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

[bobbyinaz]

But it's by choice that it's so lowly valued. You can instantly flip that switch overnight and make it very valuable. The networks pay $1.1b every year for the NCAA tournament. If you can grab that money, the value of basketball skyrockets.

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/29/ncaa-basketball-tournament-conference-payouts#

This has always been the problem.

The conferences that make the most money from the tourney are still only making a fraction of the $1B being paid by the networks.

At some point, likely sooner than later, the P4 are going to want a bigger chunk. It will mean either the NCAA will increase the payout to the conferences or they will find another source.

 

[JohnFSilver]

No way that happens.

No way that happens?

In the last 20 years the big east has been destroyed twice.

Now, the powers that be destroyed the Pac-12 conference. The PAC-12!!!!

What leads anyone here to believe they wouldn’t destroy the big east for the third time in 25 years if they thought it would be beneficial to them?

Big east is not a safe place.

 

[ZooCougar]

Oh it’s definitely happening now.

 

[Luna]

It won’t happen because the big east doesn’t have football teams to poach.. except for uconn

 

[Viet Vet]

Uconn is the biggest brand in the best basketball conference in the country

UConn alumnus here. Respectfully I must disagree. UConn is the most successful PROGRAM in the past 25 years, not the biggest BRAND. If you are a TV executive looking to maximize ad revenue, who are you putting on your network first? Kansas, Duke, or UConn?

 

[Luna]

UConn alumnus here. Respectfully I must disagree. UConn is the most successful PROGRAM in the past 25 years, not the biggest BRAND. If you are a TV executive looking to maximize ad revenue, who are you putting on your network first? Kansas, Duke, or UConn?

Biggest brand in the big east

 

[John]

Biggest brand in the big east

That's not saying much, it's not like the big guns are still around.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

But it's by choice that it's so lowly valued. You can instantly flip that switch overnight and make it very valuable. The networks pay $1.1b every year for the NCAA tournament. If you can grab that money, the value of basketball skyrockets.

Right, but that's a huge IF. How do you see that playing out? Who would move for that to happen and why do you think UConn would be in a position to reap those rewards?

 

[CL82]

UConn alumnus here. Respectfully I must disagree. UConn is the most successful PROGRAM in the past 25 years, not the biggest BRAND. If you are a TV executive looking to maximize ad revenue, who are you putting on your network first? Kansas, Duke, or UConn?

Kind of not how it works, though I wish it did. Networks don't contract to broadcast specific schools. They have deals with conferences. Now, if all schools had to schedule their games with networks separately, and got paid for them separately, our circumstances improved dramatically. Connecticut is a huge national brand. Opposing teams jack up the prices when we come to town, and when we are on the traditional broadcast networks, or even a ESPN are ratings are extremely high .

 

[CL82]

Right, but that's a huge IF. How do you see that playing out? Who would move for that to happen and why do you think UConn would be in a position to reap those rewards?

I see it being a money grab by the P*conferences deciding that they don't want to share basketball revenue. If that happens, I think we get an invite based upon our success and national branding, but I'm not certain of that.

 

[ZooCougar]

UConn alumnus here. Respectfully I must disagree. UConn is the most successful PROGRAM in the past 25 years, not the biggest BRAND. If you are a TV executive looking to maximize ad revenue, who are you putting on your network first? Kansas, Duke, or UConn?

Try reading the post again.

He said UConn is the biggest brand in the best basketball conference,

Whether or not it’s the best is up for debate.

But UConn is the biggest in the Bug East.

 

[Hoophound]

In the words of Jim Calhoun, UConn basketball is about to “kick the window out” in terms of being a national power. We are going from a top 6 program to a top 2-3 program over the next few years. Dan Hurley proves day after day, that he’s a freakin maniac. His competitive spirit is on a level that only people like Calhoun, Cronin, Donovan and Knight can relate to. He’s nuts.

You might laugh at the Cronin reference, but it’s true. Cronin may not be a truly great coach, but his competitive fire is something else.

