Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

[RaychelSnr]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

Sorry, I guess I typed it wrong, but that was my point. ACC averages 17M for everything basically. Big 12 is averaging 20M and gets the extra tier 3 money. It doesn't matter too much what the year to year numbers are, but the averages do matter.

Ok then not sure what your point is then? No matter how you slice it being in the Big XII is worth $8-$10 million more a year minimum with the new tv contracts until 2021, and that's not even counting playoff money which will almost certainly widen the gap more.

[Tovarich]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

If it takes 16 to get into a "playoff" though, don't they have to add teams anyway?

Personally, I think the automatic bids for a 16-team conference champion isn't going to happen, anyway. I think it will be a conference champion inside the top 6 gets an automatic berth, no matter the conference.

There is no reason there would be a requirement on number of teams for said playoff. Conferences will just go to 16 because they can add value. Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech etc add value to your conference. The only reason to go all the way to 16 would be to have the 4 divisions of 4 and have essentially a 3-game conference championship. That would just be to add more money. If the Big 12 wants to stop at 12, they'll still have a spot in the playoff. So will the PAC and so would the Big 10.

It's a bit of a stretch for whoever said the PAC screwed itself to say that. Monetarily, the PAC is going to do fine. The Oklahoma schools may add football prowess but they would not add to the value of the television money coming in due to their market size. Adding two teams from a small population state doesn't add to the per-school value of a TV contract. Texas had to be involved to make it worth it to take them. If Larry's dream was to get to 16, then ok, yeah, he screwed himself. But the PAC will make more money with 12 than they would with 16. The ESPN/FSN deal alone is something like 21M per school per year. In a few years, the PAC network will be raking in money. It's not really set up to give the schools any additional income for the first 2-3 years, but after that, it will be highly profitable. There are no 4 teams outside of Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech/Kansas/Kansas State/Baylor that make sense. UNLV I think is the only remotely reasonable addition west of Big 12 territory, and there is no reason to bring in just them, and they don't even really make that much sense to begin with. Boise State is an overgrown junior college who plays in a village and doesn't fill their tiny little stadium. The quality of their football team is irrelevant. The PAC may have eased their standards academically slightly to get Utah in, but academics are still actually the most important factor, although TV market etc is right up there, and no one makes sense. There is no reason to go to 16 for the sake of going to 16. The SEC will go to 16 IF there are teams in new states that add new markets that make sense for it, i.e, Virginia Tech, North Carolina/North Carolina State. The Big 10 will go to 16 only if they can find 4 schools who fit their mold who fit their philosophy, i.e, Notre Dame, Maryland, Syracuse types. The Big 12 also, will only go if it makes sense and brings them more money. They won't go adding Tulsa just to for the sake of going to 16. It will have to be Florida State or Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Louisville, Cincinnati, Brigham Young. Not having 16 teams won't preclude anyone from being involved in this 4-team playoff everyone seems so sure we're going to have. Some will go to 16 because there are valuable ACC and Big East programs available who are begging to get in. When Texas said no to the PAC revenue sharing plan, PAC expansion was dead. Oklahoma is a highly sought-after team and the PAC said no. That should tell you what you need to know about how this stuff works.

[coogrfan]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

"Add value".

God how I hate the path ESPN has charted for my favorite sport.

[dickey1331]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

Looks like Air Force or BYU may join the Big East

http://articles.philly.com/2012-05-23/sports/31826862_1_big-east-football-coaches-league-schedules-spring-meetings

[superjames1992]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

Someone on the WVU Scout board who was right about the WVU to the Big 12 thing posted that UNC and the SEC have mutual interest. The SEC would also add Virginia Tech to go to 16 and then petition the NCAA to allow for a four-team playoff for the SEC Championship.

I'm not sure if I see it happening, though. Sounds unlikely.

[DonkeyJote]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

There is no reason there would be a requirement on number of teams for said playoff. Conferences will just go to 16 because they can add value. Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech etc add value to your conference. The only reason to go all the way to 16 would be to have the 4 divisions of 4 and have essentially a 3-game conference championship. That would just be to add more money. If the Big 12 wants to stop at 12, they'll still have a spot in the playoff. So will the PAC and so would the Big 10.

