Yormark confirms that the big 12 was in expansion talks with Connecticut and Gonzaga but indicates neither program is being pursued any longer.

[ZooCougar]

I am really fearful that the Big 12 ship has sailed. This football season likely put the final nail in the coffin for a chance in a power conference. Coach Mora's whining I fear is just confirmation of such. The Big 12 will scoop up those ACC schools just like they did when the PAC dissolved and UConn nation was left on the outside again. Remember, ESPN controls conference realignment. They will always favor Cuse over UConn.

It sailed. We’re in the Big East. The only thing left to do is to figure out what to do with football.

They need to figure out how to support it better with scheduling, funding and good steady leadership.

 

[KryHavok]

I am really fearful that the Big 12 ship has sailed. This football season likely put the final nail in the coffin for a chance in a power conference. Coach Mora's whining I fear is just confirmation of such. The Big 12 will scoop up those ACC schools just like they did when the PAC dissolved and UConn nation was left on the outside again. Remember, ESPN controls conference realignment. They will always favor Cuse over UConn.

Dead on mate, dead on. But at least we'll have UMass...

 

[CL82]

Dead on mate, dead on. But at least we'll have UMass...

 

[ZooCougar]

Dead on mate, dead on. But at least we'll have UMass...

The North Atlantic #2

 

[Banta55]

It sailed. We’re in the Big East. The only thing left to do is to figure out what to do with football.

They need to figure out how to support it better with scheduling, funding and good steady leadership.

Agree starting to think Mora isn't that leader

 

[nelsonmuntz]

One of the data points that is impossible to ignore is that all four P4 leagues explored adding teams last summer, and none of them wanted UConn. No league even offered UConn the SMU offer of playing for free. They didn't want UConn on their schedule for free.

I get that the recent realignment dynamics revolved around squeezing one last big linear TV contract out of the networks before those deals are gone forever. But I would have thought that someone would have made an offer to UConn at some level, especially coming off a national title in basketball. For the "football drives the bus" people, Colorado, Stanford and ASU all got invited to P4 leagues, and those football programs all suck.

If I am the UConn Board of Trustees, I have to be asking what the payoff for continued investment in FBS football is. What is the plan? I can live with being one of the last independents for a few years, but the schedule issue is one that is the trickiest to solve in the short term.

 

[Waquoit]

I keep thinking of Shogun. He keeps building a boat and it keeps getting set on fire just before the voyage. I don't think we should pull the plug just yet but the time is coming.

 

[XStorrsion]

The University of Delaware is paying $5mil to play FBS but we somehow can't figure out how to afford to stay FBS at UConn? The facilities are already better than most G5 football facilities so the investment has already been made...No need to give up on FBS, although the case can certainly be made that eventually the aspirations of being more than G5 will need to be given up on.

 

[WrenchFan69]

The University of Delaware is paying $5mil to play FBS but we somehow can't figure out how to afford to stay FBS at UConn? The facilities are already better than most G5 football facilities so the investment has already been made...No need to give up on FBS, although the case can certainly be made that eventually the aspirations of being more than G5 will need to be given up on.

Delaware has an endowment ~$1bil more than UConn. Plus a football-first AD and donor backing. A one-time $5mil won't be a problem. If they mostly lose for the next 20 years and it costs them 8 figures to exist every year, we'll see what happens

 

[ZooCougar]

I keep thinking of Shogun. He keeps building a boat and it keeps getting set on fire just before the voyage. I don't think we should pull the plug just yet but the time is coming.

It would be so wasteful. We built all these facilities, and only terrible schools don’t have football programs.

Weather the storm.

 

[ZooCougar]

Delaware has an endowment ~$1bil more than UConn. Plus a football-first AD and donor backing. A one-time $5mil won't be a problem. If they mostly lose for the next 20 years and it costs them 8 figures to exist every year, we'll see what happens

They won’t mostly lose because they are playing in conference that is commensurate with the program’s ability to perform instead of playing as many P4s as they can get on the schedule.

 

[MilliniumPrince]

Pulling the plug on football would have negative impact on several other things, including enrollment and quality of students.
That said, the inevitable is in the not too distant future, barring a miracle.

 

[Hoophound]

They aren’t shutting down football. Much smaller, poorer schools are upgrading to FBS on the regular. FCS is no longer worth playing for a major university and there is no way UConn is quitting football entirely.

 

[B12]

They aren’t shutting down football. Much smaller, poorer schools are upgrading to FBS on the regular. FCS is no longer worth playing for a major university and there is no way UConn is quitting football entirely.

I'd guess that barring a B12 BB membership that UConn ends up in a group of what is now G-5 and the best FCS conferences.

The writing is on the wall that the P-4 are going to break away at some point and they have no reason not to just have their own BB tournament and FB playoff.

