New PAC-12 Forming

[metsfan2323]

Tallying up the pluses and minuses of a football only membership in the PAC:

Pluses:

1) clear path to the playoff which

2) likely helps recruiting

3) More money (we can't make any less)

4) no longer have to deal with the scheduling nightmare which might get worse as landscape changes. A smart AD has to assume no P4 invite will ever come and plan accordingly. We are being blackballed folks.

Minuses:

1) More time flying (4 road games about 120 minutes of extra flying minutes per road game equals 480 extra minutes in the air)

2) Likely 3 basketball games per year against the likes of Gonzaga and San Diego State, Oregon State, Washington State.

3) Probably a more difficult to win football schedule. Let's not forget a lot of our wins the last two years have been against cupcakes. We will miss those games against Rice, FIU, Buffalo and Ball State, although we lose those games too.

4) Exit fees.


At the end of the day the AD has to listen and put much consideration into any invite that comes our way.

 

[mike012]

If we have to pay an exit fee we aren’t joining. At most it should be a 3-4 year deal. PAC gets someone with a pulse in football till they can figure out what they want to do for a long term 9th team. We get a conference schedule till Acc implosion.

 

[buddy]

No, it isn't. Say for example you wanna sell me your 2000 Chevy Cavalier for $100,000. Just because I don't want to buy it doesn't mean I'm blocking you from selling it. It is a perception of value issue.

I think they should consider UConn the Ferrari that is parked in the garage.

 

[Rdkid]

I’m not sure why football only is a problem. 4 road games, schedule BC, Cuse & a couple of cupcakes to keep regional travel & interest. I wouldn’t have Bball give them anything - except an MSG or TD trip for Gonzaga. Who is talking all sports including exit fee? That is nuts.

 

[uconnbill]

Playing the Zags in basketball is not bad, but the rest of the deal is crap. Football needs a conference, but unless this is paying $15 million a year plus for just football, and even then.

 

[Kolumbo]

I was willing to give football in the PAC 12 some consideration but after that video, ooph. If I were SDSU and Boise State I'd be trying to get back in the MWC or go indie. that 8 member conference is dog poop and even though there is a path to the playoffs, it's not coming from west of the Mississippi

 

[Fishy]

I’m not sure why football only is a problem. 4 road games, schedule BC, Cuse & a couple of cupcakes to keep regional travel & interest. I wouldn’t have Bball give them anything - except an MSG or TD trip for Gonzaga. Who is talking all sports including exit fee? That is nuts.

We can't "just schedule" BC and Syracuse or really anyone else. Our super power in scheduling is that we can fit anyone in anywhere. You'll notice how many of our ACC games are scheduled mid and late season.

Well, throw those out because the P12 crams all OOC games into weeks 1-4 and the weeks 5-12 are all conference games.

 

[Fishy]

I was willing to give football in the PAC 12 some consideration but after that video, ooph. If I were SDSU and Boise State I'd be trying to get back in the MWC or go indie. that 8 member conference is dog poop and even though there is a path to the playoffs, it's not coming from west of the Mississippi

Remember back to post-realignment and how miserable we were when faced with year one of the American. Remember how soul crushing all of that was.

That's where Washington State fans are now. Now, imagine you're a Washington State fan and you see that.

They're crawling into the oven.

 

[Kolumbo]

Remember back to post-realignment and how miserable we were when faced with year one of the American. Remember how soul crushing all of that was.

That's where Washington State fans are now. Now, imagine you're a Washington State fan and you see that.

They're crawling into the oven.

I would imagine if anyone has suffered as nearly a painful kick to the crotch as us, it might be wazzu. relegated to the G-X after decades in the conference of champions. there must be some interesting conversations going on up there. washington in the big 10 and washington state is history. gotta love CR

 

[Kowalski]

Tallying up the pluses and minuses of a football only membership in the PAC:

Pluses:

1) clear path to the playoff which

2) likely helps recruiting

3) More money (we can't make any less)

4) no longer have to deal with the scheduling nightmare which might get worse as landscape changes. A smart AD has to assume no P4 invite will ever come and plan accordingly. We are being blackballed folks.

Minuses:

1) More time flying (4 road games about 120 minutes of extra flying minutes per road game equals 480 extra minutes in the air)

2) Likely 3 basketball games per year against the likes of Gonzaga and San Diego State, Oregon State, Washington State.

3) Probably a more difficult to win football schedule. Let's not forget a lot of our wins the last two years have been against cupcakes. We will miss those games against Rice, FIU, Buffalo and Ball State, although we lose those games too.

4) Exit fees.


At the end of the day the AD has to listen and put much consideration into any invite that comes our way.

