Here’s a bombshell

[ThabeetDown]

With the money and prestige on the table, the GOR will be a negotiated exit for teams leaving the ACC.

Exactly. There is ZERO chance the ACC stays intact until 2037. It won't even keep all its members until 2027. Clemson/FSU and probably Miami will be in the SEC within the next 5 years and there is nothing the ACC can do about it.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Wild times again. I can see the ACC and PAC trying to pick off the best pieces of the Big 12. And the ACC’s case, possibly UConn. It’s our only hope. It’s not going to be just two conferences, the belief was it would be four. The B1G and SEC will just be the strongest.

TV markets still matter, but not as much as brand recognition and a national following. Not sure why people don’t get that.

ACC has to think about how far west it wants to go. A school like Kansas may need to think about whether to throw in with the PAC or ACC (assuming the B1G doesn’t call, which they’d love).

 

[Chin Diesel]

Pure speculation but trying to keep some sense of reality for the B1G.

USC and UCLA are now in the fold. The expansion is done for the time being statement is true but by the time you say the phrase "for the time being" the time being has passed. I think B1g still has eyes out west. Stanford to me is a logical partner for NDU. Another private school with elite academics, great olympic sports and the San Fran TV market. Gives the B1G great private academics with Northwestern, NDU, Stanford and USC.

I think Oregon is in. Phil Knight and Nike aren't sitting around to be left scrambling.

So, if you have Stanford, NDU and Oregon, you need one more. For me this comes down to Arizona or UW. Do you want the Northwest or the Southwest. You can convince me either way but I keep going back to would you rather road trip to Phoenix or Seattle? Where do B1G fans go to retire? Which location has better opportunities for bowl games in December and January?

So, I think the end game is NDU, Stanford, Oregon and UA. If NDU is a no go, I think you can still put in UW and have a Washington, Arizona, Stanford and Oregon grouping and still make it work.

EDIT: Even though I think we are well past the charade, Arizona, Washington, Stanford and Oregon are all AAU members.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Wild times again. I can see the ACC and PAC trying to pick off the best pieces of the Big 12. And the ACC’s case, possibly UConn. It’s our only hope. It’s not going to be just two conferences, the belief was it would be four. The B1G and SEC will just be the strongest.

TV markets still matter, but not as much as brand recognition and a national following. Not sure why people don’t get that.

ACC has to think about how far west it wants to go. A school like Kansas may need to think about whether to throw in with the PAC or ACC (assuming the B1G doesn’t call, which they’d love).

 

[JeepCSC]

Well you convinced me on Arizona over Washington, good thoughts.

 

[QuickDraw]

Oops, I misunderstood the title

 

[Tenspro2002]

Pure speculation but trying to keep some sense of reality for the B1G.

USC and UCLA are now in the fold. The expansion is done for the time being statement is true but by the time you say the phrase "for the time being" the time being has passed. I think B1g still has eyes out west. Stanford to me is a logical partner for NDU. Another private school with elite academics, great olympic sports and the San Fran TV market. Gives the B1G great private academics with Northwestern, NDU, Stanford and USC.

I think Oregon is in. Phil Knight and Nike aren't sitting around to be left scrambling.

So, if you have Stanford, NDU and Oregon, you need one more. For me this comes down to Arizona or UW. Do you want the Northwest or the Southwest. You can convince me either way but I keep going back to would you rather road trip to Phoenix or Seattle? Where do B1G fans go to retire? Which location has better opportunities for bowl games in December and January?

So, I think the end game is NDU, Stanford, Oregon and UA. If NDU is a no go, I think you can still put in UW and have a Washington, Arizona, Stanford and Oregon grouping and still make it work.

EDIT: Even though I think we are well past the charade, Arizona, Washington, Stanford and Oregon are all AAU members.

Why not Cal? The B1G is big on state flagships, and they would bring Bay Area interest.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Why not Cal? The B1G is big on state flagships, and they would bring Bay Area interest.

Pure speculation on my part, but I think if you are trying to lure NDU to the B1G, you go with Stanford over Cal. Even without NDU I think Stanford has the better national profile and olympic sports. B1G already has UCLAs as an elite public university and if they add some combo of Arizona, Oregon or Washington, they have plenty more state flagships.

Again, just an opinion but I don't think Cal has near the brand recognition athletically as Stanford.

 

[QDOG5]

Yes, I am quite certain the B1G or any other conference would love to have ND.

This statement is true. ND can pick which conference it wants to join the only difference this time is ND won't be able to dictate the terms.

 

[NowInStorrs]

Is anyone still going to have a cable subscription in 5 or 10 years?

 

[McLovin]

People acting like GOR is iron clad are hilarious. Literally nothing is impossible to skirt around.