It's a bit of a stretch for whoever said the PAC screwed itself to say that. Monetarily, the PAC is going to do fine. The Oklahoma schools may add football prowess but they would not add to the value of the television money coming in due to their market size. Adding two teams from a small population state doesn't add to the per-school value of a TV contract. Texas had to be involved to make it worth it to take them. If Larry's dream was to get to 16, then ok, yeah, he screwed himself. But the PAC will make more money with 12 than they would with 16. The ESPN/FSN deal alone is something like 21M per school per year. In a few years, the PAC network will be raking in money. It's not really set up to give the schools any additional income for the first 2-3 years, but after that, it will be highly profitable. There are no 4 teams outside of Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech/Kansas/Kansas State/Baylor that make sense. UNLV I think is the only remotely reasonable addition west of Big 12 territory, and there is no reason to bring in just them, and they don't even really make that much sense to begin with. Boise State is an overgrown junior college who plays in a village and doesn't fill their tiny little stadium. The quality of their football team is irrelevant. The PAC may have eased their standards academically slightly to get Utah in, but academics are still actually the most important factor, although TV market etc is right up there, and no one makes sense. There is no reason to go to 16 for the sake of going to 16. The SEC will go to 16 IF there are teams in new states that add new markets that make sense for it, i.e, Virginia Tech, North Carolina/North Carolina State. The Big 10 will go to 16 only if they can find 4 schools who fit their mold who fit their philosophy, i.e, Notre Dame, Maryland, Syracuse types. The Big 12 also, will only go if it makes sense and brings them more money. They won't go adding Tulsa just to for the sake of going to 16. It will have to be Florida State or Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Louisville, Cincinnati, Brigham Young. Not having 16 teams won't preclude anyone from being involved in this 4-team playoff everyone seems so sure we're going to have. Some will go to 16 because there are valuable ACC and Big East programs available who are begging to get in. When Texas said no to the PAC revenue sharing plan, PAC expansion was dead. Oklahoma is a highly sought-after team and the PAC said no. That should tell you what you need to know about how this stuff works.

If San Diego St. improves with the move to the Big East, they could make sense. It's a big tv market (though, granted, one the Pac 12 already dominates), and it's a pretty good academic school.

As far as me saying the Pac may have to just add scrubs, it's if the new playoff adobts the automatic bids for 16-team conferences that I've heard the SEC is pushing. If that happens, you can bet the SEC will quickly go to 16, and the B1G and Big XII may as well. Then the Pac 12 would have too, just in case of a Big East/ACC Merger or something of that nature.

[Tovarich]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

I don't think the other California schools want San Diego State coming in and taking their recruits. The San Diego area collectively still watches the PAC more than San Diego State. Their stadium is empty half the time. The quality of their team is likely not relevant, I just think the other California schools would squash that.

IF there is a requirement that conferences go to 16, then yes, I guess the PAC would have to...or the Big 10 and PAC would just stick with the Rose Bowl and boycott the new system like they did with the Bowl Coalition and Alliance. Hanson isn't around anymore, so that is less likely, but don't put it past the Big 10.

If the PAC were somehow forced to add 4 more teams, then it's not going to be pretty no matter what combination of UNLV, Hawaii, New Mexico, Texas San Antonio, Nevada, Colorado State or Utah State they add.

[Cusefan]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

Looks like Air Force or BYU may join the Big East

http://articles.philly.com/2012-05-2...pring-meetings

Brett McMurphy from CBS Sports tweeted this today:" sources project Big East media rights at $60M; less than 1/2 what they turned down last yr".

[p_rushing]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

What you are missing on the 4 16 team conferences is that would allow them to remove the BCS (SEC & Big 12 have already started the process with the new bowl) and also potentially break away from the NCAA altogether. The conferences are wanting to take the BCS out of the equation, so they control the money themselves.

By getting to 4 16 teams, you can have a playoff in your own conference (lots more money) and still guarantee your conference has 1 team in the final 4 playoff. If that happened, it would also help with OOC schedules as you no longer care how many loses you get in OOC games. Smart teams would want to test themselves to get ready for conference play and the tourneys.

[Perfect Zero]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

What you are missing on the 4 16 team conferences is that would allow them to remove the BCS (SEC & Big 12 have already started the process with the new bowl) and also potentially break away from the NCAA altogether. The conferences are wanting to take the BCS out of the equation, so they control the money themselves.

