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UConn to Big East May Be Gaining Steam

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mauconnfan said:
I don't think many of the real football fans can understand the point of view from the old basketball fans, and that's ok. I'm the old basketball fan, field house - 70's an on. By the way not all bball fans are like me this is just my take.

Never went to a football game on campus in Storrs, I was a Notre Dame football fan growing up through dad and my uncles. I cared enough to read the paper to see how the Huskies did and when they had a good year, maybe read a little more but that was it. No reason to ruin a fall golf day to head to football game which ultimately wasn't going to entertain me. And I know more than likely that's my day to play golf and you know why, the Giants are on Sunday and I'm going to be in front of the TV watching that game.

Then they went D1 and opened the Rent - I was a season ticket holder. I went to most every game and it was fun, the party the game eh, but nonetheless it was a good time. Then I realized it wasn't good enough for me to lose both weekend days to not playing golf. I mean if I party all day at the Rent and take basically my Saturday away from my family how could I dare go out and play 18 holes and grab another chunk of the weekend from my family? Add to this the fact the team was decent but not overly entertaining as well as the venue itself. I mean I am sure most of you who are really loyal fans and I really do respect that, I get it, get po'd at the people who don't come into the games until late. I think it's embarrassing when they have a big game and it's 1/2 full for kick off the noise level which should be monstrous, is actually weak. Maybe this is because of "fans" like myself or maybe it's because they haven't put a product on the field which creates the passion necessary to put fannies in the stands? I don't know the answer but I know that people have a choice and for now, I'm not interested in going to the game just because people believe this is how we will get into the P5. I believe it is and will be a requirement, but so far they have underachieved in making this happen and I, as one person, have better things to do than to try to make this product better by going to the games. Remember, I started as a huge UConn basketball fan and a ND fan in football, that hasn't changed. What did change is they have my interest but now it's up to them to really peak it, not me. Sorry it's the way I feel, so far they've come up short. Golf and the Giants are much more important in weekends.
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DUMP the Giants ... sheesh ... that's easy.
 
bluejaybud said:
There are things to discuss when it comes to the future of CBB and how it relates to what is happening with football-driven realignment. But, I just don't see how the Big East will "fall behind". It doesn't seem feasible to me. With the way the conference has performed since the reformation a few years ago, its still clearly one of the best conferences for basketball, top to bottom.
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Welcome to the BY....sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the reality is the P5 will likely eventually secede from the NCAA. Any university not part of a P5 conference when that happens will not be part of big time sports.

Football is not universally more popular than basketball. In fact, the overall revenue for football and basketball is probably much closer than the football purists of the SEC would believe. The major difference between football and basketball is the NCAA keeps half of the revenue from the NCAA basketball tournament while in football the schools/conferences keep nearly the whole amount.

The problem with a wildly increasing rate of return is it is difficult to sustain. Look at the money the P5 conferences are now making and realize this exponentially increasing rate is based on a changing cable network system. As cord cutting becomes more prevalent it is impossible to continue to force a population to pay for a channel many of them will not watch. As such, the money in the current P5 model cannot continue to increase and will likely decrease.

So what happens when the money starts to decrease because the networks will not pay any more? IMO The P5 will first look to charge their core consumers more and then if that doesn't generate the same money, the P5 will look for new revenue sources. The quickest and most readily accessible new source would be basketball. Think how much money Kentucky or Kansas basketball could make if they didn't need to share revenue with the Creightons and Georgetowns of the world. How about a new March Madness tournament limited to only P5 schools in which the P5 keeps the whole amount? Sounds crazy...well, is it any less crazy than the best basketball conference in the country, the old Big East, being destroyed or the University of Connecticut, which has won the most men's and women's basketball championships in the last 20 years, being left out of the P5 and trying to get into the Big12.

The P5 already used the death star on college football. I'd say the next ripe target is college basketball. "Iconic teams" won't be sparred if they are not in the P5. Just because it has not happened yet does not mean it will not happen. "Winning" and being "one of the best conferences" has nothing to do with it. As Husky fans we understand the power of greed all to well.
 
A basketball tournament with only P5 schools will literally kill the sport. They're already having trouble with the ratings. You axe the Cinderella element from the tournament and you basically eliminate the casual sports fan's interest in March basketball. Seriously ask yourself, who will watch those games between Wake Forest and Auburn? That is the future for CBB you're proposing. Sorry, but that comes off as an argument from someone who doesn't understand the spirit of the sport. It is all about the money, you're right, but there's no longer a system to profit from if you change the tournament in the manner you're suggesting. It will ruin postseason CBB.

