How UConn athletic director David Benedict views conference realignment: ‘Landscape is changing’ (Borges)

[powerplay]

Call me crazy (I am) but if the ACC was smart and they were losing Clemson/FSU (and ND), they actually should just absorb the Big East and do a hybrid league. Let's face it, if you want to keep UNC happy it's through basketball and not football. Assuming the Big 12 stays put, you can add Memphis to bring it to an even football number (14) and then you'd have a 24 league basketball league you could regionalize into 3 divisions of 8. You could make a super basketball conference to rival the super football leagues -- it's your only hope, really to get as much money as possible.

To get your ~20 conference games, you play everyone in your division twice (14 games) and then 3 from each of the other divisions on a rotating basis. Big East Tournament in MSG could take the top 16 teams (top 4 from each division and then 4 "Wild Cards"). Hell, if you wanted to make it start on Tuesday and give out some byes to include all 24 teams, you could do that too.

(* denotes football school)

Big East Coast Conference North:

1. BC*
2. Syracuse*
3. UConn*
4. Providence
5. Villanova
6. Georgetown
7. St. Johns
8. Seton Hall

BECC Midwest

1. Memphis*
2. Louisville*
3. Marquette
4. Xavier
5. Butler
6. Creighton
7. DePaul
8. Pitt*

BECC South:

1. UVA*
2. Va Tech*
3. Duke*
4. NC State*
5. UNC*
6. Wake*
7. Ga Tech*
8. Miami*

A football conference of 14 teams is still solid: BC, Cuse, Pitt, Louisville, UVA, Va Tech, Duke, NC State, UNC, Wake, Ga Tech, Miami, Memphis, UConn. Let's face it, without Clemson or FSU the ACC is essentially useless in football -- but maybe Va Tech/Miami/Louisville/Pitt can catch fire every year and make some noise in an 8-team CFP. Also, how fun of a baseball conference would this be?

Interesting idea, if it came to fruition the potential for a hockey conference is there, but that's a whole different thread.

 

[HuskyHawk]

hot takes are being thrown about with reckless abandon so this is what i think is the ultimate outcome:

the 16 B1G schools, 16 SEC schools, and 18 Big12 schools (once theyve added UW, Oregon, CO, UU, AU, ASU) break football away from the NCAA. the 10 most valuable ACC schools (ND, Clemson, FSU, Miami, UNC, Duke, UVA, Vtech, Gtech, Lville) vote to leave thereby dissolving the GOR. Those 60 teams form their own football division and host their own CFP.

The 5 leftover ACC schools (Cuse, BC, Pitt, NC State, Wake) plus Temple, Navy, Army, and Memphis merge with the 11 BE schools to form a 20 team conference with 10 football playing schools (including UConn)

the 4 leftover PAC schools (Cal, Stanford, Wazzou, OR St) join the mountain west. the AAC leftovers (ECSU, USF, Tulane, Tulsa, SMU) either dissolve or backfill again w/ schools from CUSA, SunBelt, MAC.

This is the closest thing to realistic I've seen here. Barring this type of seismic shift, that ends those conferences as football conferences, the ACC schools are going to be in the ACC. Ultimately that kind of break-away means we have a football super league, a bunch of lower level football leagues, and then Olympic sports leagues. I'd add one qualifier, I don't think every school in the existing P5 gets to the super league. Some of them don't bring the value.

The potential positive is that those potential Olympic sports leagues can form along a rational, regional basis. Some historic rivalries can resume.

The other thing these schools may discover is that the grass isn't greener. Some of the super league will be perpetual also rans. Somebody has to lose. Today the lesser programs do a lot of the losing. Relegation would be great. But they'd never go for it.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Pretty good read on where we are and how we got there.

This is the point I've been trying to make "We also don’t know if the Big Ten is chasing markets or brands. My guess is they’re chasing brands because that’s what matters now. It’s not peak cable anymore. You’re not looking at market size. "

What the Big Ten's seismic move means for college football's TV future

What does USC and UCLA's jump to the Big Ten mean for college football's TV landscape? Our own Andy Staples joins for a conversation.

theathletic.com

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Interesting idea, if it came to fruition the potential for a hockey conference is there, but that's a whole different thread.

Where is that potential? Of the list in the quoted post, only three of those schools play hockey and they're already HE members. The only way any of this football realignment affects UConn hockey is if BC goes to the B1G and the chances of that are almost zero.

Hockey East is very well positioned to remain as is, and the top programs aren't going anywhere. BC and BU were invited to the NCHC when it formed and both quickly rejected. UMass isn't going anywhere. If UConn moved from the BE it wouldn't trigger a move out of HE unless it was to the B1G. But let's be real, that ain't happening.

