What is the end game?

[Dooley]

Why is the Big 10 (and SEC) worth so much more than every other league? Are their apples to apples ratings to support that gap?

Great question and one we should all ask. There isn't an available calculator, abacus, function, formula or block set that can definitely show me why UConn is valued at $2M/yr and Rutgers, Iowa, Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Minnesota, and Maryland are valued at $50M/yr. I don't care how long they've been playing football. I don't care that they are AAU (we are talking sports TV contracts, not research dollars anyway). I don't care if their states are larger than Connecticut. None of those athletic departments are 25x more valuable than UConn. I'm not saying this to stir up an argument with our B1G visitors. I'm just saying that there is no logical explanation that can be made to me to explain why those schools have been added to or grandfathered into a league that will pay them more money on a TV deal by the end of January than what we will get over the course of an entire year.

 

[Ldandy]

Great question and one we should all ask. There isn't an available calculator, abacus, function, formula or block set that can definitely show me why UConn is valued at $2M/yr and Rutgers, Iowa, Illinois, Northwestern, Purdue, Minnesota, and Maryland are valued at $50M/yr. I don't care how long they've been playing football. I don't care that they are AAU (we are talking sports TV contracts, not research dollars anyway). I don't care if their states are larger than Connecticut. None of those athletic departments are 25x more valuable than UConn. I'm not saying this to stir up an argument with our B1G visitors. I'm just saying that there is no logical explanation that can be made to me to explain why those schools have been added to or grandfathered into a league that will pay them more money on a TV deal by the end of January than what we will get over the course of an entire year.

No argument from me. I doubt there is any metric that can be produced that would demonstrate how individually Purdue, Vanderbilt or any team is worth 25x more than what UCONN is worth. Its not realistic. That said in the cases of The B1G and SEC the real value is in the whole over the sum of their parts. UCONN has no such luxury being paired with 11 teams that likely carry less individual value than themselves.

 

[hardcorehusky]

There is no end game here. It is each conference for themselves with a cartel for the first 5. ESPN and its greed started this and now it is up to each conference to figure out its best path moving forward. None of the money makes any sense. The NCAA doesn't make sense. Logic doesn't apply to conference realignment.

 

[Dooley]

No argument from me. I doubt there is any metric that can be produced that would demonstrate how individually Purdue, Vanderbilt or any team is worth 25x more than what UCONN is worth. Its not realistic. That said in the cases of The B1G and SEC the real value is in the whole over the sum of their parts. UCONN has no such luxury being paired with 11 teams that likely carry less individual value than themselves.

Ultimately, this is probably the reason. The huge fanbases of Michigan, OSU, Nebraska, Penn State, etc elevate the lower half of the conference to its new stratosphere. Ditto in the SEC. Alabama, LSU, Georgia, etc elevate Vanderbilt to being 20x more valuable than UConn. Can you imagine if all of the heavyweights just decided to join together into a mega, super, uber conference? Take the top heavyweights from each conference and form a college Premier League. Each school would probably command over $100M/yr from TV alone. Probably much more since there are no conference also-rans and deadweights to lower the value of the conference.

In any event, it's no less frustrating to us UConn fans to see all of these power schools valued at 10x, 15x, and now 25x more than UConn when there is absolutely zero logic to explain it in apples-to-apples terms.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Ultimately, this is probably the reason. The huge fanbases of Michigan, OSU, Nebraska, Penn State, etc elevate the lower half of the conference to its new stratosphere. Ditto in the SEC. Alabama, LSU, Georgia, etc elevate Vanderbilt to being 20x more valuable than UConn. Can you imagine if all of the heavyweights just decided to join together into a mega, super, uber conference? Take the top heavyweights from each conference and form a college Premier League. Each school would probably command over $100M/yr from TV alone. Probably much more since there are no conference also-rans and deadweights to lower the value of the conference.

In any event, it's no less frustrating to us UConn fans to see all of these power schools valued at 10x, 15x, and now 25x more than UConn when there is absolutely zero logic to explain it in apples-to-apples terms.

So there is math showing that an average Big 10 game is worth 25x what an average AAC game is worth?

 

[djct1999]

So there is math showing that an average Big 10 game is worth 25x what an average AAC game is worth?

While I certainly agree that the math doesn't support this value, does it really matter? Fox was willing to pay that, math be damned. Capitalism at its best (or worst). I watched the Big Short last night and I feel that in ways that pertain to tv rights, etc. the college landscape is going down a similar path. Its unsustainable. It ignores intrinsic value. Someone will get burned. The bubble will burst.