IF UConn misses that boat I can see the G-5, Big Sky, and a few other conferences and teams moving together. Would actually be really good as there is no reason to have G-5 teams who generate less than 50 million $ through the AD competing with those who make 250+ million and have massive NIL programs paying millions to players.


IMO the only shot UConn has at avoiding that scenario is getting the B12 to give them something like 4-5 FB games as part of BB membership. That way UConn could at least get TV partners to pay more than 100k per game if they are getting two to five P-4 home games each year.

With UConn only making 100k per game on TV there is no real path to sustainability as even the worst G-5 conferences are making a lot more than that per game.

You can't run a FBS program with no $ coming in from ticket sales, TV, etc.


If UConn chooses to stay in the Big East it's hard to see how they end up in a P-4 breakaway BB tournament. I mean I am sure the next division tournament down will be great but if you take out the P-4 there is not much meat left on the bone as the Big TV draws are pretty much gone. The P-4 has no reason to include the Big East in any future plans and to be quite frank the Big East TV #'s are abysmal as nobody watched FS1 or FS2 as they are dying the same death RSN's and soon to be conference networks will see. nobody is paying extra for sports packs anymore. So even the Big East has an exposure issue and no long term path to making more $ on FS1.


Uconn is in a really delicate situation right now IMO. And the path to the B1G, ACC, and SEC seem really cloudy.

But if the B12 adds Gonzaga I think UConn has an outside shot to get in the upper tier before they break away.

 

[B12]

I mean just look at these #'s.

 

[UConnJim]

One of the data points that is impossible to ignore is that all four P4 leagues explored adding teams last summer, and none of them wanted UConn. No league even offered UConn the SMU offer of playing for free. They didn't want UConn on their schedule for free.

I get that the recent realignment dynamics revolved around squeezing one last big linear TV contract out of the networks before those deals are gone forever. But I would have thought that someone would have made an offer to UConn at some level, especially coming off a national title in basketball. For the "football drives the bus" people, Colorado, Stanford and ASU all got invited to P4 leagues, and those football programs all suck.

If I am the UConn Board of Trustees, I have to be asking what the payoff for continued investment in FBS football is. What is the plan? I can live with being one of the last independents for a few years, but the schedule issue is one that is the trickiest to solve in the short term.

Big 12 wanted UConn, but the Pac 12 blew up and they were able to get more regional schools Arizona, Arizona St., and Utah. The ACC got 2 P5 teams to take a discount and one G5 to accept no money. UConn was not going to accept a no money deal. Clearly, realignment is not over and the P2 is making the ACC and Big 12 look like the have nots which isn't sustainable. Ultimately, UConn will be in a football conference, but we need to be patient.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I'd guess that barring a B12 BB membership that UConn ends up in a group of what is now G-5 and the best FCS conferences.

The writing is on the wall that the P-4 are going to break away at some point and they have no reason not to just have their own BB tournament and FB playoff.

IF UConn misses that boat I can see the G-5, Big Sky, and a few other conferences and teams moving together. Would actually be really good as there is no reason to have G-5 teams who generate less than 50 million $ through the AD competing with those who make 250+ million and have massive NIL programs paying millions to players.


IMO the only shot UConn has at avoiding that scenario is getting the B12 to give them something like 4-5 FB games as part of BB membership. That way UConn could at least get TV partners to pay more than 100k per game if they are getting two to five P-4 home games each year.

With UConn only making 100k per game on TV there is no real path to sustainability as even the worst G-5 conferences are making a lot more than that per game.

You can't run a FBS program with no $ coming in from ticket sales, TV, etc.


If UConn chooses to stay in the Big East it's hard to see how they end up in a P-4 breakaway BB tournament. I mean I am sure the next division tournament down will be great but if you take out the P-4 there is not much meat left on the bone as the Big TV draws are pretty much gone. The P-4 has no reason to include the Big East in any future plans and to be quite frank the Big East TV #'s are abysmal as nobody watched FS1 or FS2 as they are dying the same death RSN's and soon to be conference networks will see. nobody is paying extra for sports packs anymore. So even the Big East has an exposure issue and no long term path to making more $ on FS1.


Uconn is in a really delicate situation right now IMO. And the path to the B1G, ACC, and SEC seem really cloudy.

But if the B12 adds Gonzaga I think UConn has an outside shot to get in the upper tier before they break away.

If the P4 split off, the damage to college athletics would be so profound and permanent that every school would have been better off dropping major sports. College athletics would go from a multi billion dollar a year business to a second tier minor league that the NBA and NFL could easily replace with their own minor league.

 

[billybud]

If you are talking football, there has already been a breakaway of the A5 (soon to be 4).

In TV $$$...policy...TV viewing numbers...NIL, etc.