By getting to 4 16 teams, you can have a playoff in your own conference (lots more money) and still guarantee your conference has 1 team in the final 4 playoff. If that happened, it would also help with OOC schedules as you no longer care how many loses you get in OOC games. Smart teams would want to test themselves to get ready for conference play and the tourneys.

More or less, this is what I think is going to happen eventually.

[Tovarich]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

The 4 conferences can break away if they have 12 or 14 or 16...or if the 2 teams left in the WAC wanted to break away and Idaho wanted to play New Mexico State for their own little national championship every year, nothing is stopping them either. I don't get the obsession everyone has that everyone needs to have 16. I get someone from the SEC is pushing for that, and obviously if that passes, then everyone better get to 16. But as long as you have divisions, you can have a conference championship game. If you want a 3-game conference championship, a conference can simply have 4 divisions of 3 instead of 4 divisions of 4. It's not as nice of a round number, but its purpose is the same. Or you could do 3 divisions and let a wild card team into your little 4 team conference title. 16 isn't a must unless someone phrases the rule that way, and that to me seems unnecessary.

[simgamer0005]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

The 4 conferences can break away if they have 12 or 14 or 16...or if the 2 teams left in the WAC wanted to break away and Idaho wanted to play New Mexico State for their own little national championship every year, nothing is stopping them either. I don't get the obsession everyone has that everyone needs to have 16.

I also don't get the obsession of having 16 teams. The idea would have sounded crazy if you wrote that 5 or 10 years ago. 16 teams in a conference, "pffft" is the response you'd get to that at a tailgate in 2002. of course now it's reality.

I get someone from the SEC is pushing for that, and obviously if that passes, then everyone better get to 16. But as long as you have divisions, you can have a conference championship game. If you want a 3-game conference championship, a conference can simply have 4 divisions of 3 instead of 4 divisions of 4. It's not as nice of a round number, but its purpose is the same. Or you could do 3 divisions and let a wild card team into your little 4 team conference title.

I also don't get the obsession of conference championship games in college football. i know, money. but seriously i think the fact that the NCAA stated you had to have 12 teams in a conference to have a CCG is what is driving a lot of this re-alignment. i mean it seems so worthless to play a meaningless game instead of deciding the conference championship by who won the most games throughout the conference season. and the counter argument to that is well there's too many co-champions. at least co-champions are fair i mean. how is a 5-3 team beating a 7-1 team and "winning" the conference better than sometimes having co-champions? Also don't they realize that the more teams a confernce has the more chance of having co-champions. i mean if you only have 8 teams in a conference or something, the probability of having co-champions is much lower.

it just seems like an addiction to get to 12 teams at whatever cost to get this conference championship game, to get more money for your confernece at the expense of logic. take the B1G for example, yeah just add Nebraska and split it up into Leaders and Legends, and boom there you go now you have a true conference championship game. it's like the whole thing is honestly crazy that like it's to a point to where you just can't take it seriously anymore. and now this push to 16 teams, the idea of four 4 teams divisions within a conference is mind boggling to me. i mean really. we don't even have a playoff in college football but now we're going to have semi-finals within a conference. and then if you "win" the conference you still might not have a chance at the national championship. the whole thing is so far removed from a logical way to progress that all you can do is just kind of sit back and watch it all unfold.

16 isn't a must unless someone phrases the rule that way, and that to me seems unnecessary.

16 teams in a conference is more than just unnecessary. it's changing the entire idea of what a conference is. it would be better to just split 16 teams into two conferences of 8 teams, with no conference championship game. that way you play 7 games (like the Big East) and bam the team with the best record wins the conference.

i mean look at the scenario we had this past season with 12 teams and two 6 team divisions, with Bama not winning their division, not even playing in their conference's CCG and still making the national championship. that's with 12 teams, imagine the scenarios that could happen with 14 teams or if you go to 16 teams. the best time in college football was when things weren't changing from year to year and you really could prepare for a season and know what you were dealing with. (because you knew the situation the previous year and it was the same) now it's like lets try this lets try that. this thread's title says it all. conference re-alignment thread part who knows. that says it all. who knows what will happen next, just when you think it can't get any more bizarre it does. and even if all the re-alignement stopped tomorrow, we're still left with a situation that is so far out there from what it used to be about.