 

[billybud]

Why is the Big 10 (and SEC) worth so much more than every other league? Are their apples to apples ratings to support that gap?

Why?

More people watched the Alabama spring game on TV than the NHL playoff game that same Saturday.

Those Southeasterners are mad dog football watchers evidently, willling to tune into a meaningless spring practice game.

 

[junglehusky]

While I certainly agree that the math doesn't support this value, does it really matter? Fox was willing to pay that, math be damned. Capitalism at its best (or worst). I watched the Big Short last night and I feel that in ways that pertain to tv rights, etc. the college landscape is going down a similar path. Its unsustainable. It ignores intrinsic value. Someone will get burned. The bubble will burst.

John Gasaway: I Ain't Afraid of no Sports Bubbles

 

[whaler11]

John Gasaway: I Ain't Afraid of no Sports Bubbles

Built a nice strawman there....

 

[junglehusky]

Built a nice strawman there....

I guess I cited a blog post about basketball and the NCAA tournament in a thread about football contracts, but if there is a threat to non P5 / non P2 basketball, I think it's more long term than immediate term.

Wrestling, rowing, etc men's sports, maybe even baseball on the other hand...

 

[froginctown]

Why?

More people watched the Alabama spring game on TV than the NHL playoff game that same Saturday.

Those Southeasterners are mad dog football watchers evidently, willling to tune into a meaningless spring practice game.

100K+ showed up for OSU's spring game. And paid $5 a piece to watch an internal practice.

 

[whaler11]

I guess I cited a blog post about basketball and the NCAA tournament in a thread about football contracts, but if there is a threat to non P5 / non P2 basketball, I think it's more long term than immediate term.

Wrestling, rowing, etc men's sports, maybe even baseball on the other hand...

He did, not you.

He starts by comparing entities that are legally non-profits to for profit enterprise - and has the web bubble completely wrong - those companies weren't making money that's what made the whole frenzy especially stupid.

I have never read anything where anyone says there is any threat to
the popularity of the tournament. That's the problem the other 4-5 months of the season - fewer people care prior to March. That's the biggest strawman aspect.

That Turner and CBS do well financially is great - but the schools are already spending the revenue - so it has nothing to do with their spending unless someone thinks CBS and Turner plan on sending more sometime soon.

There are a lot more risks that ever before for college sports -
certainly that has never been more public support that the idea that this is amateur and should be treated as such is an absolute joke. I guess you can say that people have predicted things in the past and they didn't happen and the NCAA tournament is popular and profitable for networks so everything is going to be fine - but that seems to ignore a lot that can change.

 

[junglehusky]

The NCAA's response to the O'Bannon case was to divert a small percentage of the revenue from the blockbuster TV contracts and make it allowable to pay living expenses for athletes in football and other sports at major universities. It's an incremental change, I'm sure the plaintiffs hoped for more but it wasn't a big change and certainly won't stop the way business is being done. If more changes are in the pipeline, I think they will also be incremental.

Without having dove into the details, my sense is that the power schools have a sense of what kind of pittance they can distribute to the G5 schools to keep the NCAA operating as a not-quite-amateur, not-quite-semipro conglomeration. Maybe Villanova winning the men's championship this year will be an outlier and the G5 and FCS schools will gradually become unhappy and then the fabled breakaway will happen.

Maybe.

Right now I don't think that's super likely. What's more likely in the 5-10 year term is another round of realignment, and as I mentioned, non-revenue sports getting axed at some schools.

 

[billybud]

Maybe non revenue sports will go another way....like hockey in the south. FSU, LSU, Miami, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Tulane, etc play each other in the AHCA Div. 3.

Also like the rugby teams...and men's non scholarship soccer teams, wrestlers, etc

Student athletes.

 

[shizzle787]

I don't know about the end game, but I have a guess at the intermediate game:
1) New Mexico St. and UMass drop to FCS in the next two years.
2) Hawaii and Eastern Michigan drop football entirely a year or two after that.
3) UTEP replaces Hawaii in the MW, and Marshall returns to the MAC; this leaves 12 teams in the AAC, MWC, C-USA, and MAC and 10 in the Sun Belt.
64 P5 teams+ 58 G5 teams+ ND, BYU, and Army= 125 FBS teams

 

[B1GOSU]

Eastern Michigan officials have stated they are not leaving FBS football status.

 

[shizzle787]

Eastern Michigan officials have stated they are not leaving FBS football status.

They may not have a choice: if the state budget says cuts to athletics have to be made, EMU football is the first to go.