Honestly, I would rather watch a tournament with the Big East and the best of the G5's (MWC, A10, MAC) than watch a P5 only tournament. A lot of basketball fans would probably agree. Also Good Luck to the football dominant schools that try to convince the Dukes Kentuckys Kansas's and North Carolinas of the P5 that such a move is for the best interest of CBB. Highly doubt any of those school's ADs would agree to it.
 
If the new AAC loses Houston and UC, it will no longer be the best G5 football conference and basketball will take a step back due to the loss of the Bearcats. If we can park bball in the big east and find a better home for football, we may be forced to make the move. We don't have a lot of good options on the table. A very sad state of affairs for a great sthletic program and an excellent academic institution. We also could use AAU asap.
 
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Guys, let me remind you that college athletics is a business. Who cares really what a move to the Big East does for UConn on the court. It what it does for UConn off the court that matters. Currently, ESPN is getting UConn content and UConn DMA for pennies on the dollar. By jumping ship to a FOX owned entity, UConn's value surely rises. By doing that, we will finally see how ESPN truly values this DMA.
 
@bluejaybud i agree with you. The idea that the p5 is going to branch off and form their own tournament is one of the biggest myths here on the boneyard.

NCAA tournament revenue is linked to brackets and inclusivity. Eliminate 80% of the field, much less several big markets rich with ball talent, and that goes away.

As an aside, uconn or not, p5 seclusion kills my interest in college sports.
 
champs99and04 said:
@bluejaybud i agree with you. The idea that the p5 is going to branch off and form their own tournament is one of the biggest myths here on the boneyard.

NCAA tournament revenue is linked to brackets and inclusivity. Eliminate 80% of the field, much less several big markets rich with ball talent, and that goes away.

As an aside, uconn or not, p5 seclusion kills my interest in college sports.
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How big is NCAA tournament field? How big is the P5? Just wondering.
 
bluejaybud said:
Sorry, but that comes off as an argument from someone who doesn't understand the spirit of the sport. It is all about the money, you're right, but there's no longer a system to profit from if you change the tournament in the manner you're suggesting. It will ruin postseason CBB.

Honestly, I would rather watch a tournament with the Big East and the best of the G5's (MWC, A10, MAC) than watch a P5 only tournament. A lot of basketball fans would probably agree. Also Good Luck to the football dominant schools that try to convince the Dukes Kentuckys Kansas's and North Carolinas of the P5 that such a move is for the best interest of CBB. Highly doubt any of those school's ADs would agree to it.
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I understand the "spirit" of the NCAA tournament very well. It is truly one of the most exciting weeks of the year and I hope it never changes. I love the David and Golaith match ups and the unpredictability of the tournament. But "hope" and "spirit" do not drive realignment or the actions of the P5 conferences. No, money is the primary driver and money is the best predictor of what the P5 programs will do. You can name call all you want but it does not change the ruthless money grab that college sports have become...denying its existence does not change its possibility.

Bottom line is the NCAA retains a large portion of the NCAA basketball tournament revenue. There is a reason UConn AD David Benedict calls the P5 "the autonomous 5." The autonomous 5 does not want to be governed by the NCAA and it wants to retain all the money. It has already seized control of college football, basketball could very easily be next.

I am not certain if the P5 would lose money if they change the NCAA tournament structure. I mean will Kentucky fans quit watching UK if they don't play the Big East teams? Sure, for the casual fan/smaller program viewers the appeal is less but if the P5 can keep 100% of the revenue then perhaps that offsets the loss of smaller program's fan bases. BTW what you would prefer to watch (an all G5 tournament) is not the deciding factor. Modern college sports has nothing to do with what the fans want and everything to do with money and control.

As for the basketball schools like UNC and Duke I'd agree they never stipulate to a tournament change. But the schools do not decide, the conference does. For every Duke there is an FSU who would agree to anything that would increase the available bail money for their football players. The P5 is made up of more football than basketball schools and the recent additions have only increased this ratio. The SEC schools need to build a new amusement park for their football players to live in and if a P5 basketball tournament helps pay for it then they'll be all in.

Why do you think UNC has not been penalized by the NCAA for the most rampant academic fraud scandal ever? It is because the NCAA is afraid to penalize the premier P5 programs. The NCAA has already lost football, basketball could very easily be next and they do not want to poke the bear.

I am not sure the P5 is willing to take the bad press, public outrage, and potential legal action to completely separate from the NCAA but money seems to be the best predictor of action. Perhaps the greed of college sports will eventually consume itself and completely destroy its fan bases but so far I've seen no willingness on the part of the P5 conferences to limit their greed.
 