I haven’t read the ACC contract but here’s an potential work around. The BIG or SEC pays a school $50 mil per year. $5 mil is their media rights, $45 mil is for the conference to us the schools brand / likeness to “market the conference”.

Point is, they will figure out other ways for the money to get to these school in a way that keeps it from the hands of the ACC (if it even still exists in a few years).

 

[HuskyHawk]

Pure speculation on my part, but I think if you are trying to lure NDU to the B1G, you go with Stanford over Cal. Even without NDU I think Stanford has the better national profile and olympic sports. B1G already has UCLAs as an elite public university and if they add some combo of Arizona, Oregon or Washington, they have plenty more state flagships.

Again, just an opinion but I don't think Cal has near the brand recognition athletically as Stanford.

Agreed. Neither has a huge fan following in the Bay Area except when they play each other. I was surprised by this when I lived there, but the student bodies of both schools just aren’t that into sports. Variety of reasons for that.

 

[CL82]

I’m not disputing any of this. All I’m saying is I assume all of Ct is either already getting the B1G network if u r in the NY market or Acc network if u r in the Boston market. Adding UConn doesn’t add any additional RSN fees. Before RU joined the B1G my cable didn’t charge me for B1G network…now they do.

My assumption is that once UCLA and USC join the B1G network will be on most of California cable packages. At $2 per month that’s a nice annuity BEFORE They renegotiate the tv deal

Sort of. The Big Ten receives a premium rate for households within the NYDMA, which includes Fairfield County. they are not getting it for the remaining 2 million people in the rest of the state. (Really, this discussion is more accurate if you talk about households rather than population, I just don’t know those numbers off the top of my head.) So adding Connecticut does give the big 10 a potential revenue boost. The question is whether that revenue boost is enough to pay for Connecticut getting a share of the rest of the Big 10’s income distributions. My guess is probably not.

Fortuitously, that is not the only criteria as the world drifts away from cable TV and moves towards a subscription TV model. There, total fans become important, so that has to be included in modeling the revenue that Connecticut would bring. I’m still not confident that the math works, but it’s not as simple as whether or not every part of the state gets the BTN.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Who wants to pick the tipping point when fans decide that college sports is just a minor league for the pros and stop giving a spit about it?

 

[Hurleyman216]

This whole conference consolidation is stupid and I think long-term it’s killing college sports whose fans find themselves playing teams they don’t care about. I think this is a lot like big conglomerate companies that consolidate and eventually get too big for their own good. At some point these huge conferences will get small again as soon as there’s more value in breaking up. I don’t think the media companies/commissioners driving this realize how much the tv ratings will drop will all these teams changing conferences. The reality is there are still about 8-10 programs that are far more valuable than anyone else, so at some point the Texas, Michigans, Ohio States, Norte Dames of the world may just say “let’s form our own 8-10 team super conference”. In a 20-24 team league more than half of those teams will not be pulling their media payout weight. It actually just leads to more instability.

 

[CL82]

This statement is true. ND can pick which conference it wants to join the only difference this time is ND won't be able to dictate the terms.

Who are they going to join? The ACC and get left behind in the media rights arms race? The big 12? The Pac 12? No, the “choice” is either the Big Ten or the SEC. Do you see Notre Dame joining the SEC? I don’t either.

 

[upstater]

Are you saying the big10 isn’t interested in also adding UW and oregon etc? I bet they are

The B1G is not going to incorporate 6 Pac-10 teams. The money is huge but it's finite. All I'm saying is that the Pac10 left behinds are a lot more valuable than the top B12 schools, so they'd be negotiating from a position of strength.

So--ok, fine, give them Oregon and Washington, then look at who remains:

Cal-Berkeley, Stanford, Arizona, Arizona St., Colorado, Utah, Oregon State, Washington State.

I'd take these 8 schools every single day over Texas Tech, Oklahoma St, TCU, Baylor, Kansas St., West Virginia, Iowa State, Cincy, UCF, Houston, BYU.

Kansas is the one I wonder about since their bball has some appeal.

 

[Stinger92860]

Sort of. The Big Ten receives a premium rate for households within the NYDMA, which includes Fairfield County. they are not getting it for the remaining 2 million people in the rest of the state. (Really, this discussion is more accurate if you talk about households rather than population, I just don’t know those numbers off the top of my head.) So it in Connecticut does give the big 10 a revenue boost. The question is whether that revenue boost is enough to pay for Connecticut getting a share of the rest of the big 10’s income distributions. My guess is probably not.

Fortuitously, that is not the only criteria as the world drifts away from cable TV and moves towards a subscription TV model. There, total fans become important, so that has to be included in modeling the revenue that Connecticut would bring. I’m still not confident that the math works, but it’s not as simple as whether or not every part of the state gets the BTN.