Missing games against Rice, FIU, Buffalo and Ball State is in the Minus column? To me, playing now for a potential bid to the Fenway, Pin-Stripe or other mostly meaningless bowl should be high on the Minus list.

I agree with the football only Pluses. Path playoff & money being foremost but the devil’s in the details. And it has to effectively be no exit fee for a P4.

 

[UConnJim]

I'm OK with a scheduling arrangement with the Pac 12. Say 4 football games per year. As an offset, I would offer 1 men's and 1 women's basketball game per season. No way I would join the Pac 12 as a football only as it would be too much travel.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

Missing games against Rice, FIU, Buffalo and Ball State is in the Minus column? To me, playing now for a potential bid to the Fenway, Pin-Stripe or other mostly meaningless bowl should be high on the Minus list.

I agree with the football only Pluses. Path playoff & money being foremost but the devil’s in the details. And it has to effectively be no exit fee for a P4.

Looking like the top rated G* program regardless of conference champ or not would go into the CFP so that plus likely to go out the window. And either way, it'll likely be only one spot for G* schools, so the odds of it being us is negligible anyway. Regardless, I don't see playoff path as a real big driver in our AD's thinking (though it won't be said publicly).

 

[Kowalski]

Looking like the top rated G* program regardless of conference champ or not would go into the CFP so that plus likely to go out the window. And either way, it'll likely be only one spot for G* schools, so the odds of it being us is negligible anyway. Regardless, I don't see playoff path as a real big driver in our AD's thinking (though it won't be said publicly).

If a G5 doesn’t keep an auto bid, it does take away a big plus. But if it does keep it, it’s exciting for teams in the running and I’d expect either the Pac or AAC champ to be favorites for it most years.

And a correction to my last post - I meant to say currently playing for a meaningless bowl spot (where half of players don’t even show) is on the PLUS list for weighing FB only to the Pac - i.e. only if G5 keeps an auto bid.

 

[BlueWolf25]

If a G5 doesn’t keep an auto bid, it does take away a big plus. But if it does keep it, it’s exciting for teams in the running and I’d expect either the Pac or AAC champ to be favorites for it most years.

And a correction to my last post - I meant to say currently playing for a meaningless bowl spot (where half of players don’t even show) is on the PLUS list for weighing FB only to the Pac - i.e. only if G5 keeps an auto bid.

The G5 will keep an auto bid, but it will likely now be the highest ranked G5 team regardless of whether they win their conference. Say Tulane goes 12-0 and is the only ranked G5 team, but then loses in the AAC championship to a 9-3 USF; Tulane still gets in. So in theory, we don’t need to be in a conference now to make the CFP if we were to go undefeated or maybe 11-1

 

[Kowalski]

The G5 will keep an auto bid, but it will likely now be the highest ranked G5 team regardless of whether they win their conference. Say Tulane goes 12-0 and is the only ranked G5 team, but then loses in the AAC championship to a 9-3 USF; Tulane still gets in. So in theory, we don’t need to be in a conference now to make the CFP if we were to go undefeated or maybe 11-1

I don’t know if it’s changing but the way if effectively works now is you have to be the highest rated G5 conference champion. The only other path is as an at large & UConn has zero shot at an at large bid with their schedule - even if they go undefeated. No non P4 outside of Notre Dane has a legit shot at an at large bid.

 

[Hskies4Ever]

If the new rule is implemented, we’ll have access to the CFP because it’s no longer the highest ranked G6 conference champ, but instead the highest ranked G6 team.

Road trips to G6 schools like Buffalo, Temple, ODU, and USF are infinitely better for us than making 4 trips out west per year. Also, it would likely be those P4 regional games we’d be losing to play a PAC-12 schedule. We have 4 or 5 scheduled in each of the next few years, you’d have to cut at least half of those. Give me Pitt, UNC and Cuse over Boise and Wazzu all day. (Also we literally just scheduled a home and home with Rutgers, don’t think we’d be filling out our schedules if a move to the PAC-12 was imminent)

As for the added $$$ yes that would help. But that comes with more travel costs. We’ve had Utah State, Fresno, and Wyoming at the Rent in recent years. No juice to hosting those teams, it would likely hurt attendance. Benedict is fighting for more CFP rev share, we’ll see what happens there

The 2028 schedule would require no games to be cut. For 2027, if the Pac is willing to be flexible, you can absolutely keep all or most of the P4 games. In fact, if we were to join, the Pac would benefit from the media rights to those P4 games.

You’re right, there would be more travel costs. A high estimation might be $3M, but you’d bring in somewhere between $9M to $13M above and beyond that, which is very good ROI, to say nothing of the better gate for playing a upper level Pac team vs Buffalo or Rice.

