant political pressure coming down from Iowa's state government. I know nothing about Iowa politics or the relationship between U of Iowa and Iowa State, but if there's been any lobbying in favor of Iowa State on the part of the state government or U of Iowa, it hasn't reached a level to make any news outside of that state.
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Iowa's three public universities (Iowa, ISU, Northern Iowa) are all governed by the Iowa Board of Regents. Like most boards of that type, it's a pretty political board. The members are supposed to be non-partisan when it comes to their individual loyalties, but that hardly ever happens. I saw a tweet that showed the letter that the Texas A&M system board issued that directed the system president to vote in favor of the inclusion of OU and Texas in the SEC. I'm not sure whether the Regents would take that step or not. Really, though, there's no good reason for Iowa to lobby against ISU. They're already heated rivals, which would only be amplified by a conference affiliation. To see how that works, look at the states of Michigan and Indiana, with two B1G programs each. When I lived in Oklahoma, the two weekends a year when OU played OSU, the state shut down for the day, and most eyes were watching football. Moving an in-state rivalry to an in-state conference rivalry would be a goldmine for both Iowa and ISU.
 
#519      
TheChief4Life
ChiefGritty said:
May I ask why ND gets an exception, in your mind?
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BEcause for some reason the B1G has made that the only exception (based on historical conference expansion discussions). To me, while I think the addition of Notre Dame would be a great addition to any conference, I do think the B1G is opening itself up for criticism of their conference expansion 'rules' by continuing to flirt with ND.
 
#520      
mattcoldagelli
ND was unlikely before and is now all but impossible given the expansion of the playoff.
 
#521      
TheChief4Life
mattcoldagelli said:
ND was unlikely before and is now all but impossible given the expansion of the playoff.
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Agreed. It still doesn't change the fact that if they called the B1G today and said "hey, we want in!", they would be accepted in a minute. The B1G would turn a blind eye in an instance to all previous precedent they've displayed and stated throughout history.

Notre Dame is the only school for which they would do that.
 
#522      
Pikeillinifan
mattcoldagelli said:
ND was unlikely before and is now all but impossible given the expansion of the playoff.
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Question: If we added some of the PAC brands and our payout got closer to $70M annually, would that entice ND? I'd have to think that would be big enough to make them think twice about riding on their own TV deal which is what, about $15-$20M annually?
 
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