CL82 said:
How big is NCAA tournament field? How big is the P5? Just wondering.
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I'm assuming this is rhetorical, but if my math is right, there are 65 teams in the P5 and nearly the identical amount in the NCAA tournament. You don't see the problem?
 
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champs99and04 said:
I'm assuming this is rhetorical, but if my math is right, there are 65 teams in the P5 and nearly the identical amount in the NCAA tournament. You don't see the problem?
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A bit. The point is that the P5 is big enoughh to support a tournament.

The NCAAs surplanted the NITs qnd the world moved on. After a split they'll overlap for a while but for all the love of the underdog people want to see the best teams compete. I don't share your confidence that a split won't happen.
 
The notion that the P5 couldn't or wouldn't entertain the idea of starting there own tournament is just people not wanting to acknowledge that it could happen.

Things change and people adapt, the NIT and the NCAA tournaments are a good example. There's no rule that says the tournament needs to hold to the current number of teams - you could have the same number of viewing windows - advertisers and the audience would adapt.

With fans having a routing interest in conference affiliation it would be easy to do. I'm amazed to see fans chanting SEC or ACC at games. Holy hell who cares.
 
CL82 said:
A bit. The point is that the P5 is big enoughh to support a tournament.

The NCAAs surplanted the NITs qnd the world moved on. After a split they'll overlap for a while but for all the love of the underdog people want to see the best teams compete. I don't share your confidence that a split won't happen.
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It wouldn't surprise me to eventually see a split - though I'm skeptical - but I think if there was one, you're looking at more than five conferences branching off (how that money is distributed between the conferences is another question).

Football is obviously paramount, but at the same time, it is way different than basketball. In football you can get away with having the northeast underrepresented within the power structure because the northeast doesn't produce a ton of football talent. You can't alienate Boston, Hartford, New York, Philly, and D.C. in basketball because there is a larger concentration of talent there. Practically, it doesn't make sense, even if many of the schools in the northeast we're referring to are smaller, catholic schools. Perhaps the once big dogs like Nova and Georgetown and St. Johns become the Cinderella's, but I think imagining a world in which they are neglected entirely is overstating things.

And I'm just spit-balling here as somebody who knows way less about this thing than some others...but while nostalgia and spirit frequently yield to money, it is more difficult to make that accommodation when inclusivity and novelty are so deeply imbedded in the way the product is advertised. The charm of March is that any old Joe who attends a school in rural New Hampshire can bask in a few moments of national attention for a couple days, and that anybody with a sister who goes to one of the 700 schools that compete in D-1 basketball can find them in a bracket and advance them to the final four. If the P5 hosts their own tournament, basketball fans will watch. The current model reels in a lot more eyeballs than that.

The P5 will very likely split from the NCAA, and they will very likely retain a radically disproportionate amount of the money that any tournament makes. To me, though, that is very different than abandoning the current D-1 basketball model completely, which is what some of you seem to be preparing for a degree of certainty that is unwarranted in my opinion.
 
How does the p5 benefit from excluding the Big East in a future non-NCAA tournament? Don't respond with, "To kill the Big East", because I do not and will not buy that as a reasonable answer. If its about money, how does them excluding Nova and G'town make them more money?
 
AZHuskiePop said:
The Big East doesn't play football and it's pretty much a destruct position for UConn CR ambitions .
UConn motto has to be survive and thrive
The AAC as currently constructed is among the two best G5 schools.
Let's see who the AAC loses and attracts ,before we do something a crazy and irreversible as going back to the Big East .
The fact that only Colo State from the Mountain West is being considered tells you everything you need to know about the importance of those markets to anyone.
Maybe. You can entice and CSU to the AAC.
The problem is not football.
The BB hierarchy is weakened by the loss of Cinn
Tier 1. UConn,Memphis,Temple
Tier 2 SMU, Tulsa
Everyone else
My suggestion for adding 2 BB only schools didn't go over well but replacing Cinn and Houston with VCU,and Wichita state would give you a good BB conference
You could also work out a home and away deal for the top teams BB teams in your conference with a P5 league of the Big East. To keep your league together you get creative.
UConn needs to be hammering the Potential media partners with our options.
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Agree I have wondered why AAC has not courted Wichita state, vcu, northern Iowa or is it northern Illinois. Hell nova makes sense as it would be a football upgrade for them
 
I've heard talk that the P5 would go to a 32 team double elimination tournament if they broke away from the NCAA.
 
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A10 fan said:
I've heard talk that the P5 would go to a 32 team double elimination tournament if they broke away from the NCAA.
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Never in a million years would this happen.
 