 

[FlippinCrazy!]

Call me crazy (I am) but if the ACC was smart and they were losing Clemson/FSU (and ND), they actually should just absorb the Big East and do a hybrid league. Let's face it, if you want to keep UNC happy it's through basketball and not football. Assuming the Big 12 stays put, you can add Memphis to bring it to an even football number (14) and then you'd have a 24 league basketball league you could regionalize into 3 divisions of 8. You could make a super basketball conference to rival the super football leagues -- it's your only hope, really to get as much money as possible.

To get your ~20 conference games, you play everyone in your division twice (14 games) and then 3 from each of the other divisions on a rotating basis. Big East Tournament in MSG could take the top 16 teams (top 4 from each division and then 4 "Wild Cards"). Hell, if you wanted to make it start on Tuesday and give out some byes to include all 24 teams, you could do that too.

(* denotes football school)

Big East Coast Conference North:

1. BC*
2. Syracuse*
3. UConn*
4. Providence
5. Villanova
6. Georgetown
7. St. Johns
8. Seton Hall

BECC Midwest

1. Memphis*
2. Louisville*
3. Marquette
4. Xavier
5. Butler
6. Creighton
7. DePaul
8. Pitt*

BECC South:

1. UVA*
2. Va Tech*
3. Duke*
4. NC State*
5. UNC*
6. Wake*
7. Ga Tech*
8. Miami*

A football conference of 14 teams is still solid: BC, Cuse, Pitt, Louisville, UVA, Va Tech, Duke, NC State, UNC, Wake, Ga Tech, Miami, Memphis, UConn. Let's face it, without Clemson or FSU the ACC is essentially useless in football -- but maybe Va Tech/Miami/Louisville/Pitt can catch fire every year and make some noise in an 8-team CFP. Also, how fun of a baseball conference would this be?

what do you name this conference though? The big east? The ACC? My vote? The Beast Coast Conference™

 

[powerplay]

Where is that potential? Of the list in the quoted post, only three of those schools play hockey and they're already HE members. The only way any of this football realignment affects UConn hockey is if BC goes to the B1G and the chances of that are almost zero.

Hockey East is very well positioned to remain as is, and the top programs aren't going anywhere. BC and BU were invited to the NCHC when it formed and both quickly rejected. UMass isn't going anywhere. If UConn moved from the BE it wouldn't trigger a move out of HE unless it was to the B1G. But let's be real, that ain't happening.

I agree, I would hate to leave Hockey East, it's a great conference and great set-up. I was just spit balling a bit that with the notion of never say never with realignment that anything is possible. With some rumblings of the NHL trying to advance college hockey with the feasibility study that that the Penguins were helping Pitt elevate to D1. With the previous post of a hybrid conference, UConn/BC/PC already have teams, and I'm not suggesting they leave HE. It's a stretch but Miami, Raleigh, Pittsburgh all NHL cities that it is within a small realm of possibility. That's all.

 

[upstater]

I don't understand why many people think the money is still going to be there after the conferences get their most valuable assets plundered. The money is going to follow the power teams to the power conference(s) and dry up for everyone else. The value will be gone.

Because the Big East 20 years ago was set to get $14m a year for football alone.

 

[bendm]

Ultimately that kind of break-away means we have a football super league, a bunch of lower level football leagues, and then Olympic sports leagues. I'd add one qualifier, I don't think every school in the existing P5 gets to the super league. Some of them don't bring the value.

yeah i could see a school like rutgers or ucf not getting included but I dont think any founding members of the B1G, SEC, or BIG12, as the 3 foundational conferences, would get left behind e.g. NW, Vanderbilt, KU, etc. but that's up to ESPN/FOX.

similarly up to the ESPN/FOX is how they'd play out the regular season. let's just say there are 60 teams in this thing. I could see a 17 game football schedule to further maximize revenue. Each school could have 3 permanent rivals they'd play every year plus 14 rotating games. that way they'd cycle through the other 56 teams once every 4 years.

or they could just agree to reorganize themselves into 3 conferences of 20, which the olympic sports would probably need to do regardless, if they want to minimize travel and keep hosting "conference tourneys" leading up to the D1 tournaments still run by the NCAA, like march madness.

 

[upstater]

The anchor schools left in the ACC are gonna be BC, Cuse, Pitt, Virginia Tech, Louisville, Wake, and maybe NCSt/Duke. That's gonna fetch $10 to $12 mil max...barely a step above the AAC.

When the BE broke up 20 years ago it was already getting more than that. This was AFTER Miami left.

