Mr. SEC has posted a nice write-up about recent B1G announcements:
http://www.mrsec.com/2013/02/big-ten-to-add-more-conference-games-is-thi...
Moreover, one of his readers presents some interesting thoughts.
JayBoDingess, writes:
Delaney said recently that expansion could go south or west for the Big 10. The SEC has "no-buy" out for its members. Missouri originally wanted to be in the Big 10, and many believe after the manhandling they received this year in the SEC, they would love a chance to jump to the Big 10, which would be a penalty-free jump.
Boston College and Florida State are not AAU schools, and they will not be invited to join the Big 10. The only exception to the AAU requirement is Notre Dame, and I will address that shortly.
I agree that UVA, UNC, Duke and GT all end up in the Big 10. But I do not agree that it will end there. A 20-team Big 10 essentially creates two "Big 10's," if you will; a “Big 10 East” and a “Big 10 West.” They already said they were losing the leaders and legends divisional names. This 10-team divisional format allows them to work the Big 10 brand into media conversation more. Instead of saying Leader Division Champion, so-and-so, they will say Big 10 West Division Champion, so-and-so.
The four ACC schools will give the conference 18 members. Missouri will come on board and make 19 members. The ACC will be crippled. Notre Dame will have no legitimate home for its non-revenue sports. The Big 10 has always coveted Notre Dame. This is how the Big 10 finally forces the hand of Notre Dame, and gets their full membership into the conference as team number 20. Notre Dame's issue has been their independence, but there will be no one left to allow their Olympic sports to feed off of them. They also fancy themselves a national institution that plays a national schedule.
With 20 members in two time zones in several regions in the country including the northeast, mid-west, and deep south, this effectively serves as a national schedule for Notre Dame. With a 10-game conference schedule and two nonconference games, Notre Dame can still play USC and Navy every year and face most of their traditional rivals in conference play as well. Keep in mind that Notre Dame has already agreed to schedule 6 ACC teams each year in football, so changing up their schedule won't be the issue that some will claim it is. Notre Dame's Chancellor stated in 2010, I believe, that Notre Dame's hand may one day be forced in terms of having to join a conference.
Also important to note is that just yesterday, February 12, 2013, Comcast (the parent company of the Big 10 Network) bought out General Electric's stake in NBC for $16 billion. That can seriously influence the television contract Notre Dame has with NBC.
(Hoody Wayes: Comcast's move signals the end of the ESPN/ABC monopoly on broadcasting the college football, regular season. Expect a deal involving BTN, NBC and FOX resulting in most of the B1G's regular season games being aired on those networks.)
JayBoDingess, continues:
For the SEC and their new coming network, they will end up taking Virginia Tech and North Carolina State. After losing Missouri, this will put them at 15 teams. There are few options left on the table for the SEC if they truly intend to refrain from taking schools in states where there is already an SEC member. And with the grant of rights in the Big 12, that eliminates any of their members for the time being.
So the next logical choice in terms of adding a new large TV market for their network, adding a new recruiting area, remaining in a contiguous conference footprint, and shooting a cannonball across the bow of the Big 10 by moving into their back yard after having the Big 10 encroach upon SEC territory and take one of their members is to move into Ohio State's back yard and take Cincinnati.
(Hoody Wayes: I see the Bearcats moving to the "Big XII.")
JayBoDingess, continues:
I know people won't accept it. Save the arguments against it. I already know what you will say. And you have a valid point, I do not deny that.
But we as fans won't be making the decisions. Business men parading around as college leaders will make the decisions. Cincinnati may not be at the level of the upper echelon of SEC football, but they have come a long way in the last 10 years, and their basketball program would immediately be top 1/3 in the SEC. They also make a nice basketball rival for nearby state border rival Kentucky. Make no mistake, this is about football, but the SEC Network will need year-round content, and Cincinnati would be a nice get. Tommy Tuberville will begin the process of turning Cincinnati into an SEC-modeled program immediately. They won't challenge to top tier of the conference, but they will fit in nicely for the role they will be expected to play.
The Big 10 will be the only 20-team conference for the foreseeable future, but all bets are off after the Big 12's grant of rights expires if they fail to renew it when the time comes.
Until then, with the SEC growing to 16 members, and waits to see what happens with the Big 12 down the road.
With the ACC in shambles, the Big 12 could swoop in and offer homes to Florida State, Miami, Clemson, Louisville, Wake Forest, Pittsburgh, Boston College and Syracuse. They probably won't grow that big, but it makes sense for them to expand into the huge eastern markets. The Big 12 currently sits in only 5 states. Adding those eight schools adds an additional 7 states to their geographic footprint and essentially triples the amount of potential viewers they have currently.
This would give the Big 12 18 teams, nine members in the west that are traditional Big 12 members, and nine members in the east that mostly have a history together.