The national TV interest seems drawn to those games...In week 11, the following games drew over 4 million...Mich-Penn State, Utah-Washington, Mississippi-Georgia, FSU-Miami.

During the year, even crappy games like FSU-North Alabama, BC-Pitt, BC-Syracuse, drew a million plus..

Marshall-App State did not draw 100 thousand...nor did Tulane-ECU, JMU-Old Dominion


So far this season...112 games have clocked 2 million plus viewers....all of them featured an A5 team. No pairings of non A5 teams made that cut.

 

[billybud]

I mean just look at these #'s.

Just for perspective re football....add all of theses numbers together....and more people watched the Week 1 LSU-FSU game alone than the total sum of these Week 1 basketball games.

 

[John]

Just for perspective re football....add all of theses numbers together....and more people watched the Week 1 LSU-FSU game alone than the total sum of these Week 1 basketball games.

Basketball is very much the JV/second tier college sport. Conference realignment has reinforced this continually.

 

[billybud]

What Yormack might believe is that basketball is undervalued....the numbers show up in the tournament. And there may be more value to squeeze out.

But the A4 is betting that the expanded CFP will increase ratings over the four team CFP plus bowls...

I think that the dance is safe from a break away...basketball has the better teams spread more through out the conference structures.

 

[billybud]

Unpopular as some of my posts may be for basketball centric schools, they may have relevance...

As NCAA executives and TV executives (it’s difficult to tell the two apart anymore) were shaking college football until every nickel fell out, it was telling how little regard they paid to anything else. Men’s and women’s basketball are generally the second- and third-highest revenue-producing college sports, but they’re so far behind football that they’re all but irrelevant in the eyes of executives. Of the top 50 revenue-producing college sports teams last year, only one — Duke men’s basketball, No. 48 — wasn’t a football team. (University of Illinois football, which this alum will tell you has been consistently both awful and unwatchable for nearly 40 years, brought in more revenue last year than every college basketball team in the country.) The executives made every decision with only one sport in mind. And that approach has left college basketball largely in tatters, trying to figure out how to put itself back together.

 

[billybud]

A relentless focus on the bottom line has forced college basketball to justify its existence to networks in ways that seem profoundly damaging to the sport. The one true money-maker in college basketball is the NCAA Tournament, a.k.a. March Madness, a.k.a. the thing everyone pays attention to even if they haven’t watched a game all year. The NCAA Tournament’s appeal has long been driven by underdogs and upsets; the primary appeals of the event are (a) its bracket and (b) the fact that a from-nowhere school like Fairleigh Dickinson or Northwestern State can have a moment on the national stage. The new world, where television ratings are the only thing that matters, may well screw with both. The super conferences that have emerged amid the great college-athletic realignment have begun pressuring the NCAA not just to expand the tournament to 96 teams — to provide more television inventory, of course — but also to focus on more bids for the larger leagues rather than the smaller ones, in an effort to promote bigger brand names. (The current fight about the NIT, the consolation tournament, is largely over that issue.) These are self-serving moves meant only to juice the supposedly all-important ratings.

 

[upstater]

What Yormack might believe is that basketball is undervalued....the numbers show up in the tournament. And there may be more value to squeeze out.

But the A4 is betting that the expanded CFP will increase ratings over the four team CFP plus bowls...

I think that the dance is safe from a break away...basketball has the better teams spread more through out the conference structures.

You've totally neglected the fact that the annual payout for the NCAAT is $1.1b. If you take that money and dole it out to the schools, the value of basketball triples.

 

[upstater]

Unpopular as some of my posts may be for basketball centric schools, they may have relevance...

As NCAA executives and TV executives (it’s difficult to tell the two apart anymore) were shaking college football until every nickel fell out, it was telling how little regard they paid to anything else. Men’s and women’s basketball are generally the second- and third-highest revenue-producing college sports, but they’re so far behind football that they’re all but irrelevant in the eyes of executives. Of the top 50 revenue-producing college sports teams last year, only one — Duke men’s basketball, No. 48 — wasn’t a football team. (University of Illinois football, which this alum will tell you has been consistently both awful and unwatchable for nearly 40 years, brought in more revenue last year than every college basketball team in the country.) The executives made every decision with only one sport in mind. And that approach has left college basketball largely in tatters, trying to figure out how to put itself back together.

??

Whoever wrote this is making serious errors. He keeps saying "the executives" because in the first sentence he claims the NCAA execs and the TV execs are the same.

They are NOT.

The TV execs don't value basketball? They value it enough to dole out $1.1b to the NCAAT. That's a serious commitment.

How are the NCAA execs different than the TV execs? They want to keep as much of that $1.1b for themselves as possible.

These two sets of execs have competing interests, and they are not aligned with the interests of colleges, necessarily.