If we’re ever going to be in a power conference, the football team needs to prove they can travel and win against solid competition. This is a great opportunity to do that. We’d have schedules that would be in the upper half of FBS, and we’d show that we can travel. Any league we aspire to is going to require travel.

I understand the apprehension, but my two cents is this is a great opportunity that will cost the basketball team and Olympic sports more generally, exactly nothing while providing real upside to the football program. The GOR expires in 2031, right when every other conference is doing the same, so this doesn’t need to be a long term commitment. We go, we put in 4 good seasons, and we leave. That has to be the mission.

 

[huskymedic]

You’re right, there would be more travel costs. A high estimation might be $3M, but you’d bring in somewhere between $9M to $13M above and beyond that, which is very good ROI, to say nothing of the better gate for playing a upper level Pac team vs Buffalo or Rice.

Can you humor the peanut gallery and show the math for that equation?

 

[Hskies4Ever]

You'd think that would be obvious but here we are.


This is wildly naive.

If you think a move to the P12 in football makes it revenue neutral, you're so far off the reservation that you will never find your way back. Their conference rights deal is a joke....USA, the CW and CBSsports? And they have to pick up production costs on some of it? It's a pure dog.

And then we have to buy our way out of the Pitt series, the Syracuse series, the Duke series, the Temple series, and an Army game at minimum because y'all think we're gonna make more money selling tickets for Fresno, Texas State and the rest of that Dollar Store scrapple conference.

Is it naive or do you just lack imagination?

What makes you so sure we’d cancel the P4 games? We should absolutely keep those. There is no reason to believe we can’t keep all or most in 27, and we can 100% keep them all in 28 and 29. The 28 and 29 schedules are structured to plug in a conference schedule. It’s actually in the Pac’s interest to allow us to keep as much of our P4 schedule as possible.

The media rights + the CFP revenue share has been estimated at about 12M. A HIGH estimate for 4 away games would be $2M TOTAL. Some years, it would only be 3. The production cost are a real concern. That might be another $1.5M. My understanding is that CBS & CBS Sports handle their own production costs, however, so that could lessen the burden depending how often we end up there. By my math we’re still up $8.5M.

As far as The CW and USA, the CW handles ACC games and is in 125M homes. USA is in about 70M homes. Both of these seem to be big improvements over the 45M homes our current partner CBS Sports broadcasts to, which helps visibility and recruitment. I see no problems with any of this.

Further - regarding the cancelation fees, the rumor that kicked this whole thing of stated that the Pac would help pay those.

If you don’t like the deal because you like playing Temple, Old Dominion, Buffalo, and Rice, that’s your opinion and that’s fine. If you think UConn needs an easy SoS so we don’t embarrass ourselves or if you think the travel will absolutely decimate the team, fine. That’s supposition and I can’t argue with that, but the numbers show the deal would be profitable by a comfortable margin. It has the potential to substantially step up our SoS at a time where football needs to prove itself. In the short term, it’s mutually beneficial, and I think it helps our recruiting.

 

[Hskies4Ever]

Can you humor the peanut gallery and show the math for that equation?

Sure.

Media rights reported to be around 10M. CFP distribution for G6 schools reportedly $1,800,000 which I call $2M for the purposes of math. $12M minus $2M for travel for 4 west coast away games (est. 1.75M, but math) and est. $150,000 of production costs per game for 9 games (OOC away games @ Duke, UNC, and Pitt are not covered by the conference) $1.35 M (or 1.5M for math). That comes out to $8.5M.

Some notes: This would be for 2027. I assumed we keep all P4 games. I estimated travel costs using AI.

 

[BlueWolf25]

The 2028 schedule would require no games to be cut. For 2027, if the Pac is willing to be flexible, you can absolutely keep all or most of the P4 games. In fact, if we were to join, the Pac would benefit from the media rights to those P4 games.

You’re right, there would be more travel costs. A high estimation might be $3M, but you’d bring in somewhere between $9M to $13M above and beyond that, which is very good ROI, to say nothing of the better gate for playing a upper level Pac team vs Buffalo or Rice.

If we’re ever going to be in a power conference, the football team needs to prove they can travel and win against solid competition. This is a great opportunity to do that. We’d have schedules that would be in the upper half of FBS, and we’d show that we can travel. Any league we aspire to is going to require travel.

I understand the apprehension, but my two cents is this is a great opportunity that will cost the basketball team and Olympic sports more generally, exactly nothing while providing real upside to the football program. The GOR expires in 2031, right when every other conference is doing the same, so this doesn’t need to be a long term commitment. We go, we put in 4 good seasons, and we leave. That has to be the mission.