In the West Division, you would have Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor, TCU, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Kansas State, and Iowa State.
In the East Division you would have West Virginia, Florida State, Miami, Clemson, Wake Forest, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Boston College and Syracuse.
Without specific numbers at hand, those 8 schools would bring approximately 15 previous national titles and 8 Heisman trophies to the Big 12's line up - give or take. It also brings in several national titles in basketball. That is a pretty good haul for the Big 12. It also brings in a minimum of four additional top 50 television markets.
Who knows what the Pac-12 will do, but they remain unchallenged out west, so they have no need to expand any further if they are comfortable at 12 members. They will act if the Big 12 allows its grant of rights to expire, but as much money as the Big 12 is making, that seems unlikely.
For as much as I would like to discount BC to the B1G I can not.
BC has already submitted ppwk to join the B1G. This does not mean they are joining but they wouldn't have done it without having serious conversations with Delaney first.
Forgive me as I subscribe to 5 premium cfb sites and do not recall the source but several months ago it was shown that BC would be profitable to the B1G in the same way Rutgers is, albeit to a lesser extent.
No AAU status hurts them as does an indifferent fanbase, but sitting in the #4 tv market is a big help.
Having lived in Connecticut, I think a collegiate equivalent of the New England Patriots - based in the huge Boston television market - could emerge and would thrive. The more sports - the better - in New England. If the B1G wants it, it can sell it.
I have to imagine Nebraska's loss of AAU status is a portent of things to come, meaning the B1G may want to bend its rules and admit a school with an AAU "action plan" if not a non-AAU school, outright.
Or - if college football is, in fact, en route to paying players - what's to keep the likes of Harvard from parlaying some of its colossal $32B endowment and return to the realm of the gridiron powerhouses?
You, Sir, are correct. AAU membership is the bar to admission, but remember that joining an athletic conference like the B1G is more like joining a social fraternity than an honorary one: you don't just check the boxes on the application and get in.
The university presidents who ultimately make these decisions will look at a prospective member - say Florida State, as an example - and say, "Are you like us?" If the answer is yes, and in FSU's case I think it is, then they'll admit. There are LOTS of AAU members who have no shot in hell at getting in the B1G, but a few on the outside looking in who might be great members of the conference - and future members of the AAU.
Very interesting read, to say the least. And the commentors are actually insightful.
It brings up some interesting points though. The one that I can't seemingly wrap my head around, though, is why would we go to a 3 division conference? The headaches that would cause in trying to get a conference championship would be ridiculous. You have to have divisions of 2 or 4. I know the pod system has been discussed at length at various times here and I don't think it's a bad idea, but would creating our own type of 4 team playoff system to determine the conference winner be detrimental to our conference (i.e. will it hinder us getting a team into a national 4 team playoff?) more than it helps? Hard to say, but it's hard to argue for the positives here, in my opinion. Plus how would the NCAA handle having a team potentially playing 16 games at this point? With all of that, I think we would have to go to 2 divisions of 10 teams, play 10 conference games, 2 OOC games (really to avoid that 5 road game B1G schedule half of the league will have to deal with each year that a 9 game schedule brings).
As I was writing this, though, I was thinking of another point. Do playoffs and the possibility that it may increase to 8 at some point (no rumors, just an opinion based on how many think 4 is not enough) potentially force the hands of the conferences to eliminate a conference championship game? Would they eliminate the 1 extra game to determine a conference championship to preserve the chance at getting more teams into a playoff but also lose out on the possibility of the extra revenue created by the championship game? Would having 1 or 2 teams in the playoffs create enough revenue to offset it? I don't see how but I also think it would need to be considered. Safety is such a huge concern and forcing 1 or 2 teams to play potentially 17 games is tough and could become scrutinized if all of this happens. I don't know if there is a right answer here, but I imagine as the game continues to grow, this will need to be looked at.
Very interesting read. The ACC will die soon. Really hope that Kansas (for purely selfish reasons) ends up in the B1G.
vacuuming sucks
Looks to me like the B1G's current programming directives are (in no particular order): (1) increase the footprint incrementally (i.e., no jumps over other states to get to North Carolina or Georgia); (2) look to big local TV markets, without reference to local enthusiasm; and (3) bring in big, ideally public research universities that either have or will have AAU membership status.
How it approaches expansion candidates, when those values conflict, is an open question. Consider Boston College. A big TV market with one big-time college player in it and not a great breadth or depth of fan interest. In this respect, BC looks a lot like UMD or Rutgers. But it's a hop, skip and a jump to get to Massachusetts, and BC isn't your classic big public institution.
