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Originally Posted by Solecismic
What the media doesn't seem to understand is that there are only a handful of schools that make it worth while to expand a 12-school conference. Why is 16 a magic number all of a sudden? Why not 18, then? Why not 24? Because once you reach 14, you've pretty much lost all contact with schools in the other division.
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Funny, one of the radio talk show hosts here in KC argued today that the perfect conference alignment was 18, since you could have two 9-team divisions with 8-game schedules, four non-con games and a title game. I'm baffled at why you would have a conference if you never played half the schools in the conference.
I think a 16-team conference can work but it hasn't so far. Of course, it's never been tried with top-tier teams, just also-rans. I'm not counting the current Big East configuration since it doesn't have a 16-team football conference.
I'm working under two assumptions as to why conferences are moving toward 16 teams. One is that I believe within the next five years all the major conferences will have a network of their own for 2nd or 3rd tier rights. Whether it's the BTN or Pac 12 model, it's all going to be about footprint and potential subscribers. That's why A&M is attractive to the SEC. A&M gives them leverage to get a potential SEC Network as broadly available as possible in Texas without the actual headache of having the Longhorns in the conference.
Second is that since everyone is working toward the first assumption, everybody wants to get their teams first. The Pac 12 is landlocked ... there are only so many BCS caliber schools they can grab, which makes the remaining Big 12 schools so valuable to them. It's simple supply and demand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solecismic
I still think the best solution is for the Big XII to hold at nine schools, maybe talk to TCU or Louisville/Cincinnati. That way, it's the Big East falling apart first, not the Big XII. But this would require Texas to behave differently.
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The Big 12 can't remain at nine financially; their TV deals are nullified if they drop below 10 schools. And given the extracurricular activities of the last few weeks, what school in their right mind would join the Big 12?
Berry Trammel from the Daily Oklahoman was asked the Texas question today -- what would happen if Texas offered to save the Big 12, share revenue equally, scrap the LHN and help recruit a quality 10th member. I think his response was spot on -- Texas wouldn't be Texas if they did that, and no one trusts Texas either inside or outside the Big 12.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solecismic
I wanted to comment on the journalism angle here, since I was a sportswriter for a long time, and I have a master's degree in journalism.
Back when I did this for a living, we recognized that everyone brings a slant to the job, but editors were prized for their independence. A lot of bravado about keeping publishers and advertisers out of the news room. We were taught to look at stories from as many angles as possible, and to be conscious that our job was not only to be fair, but to try and avoid bias in what we choose to report.
We read our Woodward and Bernstein, and admired how Ben Bradlee worked as an editor.
Now, imagine Nancy Grace on the Watergate story.
Today, journalism is slanted shit for the most part. Publishers do not stay out of the news room, and editors are hired to "shape" the public, not report a story. Fox mocks us with its "fair and balanced" slogan. CNN mocks us in many other ways. Newspapers are dying and online journalism is difficult to read, because no one can be trusted and everyone can publish.
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You know we share a similar background ... I wanted to be a journalist all my life and achieved my dream of graduating from the world's first school of journalism at Missouri. After earning my degree, I walked away from broadcast journalism. I saw where the industry was heading and I couldn't do it. I already saw the networks breaking the very principles we were taught in school, and now those broken principles are what is being taught.
I don't think the biggest problem with journalism is that it is slanted; I think the biggest problem is that it is bad. When you had a 1/2 hour of news to fill for the early and late local news, you actually covered stories. Every story was important, and you had to be good or get out of the way.
Watch ESPN, CNN, Fox or your local news at noon on any given day and you should vomit. When did two people arguing about their opinions become news? When did pretty blondes blathering on about pointless trivia become news? There are fewer and fewer trained journalists on network news than ever before -- it's just talking heads and news readers that can't even read. Plus, everyone wants to be a star on TV, so now every broadcast is a talking head blathering their opinion. 25 years ago, the idea of news anchor pontificating or advocating a point was extraordinary; today it's the norm.
When I was a reporter, if I were doing a story on any topic, I had to cover both sides of the story. If I were doing a story about a state issue, I needed to have an interview with a Democrat and a Republican. How often do you ever see stories where they talk to people on multiple sides rather than just one?
Newspapers don't have the budgets to cover the news anymore, so they have let go of the best journalists and cover less news than ever. Even bastions of journalism in the past now ignore stories that hurt their bottom line or appeal to their demographics with one side of the story.