You guys really think the Ivys are going to let that happen, when their fingerprints are all over the creation of the "P5"?
 
bluejaybud said:
How does the p5 benefit from excluding the Big East in a future non-NCAA tournament? Don't respond with, "To kill the Big East", because I do not and will not buy that as a reasonable answer. If its about money, how does them excluding Nova and G'town make them more money?
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Because X divided by 65 is more than X divided by 75?

I don't think the P5 would "kill" the Big East but given all the money the NCAA racks up off of March Madness, it makes sense for them to establish their only tourney eventually. NCAA would still be there, just as the NIT was for many years.
 
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dwalks93 said:
I understand the "spirit" of the NCAA tournament very well. It is truly one of the most exciting weeks of the year and I hope it never changes. I love the David and Golaith match ups and the unpredictability of the tournament. But "hope" and "spirit" do not drive realignment or the actions of the P5 conferences. No, money is the primary driver and money is the best predictor of what the P5 programs will do. You can name call all you want but it does not change the ruthless money grab that college sports have become...denying its existence does not change its possibility.

Bottom line is the NCAA retains a large portion of the NCAA basketball tournament revenue. There is a reason UConn AD David Benedict calls the P5 "the autonomous 5." The autonomous 5 does not want to be governed by the NCAA and it wants to retain all the money. It has already seized control of college football, basketball could very easily be next.

I am not certain if the P5 would lose money if they change the NCAA tournament structure. I mean will Kentucky fans quit watching UK if they don't play the Big East teams? Sure, for the casual fan/smaller program viewers the appeal is less but if the P5 can keep 100% of the revenue then perhaps that offsets the loss of smaller program's fan bases. BTW what you would prefer to watch (an all G5 tournament) is not the deciding factor. Modern college sports has nothing to do with what the fans want and everything to do with money and control.

As for the basketball schools like UNC and Duke I'd agree they never stipulate to a tournament change. But the schools do not decide, the conference does. For every Duke there is an FSU who would agree to anything that would increase the available bail money for their football players. The P5 is made up of more football than basketball schools and the recent additions have only increased this ratio. The SEC schools need to build a new amusement park for their football players to live in and if a P5 basketball tournament helps pay for it then they'll be all in.

Why do you think UNC has not been penalized by the NCAA for the most rampant academic fraud scandal ever? It is because the NCAA is afraid to penalize the premier P5 programs. The NCAA has already lost football, basketball could very easily be next and they do not want to poke the bear.

I am not sure the P5 is willing to take the bad press, public outrage, and potential legal action to completely separate from the NCAA but money seems to be the best predictor of action. Perhaps the greed of college sports will eventually consume itself and completely destroy its fan bases but so far I've seen no willingness on the part of the P5 conferences to limit their greed.
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This has been an interesting read and many good comments. Whatever credibility the NCAA ever had they have pretty much lost it with the host of recent scandals and their
selective bias in treating different programs. While it is interesting and novel that the 16th ranked can be a 2 seed on any given day, the setup is designed to reward the power conference teams by reason of appeasement I guess. I have to wonder what the NCAA does with all the money it takes in. There would still need to be a body independent of the conferences to administer justice so maybe this just means that the NCAA or its successor will be cut down to size ($) from where it now perches. An example that comes to mind is what has happened to the Commissioner of Baseball at the hands of the owners. Money talks and there is now a ton of money and why would the owners (or univer
sities) give up all that power and money to an independent body with no skin in the game?
 
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The correct equation isn't x/65 > x/75.

It's

Is x/65 >, =, or < y/75?

Because if there's a split, we can't assume x=y. You can't assume the money wouldn't change with that drastic change in format.

There may be a logical argument that taking away the little guys will reduce viewership, not improve it. You aren't improving the television product by including an 0-16 BCU team over a decent Yale team. Saying people want to see the best teams compete is true, but that happens now. Eliminating the best teams from the lower conferences, for the worst teams of the better conferences wouldn't result in the best teams competing. Yale wouldn't go winless in the ACC like BCU did, even if BCU would win 1 or 2 games in the Ivy league.

Plus it further opens the door for anti-trust, and loss of non-profit status.
 
bluejaybud said:
How does the p5 benefit from excluding the Big East in a future non-NCAA tournament? Don't respond with, "To kill the Big East", because I do not and will not buy that as a reasonable answer. If its about money, how does them excluding Nova and G'town make them more money?
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You are missing the point. The P5 per se goal in creating a P5 tournament would not be to exclude the Big East. The P5 goal would be to cut the NCAA out of any of the revenue from a new P5 tournament.

Currently the media contract on the NCAA tournament is worth almost $1 billion per year. Yet, only $205,000,000 of that $1 billion is paid out to the teams competing in the tournament. The remainder of tournament amount (almost $800 million) is used to almost exclusively fund the entire NCAA budget.