 

[upstater]

yeah i could see a school like rutgers or ucf not getting included but I dont think any founding members of the B1G, SEC, or BIG12, as the 3 foundational conferences, would get left behind e.g. NW, Vanderbilt, KU, etc. but that's up to ESPN/FOX.

similarly up to the ESPN/FOX is how they'd play out the regular season. let's just say there are 60 teams in this thing. I could see a 17 game football schedule to further maximize revenue. Each school could have 3 permanent rivals they'd play every year plus 14 rotating games. that way they'd cycle through the other 56 teams once every 4 years.

or they could agree to reorganize themselves into 3 conferences of 20, which the olympic sports would probably need to do, if they want to minimize travel and keep hosting "conference tourneys" leading up to the D1 tournaments still run by the NCAA, like march madness.

Rutgers is a lot safer than Oklahoma St, Kansas St, Iowa St, Colorado, Baylor and Texas Tech.

 

[CTBballfan243]

Football playing schools are not going to merge with non-playing schools like was the case in the old BE. Didn’t work then, won’t work now.

 

[uchusky32]

hot takes are being thrown about with reckless abandon so this is what i think is the ultimate outcome:

the 16 B1G schools, 16 SEC schools, and 18 Big12 schools (once theyve added UW, Oregon, CO, UU, AU, ASU) break football away from the NCAA. the 10 most valuable ACC schools (ND, Clemson, FSU, Miami, UNC, Duke, UVA, Vtech, Gtech, Lville) vote to leave thereby dissolving the GOR. Those 60 teams form their own football division and host their own CFP.

The 5 leftover ACC schools (Cuse, BC, Pitt, NC State, Wake) plus Temple, Navy, Army, and Memphis merge with the 11 BE schools to form a 20 team conference with 10 football playing schools (including UConn)

the 4 leftover PAC schools (Cal, Stanford, Wazzou, OR St) join the mountain west. the AAC leftovers (ECSU, USF, Tulane, Tulsa, SMU) either dissolve or backfill again w/ independents, CUSA, SunBelt, MAC.

Lville over NCST?

 

[upstater]

Football playing schools are not going to merge with non-playing schools like was the case in the old BE. Didn’t work then, won’t work now.

No one can say what the future holds.

The 2 big conferences may / may not want the top bball schools w/o football in the new bball tournament, if they split. Or maybe they'll want to keep them.

We may see absurdities like, the Big East plays in the bball tournament, but the AAC schools do not.

 

[bendm]

No one can say what the future holds.

The 2 big conferences may / may not want the top bball schools w/o football in the new bball tournament, if they split. Or maybe they'll want to keep them.

i dont care what happens as long as nothing happens to march madness. they can do what they want with their football programs, just keep the olympic sports under the purview of the ncaa.

 

[JohnFSilver]

I don't understand why many people think the money is still going to be there after the conferences get their most valuable assets plundered. The money is going to follow the power teams to the power conference(s) and dry up for everyone else. The value will be gone.

Yes, $30M per year might be a pipe dream. But, if ACC with sy, BC, Cuse, Louisville, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Duke would generate more money than we would get.

We'll figure it out.

 

[upstater]

i dont care what happens as long as nothing happens to march madness. they can do what they want with their football programs, just keep the olympic sports under the purview of the ncaa.

enough people from the conferences have said that they want to control the tournament for me to think that they want to take it away from the NCAA

 

[upstater]

Though I keep saying the P12 is in a better position than the B12, it's not that I want the P12 to have the upper hand.

I would love for Stanford to hook up with Houston, Baylor and BYU. That would hasten the demise of the current set up.

 

[kemba]

Call me crazy (I am) but if the ACC was smart and they were losing Clemson/FSU (and ND), they actually should just absorb the Big East and do a hybrid league. Let's face it, if you want to keep UNC happy it's through basketball and not football. Assuming the Big 12 stays put, you can add Memphis to bring it to an even football number (14) and then you'd have a 24 league basketball league you could regionalize into 3 divisions of 8. You could make a super basketball conference to rival the super football leagues -- it's your only hope, really to get as much money as possible.

To get your ~20 conference games, you play everyone in your division twice (14 games) and then 3 from each of the other divisions on a rotating basis. Big East Tournament in MSG could take the top 16 teams (top 4 from each division and then 4 "Wild Cards"). Hell, if you wanted to make it start on Tuesday and give out some byes to include all 24 teams, you could do that too.