There are 345,000 households in Fairfield County, which is more since the last time I checked. Added to the Hartford and New Haven dma would rank CT number 21 in size. Think about this. We are the #21 DMA with no professional teams and we are not in a Px conference. Again, we don’t ask for a full share. That’s probably where this is headed anyway. You get paid based on contribution.

 

[uconndogs]

Who wants to pick the tipping point when fans decide that college sports is just a minor league for the pros and stop giving a spit about it?

THIS^^^^^^

With all the greed on all sides, the question has to be asked. Did they lose perspective on what's important to the consumer of this entertainment?

I have already begun watching my football on Sundays at the expense of what I used to watch on Saturdays. I only see that trend continuing. Why do I want to watch minor league professional football when 24 hours later I can watch the best in the world play.

College football, at least in it's previous form was something different and it's certainly not 40 or so minor league pro franchises.

 

[upstater]

Pure speculation but trying to keep some sense of reality for the B1G.

USC and UCLA are now in the fold. The expansion is done for the time being statement is true but by the time you say the phrase "for the time being" the time being has passed. I think B1g still has eyes out west. Stanford to me is a logical partner for NDU. Another private school with elite academics, great olympic sports and the San Fran TV market. Gives the B1G great private academics with Northwestern, NDU, Stanford and USC.

I think Oregon is in. Phil Knight and Nike aren't sitting around to be left scrambling.

So, if you have Stanford, NDU and Oregon, you need one more. For me this comes down to Arizona or UW. Do you want the Northwest or the Southwest. You can convince me either way but I keep going back to would you rather road trip to Phoenix or Seattle? Where do B1G fans go to retire? Which location has better opportunities for bowl games in December and January?

So, I think the end game is NDU, Stanford, Oregon and UA. If NDU is a no go, I think you can still put in UW and have a Washington, Arizona, Stanford and Oregon grouping and still make it work.

EDIT: Even though I think we are well past the charade, Arizona, Washington, Stanford and Oregon are all AAU members.

Knight is like 80 years old, no?

These decisions are generational.

Nike's next leadership team has no sentimental ties to Oregon.

 

[upstater]

People acting like GOR is iron clad are hilarious. Literally nothing is impossible to skirt around.

I haven’t read the ACC contract but here’s an potential work around. The BIG or SEC pays a school $50 mil per year. $5 mil is their media rights, $45 mil is for the conference to us the schools brand / likeness to “market the conference”.

Point is, they will figure out other ways for the money to get to these school in a way that keeps it from the hands of the ACC (if it even still exists in a few years).

???

The B1G would be losing money here since the payout comes from the TV networks to the conference. The networks don't care if it's for TV or brand or whatever. Who cares?

I don't understand your argument.

Hypothetically, TV gives the B1G $200 for 20 teams, that would mean each team gets $10m. That money gets sent to the ACC.

So if the B1G is doling out money to its new school from the ACC (something it never did for Penn State, Rutgers, Maryland), then the B1G schools are all losing money. For more than a decade.

 

[upstater]

THIS^^^^^^

With all the greed on all sides, the question has to be asked. Did they lose perspective on what's important to the consumer of this entertainment?

I have already begun watching my football on Sundays at the expense of what I used to watch on Saturdays. I only see that trend continuing. Why do I want to watch minor league professional football when 24 hours later I can watch the best in the world play.

College football, at least in it's previous form was something different and it's certainly not 40 or so minor league pro franchises.

In the south, it will probably always be important

 

[Ha Who]

People acting like GOR is iron clad are hilarious. Literally nothing is impossible to skirt around.

I haven’t read the ACC contract but here’s an potential work around. The BIG or SEC pays a school $50 mil per year. $5 mil is their media rights, $45 mil is for the conference to us the schools brand / likeness to “market the conference”.

Point is, they will figure out other ways for the money to get to these school in a way that keeps it from the hands of the ACC (if it even still exists in a few years).

Get me 11,780 votes

 

[TGW93]

I'm surprisingly optimistic about this one.
We are fine where we are - let the chaos reign. If nothing changes, it's still better than the AAC and we'll have better (and better) football games scheduled.
However, I think the B1G is really after DMAs. They now have a monopoly on the #2/#3/#4 DMAs. There are two teams left that, when combined with Rutgers, capture (for all intents and purposes) the #1 DMA - ND and us.

 

[superjohn]

THIS^^^^^^

With all the greed on all sides, the question has to be asked. Did they lose perspective on what's important to the consumer of this entertainment?

I have already begun watching my football on Sundays at the expense of what I used to watch on Saturdays. I only see that trend continuing. Why do I want to watch minor league professional football when 24 hours later I can watch the best in the world play.

College football, at least in it's previous form was something different and it's certainly not 40 or so minor league pro franchises.

I agree they've lost perspective but I'm guessing you watch UConn basketball since you post here. Why do you want to watch minor league professional basketball when there's 30 NBA teams with the best in the world playing?