I’m not sure what you mean there - in 2028 we have 10 games currently scheduled, 5 of which are against P4 teams. We’d likely have to cut some/all of Pitt, Cuse, and Duke because those are scheduled late in the season.

I agree with you overall, I’m just not sure the PAC-12 is the right way to go about it (unless the money is significantly better). Currently we’re able to build schedules that are attractive to fans, gives us winnable P4 games to prove we can compete with them, AND most importantly sets us up to win 8+ games in a good year, as we’ve seen the past two seasons. Stacking winning seasons is crucial, which is why I’m ok playing the Buffalos and Temples. The travel concerns me not just cost wise, but look at the records of schools like UCLA or USC since joining the Big Ten

 

[Hskies4Ever]

We can't "just schedule" BC and Syracuse or really anyone else. Our super power in scheduling is that we can fit anyone in anywhere. You'll notice how many of our ACC games are scheduled mid and late season.

Well, throw those out because the P12 crams all OOC games into weeks 1-4 and the weeks 5-12 are all conference games.

I invite you to look at the dates of the scheduled P4 games in 2028 and 2029.

 

[Fishy]

I invite you to look at the dates of the scheduled P4 games in 2028 and 2029.

Yes, look at them.

You want to cancel some of those games for Fresno?

Why not just take the seats out of the Rent instead.

 

[BlueWolf25]

I invite you to look at the dates of the scheduled P4 games in 2028 and 2029.

Getting rid of Duke and Pitt to host even Boise or Washington State would be a downgrade. Look what happened last year when we hosted Duke in November, that was the best Rent crowd in at least a decade

 

[Fishy]

Is it naive or do you just lack imagination?

What makes you so sure we’d cancel the P4 games? We should absolutely keep those. There is no reason to believe we can’t keep all or most in 27, and we can 100% keep them all in 28 and 29. The 28 and 29 schedules are structured to plug in a conference schedule. It’s actually in the Pac’s interest to allow us to keep as much of our P4 schedule as possible.

The media rights + the CFP revenue share has been estimated at about 12M. A HIGH estimate for 4 away games would be $2M TOTAL. Some years, it would only be 3. The production cost are a real concern. That might be another $1.5M. My understanding is that CBS & CBS Sports handle their own production costs, however, so that could lessen the burden depending how often we end up there. By my math we’re still up $8.5M.

As far as The CW and USA, the CW handles ACC games and is in 125M homes. USA is in about 70M homes. Both of these seem to be big improvements over the 45M homes our current partner CBS Sports broadcasts to, which helps visibility and recruitment. I see no problems with any of this.

Further - regarding the cancelation fees, the rumor that kicked this whole thing of stated that the Pac would help pay those.

If you don’t like the deal because you like playing Temple, Old Dominion, Buffalo, and Rice, that’s your opinion and that’s fine. If you think UConn needs an easy SoS so we don’t embarrass ourselves or if you think the travel will absolutely decimate the team, fine. That’s supposition and I can’t argue with that, but the numbers show the deal would be profitable by a comfortable margin. It has the potential to substantially step up our SoS at a time where football needs to prove itself. In the short term, it’s mutually beneficial, and I think it helps our recruiting.

You’re naive. And gullible.

You can cherry pick and pretend that this about Temple and ODU, but that’s you being disingenuous because none of your “facts” will survive contact with reality.

And you’re simply making up numbers. The Pac12 could not convince a major network to bid on their content. They have a mishmash of USA, CW and CBSsports. They’re a remnant deal and if you think that’s $10M a year….lol. They’re lucky if it’s half that….at $10M, they’re screaming those numbers from the rooftops. They’re not because it’s not.

Pure comedy that you think they have the cash to buy us out of our future contracts and even funnier that you think it’s a good idea.

The conference is a dog and that’s why they had to add Texas State just to get to the minimum number of schools.

 

[CL82]

HIGH estimate for 4 away games would be $2M TOTAL

What is this referring to exactly?

I thought the rest of your post was interesting, though I'm curious as to where your numbers are coming from.

 

[Fishy]

I would imagine if anyone has suffered as nearly a painful kick to the crotch as us, it might be wazzu. relegated to the G-X after decades in the conference of champions. there must be some interesting conversations going on up there. washington in the big 10 and washington state is history. gotta love CR

The only difference between us and them is that they were a have at one point and we were not. I am sure WSU enjoyed the realignment wars when the Pac12 was taking teams whereas it was kinda always misery for us.

 

[Fishy]

What is this referring to exactly?

I thought the rest of your post was interesting, though I'm curious as to where your numbers are coming from.

Thin air.

None of them are even in the ball park.