(* denotes football school)

Big East Coast Conference North:

1. BC*
2. Syracuse*
3. UConn*
4. Providence
5. Villanova
6. Georgetown
7. St. Johns
8. Seton Hall

BECC Midwest

1. Memphis*
2. Louisville*
3. Marquette
4. Xavier
5. Butler
6. Creighton
7. DePaul
8. Pitt*

BECC South:

1. UVA*
2. Va Tech*
3. Duke*
4. NC State*
5. UNC*
6. Wake*
7. Ga Tech*
8. Miami*

A football conference of 14 teams is still solid: BC, Cuse, Pitt, Louisville, UVA, Va Tech, Duke, NC State, UNC, Wake, Ga Tech, Miami, Memphis, UConn. Let's face it, without Clemson or FSU the ACC is essentially useless in football -- but maybe Va Tech/Miami/Louisville/Pitt can catch fire every year and make some noise in an 8-team CFP. Also, how fun of a baseball conference would this be?

Would be wild if after all this we end up in basically a new version of the old big east like this.

Would also be wild if the only school that ditched the old big east for stability and caused its collapse that actually makes it into the 2 real super conferences is freakin Rutgers.

 

[bendm]

.enough people from the conferences have said that they want to control the tournament for me to think that they want to take it away from the

I haven’t heard that and I don’t see the point. any money made off basketball is an afterthought compared to football. The teams that breakaway for football will be making 100 million+ each and they can’t recreate something as valuable as March madness is for b-ball if they tried

 

[UKemba15]

Would be wild if after all this we end up in basically a new version of the old big east like this.

Would also be wild if the only school that ditched the old big east for stability and caused its collapse that actually makes it into the 2 real super conferences is freakin Rutgers.

Never forget, over $1B has been earned in the NBA by Rutgers-staff-coached players!

 

[UConnRock]

Call me crazy (I am) but if the ACC was smart and they were losing Clemson/FSU (and ND), they actually should just absorb the Big East and do a hybrid league. Let's face it, if you want to keep UNC happy it's through basketball and not football. Assuming the Big 12 stays put, you can add Memphis to bring it to an even football number (14) and then you'd have a 24 league basketball league you could regionalize into 3 divisions of 8. You could make a super basketball conference to rival the super football leagues -- it's your only hope, really to get as much money as possible.

To get your ~20 conference games, you play everyone in your division twice (14 games) and then 3 from each of the other divisions on a rotating basis. Big East Tournament in MSG could take the top 16 teams (top 4 from each division and then 4 "Wild Cards"). Hell, if you wanted to make it start on Tuesday and give out some byes to include all 24 teams, you could do that too.

(* denotes football school)

Big East Coast Conference North:

1. BC*
2. Syracuse*
3. UConn*
4. Providence
5. Villanova
6. Georgetown
7. St. Johns
8. Seton Hall

BECC Midwest

1. Memphis*
2. Louisville*
3. Marquette
4. Xavier
5. Butler
6. Creighton
7. DePaul
8. Pitt*

BECC South:

1. UVA*
2. Va Tech*
3. Duke*
4. NC State*
5. UNC*
6. Wake*
7. Ga Tech*
8. Miami*

A football conference of 14 teams is still solid: BC, Cuse, Pitt, Louisville, UVA, Va Tech, Duke, NC State, UNC, Wake, Ga Tech, Miami, Memphis, UConn. Let's face it, without Clemson or FSU the ACC is essentially useless in football -- but maybe Va Tech/Miami/Louisville/Pitt can catch fire every year and make some noise in an 8-team CFP. Also, how fun of a baseball conference would this be?

There will be a lot of pressure on the Big 12 to take Pitt and Louisville if the ACC GOR gets dissolved . The geography and natural rivalries would balance out the western expansion. Good overall concept though, I threw out a less detailed “hybrid” scenario yesterday. Lots of chips need to fall to make this happen, but it is realistic

 

[superjohn]

enough people from the conferences have said that they want to control the tournament for me to think that they want to take it away from the NCAA

Would be a monumentally stupid idea.

 

[upstater]

I haven’t heard that and I don’t see the point. any money made off basketball is an afterthought compared to football. The teams that breakaway for football will be making 100 million+ each and they can’t recreate something as valuable as March madness is for b-ball if they tried

March Madness is a $1b a year thing.

Let's say the football schools took it over and made it a lot less interesting. What would it be worth?

 

[bendm]

March Madness is a $1b a year thing.

Let's say the football schools took it over and made it a lot less interesting. What would it be worth?

A lot less. Chump change compared to what those schools would already be making- over 100 million each from football alone. There’s gotta be a limit to the greed. They’d be destroying it just for the sake of it.

 

[huskyinfl]

ESPN has no shame. Hundreds of millions in tax credits.