 

[ZooCougar]

That's not saying much, it's not like the big guns are still around.

So true.

Basketball brands don’t count for much anyways. If they did we wouldn’t be in the Big East for much longer.

 

[upstater]

Right, but that's a huge IF. How do you see that playing out? Who would move for that to happen and why do you think UConn would be in a position to reap those rewards?

The way the colleges run things, and the explicit and overt things they've been saying, means that it's definitely going to happen. They will keep the huge bulk of that $1.1b for themselves. They will only pay for their own championship in Olympic sports. And they'll tell the D2 and D3 schools to fund their own championships, preferably regional, if they want championships at all.

When the value of basketball schools goes up, conferences will want the strongest basketball schools in their conference simply because the payouts for tourney credits will be so huge. So let's say the payout is $1b. That means each tourney credit is equivalent to $15m. UConn's run last year would've been equal to $75m for whatever conference they join. UConn makes an Elite 8 run once every 3 years, which is worth $45m. 6x out of 24 they've made the F4, which is worth $75m. Say they win 1 tourney game in all the other years. That's 15m x 22. UConn would've brought in just over $1b in the last 33 years if the future structure had been in place. An average of $30m a year. Combine that with UConn's TV value for both men's and women's bball, which could be $20m, and UConn is then a $50m property not even counting football.

This presupposes that UConn is going to have another great 33 year run in the future, which is impossible. So plan for 2/3rds of that value instead.

 

[upstater]

You might laugh at the Cronin reference, but it’s true. Cronin may not be a truly great coach, but his competitive fire is something else.

What are you basing that on? The level of anger? I'm not sure that counts for competitive fire. I mean, Buttermaker could get very angry to the point he even smacked his players around, but his competitive fire was very low.

 

[MilliniumPrince]

I totally agree and if changes ever come about to move away from that model, then we'll be in a better spot.

It is going to happen, and when it does we are screwed.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

It is going to happen, and when it does we are screwed.

Meaning you think it'll happen but it will be a breakaway scenario of p* that leaves us behind because it won't include more than the p* FB schools?

 

[MilliniumPrince]

Meaning you think it'll happen but it will be a breakaway scenario of p* that leaves us behind because it won't include more than the p* FB schools?

Correct.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

The way the colleges run things, and the explicit and overt things they've been saying, means that it's definitely going to happen. They will keep the huge bulk of that $1.1b for themselves. They will only pay for their own championship in Olympic sports. And they'll tell the D2 and D3 schools to fund their own championships, preferably regional, if they want championships at all.

When the value of basketball schools goes up, conferences will want the strongest basketball schools in their conference simply because the payouts for tourney credits will be so huge. So let's say the payout is $1b. That means each tourney credit is equivalent to $15m. UConn's run last year would've been equal to $75m for whatever conference they join. UConn makes an Elite 8 run once every 3 years, which is worth $45m. 6x out of 24 they've made the F4, which is worth $75m. Say they win 1 tourney game in all the other years. That's 15m x 22. UConn would've brought in just over $1b in the last 33 years if the future structure had been in place. An average of $30m a year. Combine that with UConn's TV value for both men's and women's bball, which could be $20m, and UConn is then a $50m property not even counting football.

This presupposes that UConn is going to have another great 33 year run in the future, which is impossible. So plan for 2/3rds of that value instead.

I see your logic and follow your math. I wonder if in this darwinistic scenario if they don't equally weight each round or at least don't weight the first and perhaps second round equally?

That all said, I still am not convinced the breakaway from March Madness paying for D2/D3 athletics will happen - at least not without MAJOR political blow back across all 50 states. Therefore, I think Congress gets involved at least behind the scenes to influence things so D2/D3 athletics don't literally go down the drain because I think that's what would happen. The cultural and economic impacts would be huge - thousands of jobs (coaches, administrators, etc) go away, tourism/travel goes down, alums/donors get pissed and donations go down, etc etc. IF things move in this direction, I think it would be some sort of slow progression and not just a massive overnight knife cut.