[Tovarich]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

I hate conference championship games as well. I much preferred the perfect round robin the PAC had before. That to me is much more reflective of who the winner is than divisions, especially with how the SEC East shaped up last year. Georgia didn't have to play Arkansas, Alabama or LSU, but South Carolina did have to play at least one of those teams, and so even though South Carolina had a perfect record against their division, Georgia wins the division because they had easier games against the other division. With unbalanced schedules, conference title games to me are not true champions. Yes, an breakable tie is theoretically possible in a perfect round robin, but it sure beats watching a team who went 8-0 in their conference have to play some 5-3 team.

The WAC had 16 teams for 3 years, and look how that went. Was that really too long ago for administrators these days to remember?

[DonkeyJote]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

The 4 conferences can break away if they have 12 or 14 or 16...or if the 2 teams left in the WAC wanted to break away and Idaho wanted to play New Mexico State for their own little national championship every year, nothing is stopping them either. I don't get the obsession everyone has that everyone needs to have 16. I get someone from the SEC is pushing for that, and obviously if that passes, then everyone better get to 16. But as long as you have divisions, you can have a conference championship game. If you want a 3-game conference championship, a conference can simply have 4 divisions of 3 instead of 4 divisions of 4. It's not as nice of a round number, but its purpose is the same. Or you could do 3 divisions and let a wild card team into your little 4 team conference title. 16 isn't a must unless someone phrases the rule that way, and that to me seems unnecessary.

I'm not really sure of that obsession either. If the Pac 12 had been able to get the Texas and Oklahoma schools, I would've been okay with it, just because those programs are so strong, and I'd love to see those matchups. But I don't understand it beyond adding the really big time conferences. I don't understand what makes that a magic number. Heck, wouldn't an 18 or 20 team conference make even more sense than a 16? Play everyone once, then have a conf champ game? I don't get what makes 16 a magical number.

My point is that, if the SEC is trying to get a clause in the playoff saying a 16-team conference gets an automatic bid, and everyone else is on their own, then 16 does become a magic number. And everyone will have to get there or be left out in the cold. You could see the Pac 12, B1G, Big 12, and SEC break away, imo. I think it's pretty obvious, especially with the Big 12 and SEC setting up that game, that they'd like the football playoff to be determined between those 4 conferences.

[simgamer0005]

Re: Conference Re-Alignment Thread Part Who Knows

I hate conference championship games as well. I much preferred the perfect round robin the PAC had before. That to me is much more reflective of who the winner is than divisions, especially with how the SEC East shaped up last year.

yeah the Pac 10 was great. every team played each other. at the end of the regular season you knew who was the best, and you didn't need a conference championship game.

Georgia didn't have to play Arkansas, Alabama or LSU, but South Carolina did have to play at least one of those teams, and so even though South Carolina had a perfect record against their division, Georgia wins the division because they had easier games against the other division.

That's a really great example. South Carolina beat the other 5 teams in their division. if you have 6 teams, and you want to decide who is the best out of those 6 teams, all you need is 5 games. The games vs the other division just dilute the goal of being the best team in your division, especially when you are dealing....

With unbalanced schedules, conference title games to me are not true champions. Yes, an breakable tie is theoretically possible in a perfect round robin, but it sure beats watching a team who went 8-0 in their conference have to play some 5-3 team.

They're not true champions at all. we always hear about how important the regular season is in college football, but then a team that is like 5-3 can beat a team that went 8-0 and they "win" the conference?

if you really are going to have 16 team conferences, then the only thing that would make any sense is to split it up into two 8 team divisions, and have a 7 game conference season (not 8 games) where you just play everyone in your division. that way it's balanced and almost like it's its own conference. having an 8th conference game serves no practical purpose in a 16 team conference, unless you go the route of having 4 four team divisions. but it would be totally unbalanced that way, even more unbalanced then the 12 team SEC was. (because with 4 four team divisions, you would only play 3 division games, and 5 games vs teams in other divisions) that's even more unbalanced then the example you gave of South Carolina beating every team in their division but not winning the division.