I am attaching the below NYT link which explains the NCAA tournament media contract and its distribution but here are a couple of useful paragraphs...

"In an interview Tuesday, the N.C.A.A. president, Mark Emmert, said that since the (media) contract was critical to the finances of more than a thousand athletic departments across three divisions it made sense to agree early to a contract extension with pre-existing broadcast partners."

"Emmert frequently takes pains to note that just 3 percent of the athletes under his purview compete in the high-profile sports of Division I men’s basketball and top-tier football, while a vast majority are dependent on the revenue those prominent sports generate."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/s...-cbs-sports-and-turner-through-2032.html?_r=0

The P5 have thus far limited themselves to monopolizing the revenue in college football. But should revenues decrease due to cord cutting/alternate viewing platforms, college basketball seems a pretty lucrative place for the P5 to seize control.

If a P5 tournament could bring in even $500 million per year but the P5 conferences kept it all they would be financially winning.

Sure, the P5 could include the G5 programs but why would they? It would only take money out of their pockets and allows programs like Villanova and UConn to remain competitive at the highest level. Currently there is not a huge issue recruiting out of the G5. G5 teams make the tournament every year and, as UConn showed in 2014 and Villanova in 2016, G5 programs can win the tournament. But what if a Nova or a UConn could not play in the P5 tournament? Could they continue to recruit? Would they remain national players?

College sports have sadly become a business and the main focus appears to be making money and thinning your competition. It is not completely unreasonable to think the P5 could secede from the NCAA.
 
Viewership drops drastically if the P5 forms their own tournament. You take Wichita State, VCU, Butler, Dayton, UNLV, George Mason, and the appeal becomes so much worse, to the point where it will drastically hurt ratings. I am steadfast in that belief. It is nowhere close to the same dynamic as football where all the best/renowned teams are in the P5. You're acting as if they're the same. A viewership plummet means less bargaining power for a lucrative tv contract.
 
bluejaybud said:
Viewership drops drastically if the P5 forms their own tournament. You take Wichita State, VCU, Butler, Dayton, UNLV, George Mason, and the appeal becomes so much worse, to the point where it will drastically hurt ratings. I am steadfast in that belief. It is nowhere close to the same dynamic as football where all the best/renowned teams are in the P5. You're acting as if they're the same. A viewership plummet means less bargaining power for a lucrative tv contract.
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You are totally missing the point. Of course a P-5 tournament is worth far less than the current NCAA tournament. But the P-5 gets less than 20% of the revenues from the NCAA tournament (because first the vast bulk of the revenues is used to cover NCAA overhead, which the P-5 would like to cut off completely), and then after that the 65 or so p-5 schools have to share with about 270 other Division I schools.
 
WingU-Conn said:
The correct equation isn't x/65 > x/75.

It's

Is x/65 >, =, or < y/75?

Because if there's a split, we can't assume x=y. You can't assume the money wouldn't change with that drastic change in format.

There may be a logical argument that taking away the little guys will reduce viewership, not improve it. You aren't improving the television product by including an 0-16 BCU team over a decent Yale team. Saying people want to see the best teams compete is true, but that happens now. Eliminating the best teams from the lower conferences, for the worst teams of the better conferences wouldn't result in the best teams competing. Yale wouldn't go winless in the ACC like BCU did, even if BCU would win 1 or 2 games in the Ivy league.

Plus it further opens the door for anti-trust, and loss of non-profit status.
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Take the argument to the extreme. Just have two teams with the best players, playing each other all year long. At what point does that end up losing viewership?

There is a sweet spot with the need for diversity of sports teams and between the dilution of distributal revenue. I'm sure Alabama would love to not have to share monies with LSU and vice versa. But that mutual preference is a formula for mutual self destruction.

Then add the sweet spot for the media, which at times is in step with universities and at times out of step.

All of our arguments have some merit. But the reality is various entities are trying to tilt the equations towards themselves while realizing they have to rely on others. And since no one knows the future with absolute certainty a good part of the decision making process is about probabilities for success. Models are changing constantly.
 
bluejaybud said:
Viewership drops drastically if the P5 forms their own tournament. You take Wichita State, VCU, Butler, Dayton, UNLV, George Mason, and the appeal becomes so much worse, to the point where it will drastically hurt ratings. I am steadfast in that belief. It is nowhere close to the same dynamic as football where all the best/renowned teams are in the P5. You're acting as if they're the same. A viewership plummet means less bargaining power for a lucrative tv contract.
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What's the point of trying to rationalize with you when you have stated several times that you refuse to believe otherwise from your stated beliefs?
 
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