 

[NE Football]

Or donations go up to support D2/D3

 

[JohnFSilver]

I see your logic and follow your math. I wonder if in this darwinistic scenario if they don't equally weight each round or at least don't weight the first and perhaps second round equally?

That all said, I still am not convinced the breakaway from March Madness paying for D2/D3 athletics will happen - at least not without MAJOR political blow back across all 50 states. Therefore, I think Congress gets involved at least behind the scenes to influence things so D2/D3 athletics don't literally go down the drain because I think that's what would happen. The cultural and economic impacts would be huge - thousands of jobs (coaches, administrators, etc) go away, tourism/travel goes down, alums/donors get pissed and donations go down, etc etc. IF things move in this direction, I think it would be some sort of slow progression and not just a massive overnight knife cut.

Congress can’t agree on things they agree on.

They aren’t going to touch college athletics. Anyone thinking there is going to be a congressional solution here is not paying attention.

 

[CL82]

I see your logic and follow your math. I wonder if in this darwinistic scenario if they don't equally weight each round or at least don't weight the first and perhaps second round equally?

That all said, I still am not convinced the breakaway from March Madness paying for D2/D3 athletics will happen - at least not without MAJOR political blow back across all 50 states. Therefore, I think Congress gets involved at least behind the scenes to influence things so D2/D3 athletics don't literally go down the drain because I think that's what would happen. The cultural and economic impacts would be huge - thousands of jobs (coaches, administrators, etc) go away, tourism/travel goes down, alums/donors get pissed and donations go down, etc etc. IF things move in this direction, I think it would be some sort of slow progression and not just a massive overnight knife cut.

Tackling college football is problematic because anything you do to benefit one sub contingency group is likely to penalize another. They may harumpf for a little bit, maybe, but they're not going to do anything to disenfranchise a significant portion of their constituency.

 

[Alum86]

It won’t happen because the big east doesn’t have football teams to poach.. except for uconn

The bigs own FB and will want even more, breaking away from the NCAA in FB AND Hoop. Won’t need to poach.

 

[upstater]

I see your logic and follow your math. I wonder if in this darwinistic scenario if they don't equally weight each round or at least don't weight the first and perhaps second round equally?

That all said, I still am not convinced the breakaway from March Madness paying for D2/D3 athletics will happen - at least not without MAJOR political blow back across all 50 states. Therefore, I think Congress gets involved at least behind the scenes to influence things so D2/D3 athletics don't literally go down the drain because I think that's what would happen. The cultural and economic impacts would be huge - thousands of jobs (coaches, administrators, etc) go away, tourism/travel goes down, alums/donors get pissed and donations go down, etc etc. IF things move in this direction, I think it would be some sort of slow progression and not just a massive overnight knife cut.

The D1 tournament does not pay anything to D2 and D3 schools currently. It hardly pays for D1 schools.

All it pays for is the championship events in those divisions.

The rest of the money goes to D1 tourney teams (about $300m of it), while the bulk of the proceeds fund the enforcement arm of the NCAA itself.

By the way, my math was all wrong, LOL. I based it on the number of tourney teams and it should have been tourney games not counting the Final 4 or the midweek games. So, it should be $8.3m per credit, instead of $15m.

The value of UConn would drop then from $30m per year in credits to $17m + TV value. I would also think that the value of the tourney increasing in each conference's eyes might impact the regular season value of basketball as a whole.

One thing I dd not include here is the value of the women's basketball tournament. As we saw last year, the ratings were huge. I just read an article that envisions a 5-fold increase in the value of the next women's tourney contract; the last one was signed in 2011. They have experienced a 27% year-over-year increase in viewership, and it's now catching up to the men's side.

With the UConn women being even MORE successful than the men, their total tourney credits may indeed result in a few million dollars more for UConn total, taking the school to over $20m+ in yearly tourney credits from men's and women's.

 

[superjohn]

That's not saying much, it's not like the big guns are still around.

Only big gun program they lost was Cuse. Georgetown and St. John's are finally building up again.