My problem with looking to the East and applying these three considerations is that we're not adding strong football programs with great traditions and rabid fan bases. Clemson, Georgia Tech, and Florida State meet those requirements in spades, AND they satisfy condition (1). Moreover, this brings the B1G into yearly rivalry games with the SEC: Clemson/South Carolina, Georgia/Georgia Tech, and Florida/Florida State. I'd make that raid in a minute, and I wouldn't be overly concerned about principle (1)'s requirement that the conference slog from state to state, like it's playing risk.
If the B1G insists on condition (1)'s contiguous footprint, it would have to swallow UVA and UNC to get to the Southern Endgame with the SEC. I've read that any meaningful raid on the ACC would have to involve UVA and UNC anyway, because they're the glue that holds that conference together. Maybe that's the right play. Although the football programs aren't great, both schools absolutely meet condition (3), which makes it easier to soften on the AAU membership issue with Clemson and FSU. And of course UNC delivers its strong basketball tradition.
Still, though: conference slots are precious things. The more of them you create, the more you turn the conference into a loose confederation of smaller leagues: basically the B1G/Pac-12 scheduling alliance under one brand. It's not a question of having to swallow UVA and UNC before the B1G can tap into the South. It's a question of having to swallow UMD, Rutgers, UVA and UNC in order to tap into the South.
I think he's almost nailed the Big Ten strategy perfectly. I think Florida State does get an invite, though, because they are making progress toward AAU status, and because Nebraska already set the precedent that AAU status is negotiable if you're generally meeting the "spirit" of what the AAU is all about, which FSU appears to do.
While I'm not sold on the benefits of Notre Dame joining the conference, I do think that unless Delaney can convince Texas to torpedo the Big XII, the Golden Domes are still a target.
Andy like Maestro, I still can see Kansas getting a bid at some point.
Nebraska may serve as an excuse but it's not a precedent as they were AAU when they joined. FSU would be wild.
Yes, I noted that UNL was a member at the time of admittance, but it was no secret in academia that Nebraska was on notice that the AAU might pull its membership card at any given time.
FSU has made an open and concerted effort to align its strategic plan and its academic/research efforts toward attaining AAU membership. For what it's worth, I think Florida would be a much better fit in the B1G than FSU, but I don't think any of us see that happening, well, ever.
If we have to go East, I could live with Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia Tech and Florida State.
There are many many pluses to adding that group of schools.
I would love to see Kansas and Oklahoma in the B1G, but for various reasons I don't see either ever happening. There's a longshot at Kansas if some things happen along the way, but Oklahoma probably just doesn't fit the mold.
How would they work out the scheduling with two sets of 10-team divisions? Even with a 10-game conference schedule, if a school plays all nine of its fellow division members, that would leave only one game against schools from the other division. Thus, Ohio State might very rarely play schools like Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, etc.
Perhaps they could go to 5-team pods: 4 games with-in the pod, and rotate games with other pods/schools, to keep mixing-up the matchups over time. I guess they'd have to change NCAA rules to allow for this. Plus, they'd either have to have a two-game BT playoffs, or use a subjective selection criteria to determine which schools would be in the BT CG. Or, maybe they could have two separate BT champions (West and East) and allow the bowls/playoffs to sort things out after that?
The pod concept is discussed quite a bit, and I think you've raised the biggest challenge to its implementation: current NCAA rules. The notion of four 20-team superconferences seems to be the main presupposition behind the pods - in other words, the Big Four would tell the NCAA to take a long walk off a short pier - and without some manner of change in the rules, I'm not sure how pods would work in the current system.
I do, however, forsee the possibility of two 10-team divisions as you describe, with one cross-divisional game every season. That game would likely take on the same significance as a major non-conference game now... picture if Ohio State didn't play Nebraska for a lengthy stretch of years and then they were on tap after a non-conference slate that included a PAC-12 and Big XII opponent... how wild would that game be?
Don't you think it'd be an issue for many Buckeye fans that Ohio State is annually playing MD, Rutgers, UVA, GT, etc., but very rarely plays Iowa, Wisc, Minnesota, ILL, etc.?
I prefer the pods. Put Ohio State with four other schools - say, PSU, Rutgers, MD, and one other - and then have a guaranteed rivaly game with Michigan (which will be in another pod) + five games against another pod on a rotating basis. On years when Ohio State is playing Michigan's pod, they could sort of load the dice so that the extra game was filled up by Nebraska or Wisconsin, just to slightly increase the freuqency of "marquee matchups."
I think it will be a huge issue. The Big Ten East simply doesn't have the same *wow* factor for Ohio State outside of Penn State and maybe George Tech. Not playing Wisconsin, Nebraska, Michigan State and Iowa or Purdue (depending on which team is playing would-be spoiler that year) would be a huge let-down.
Beating up on the Terps, Scarlet Knights, Tarheels and Cavaliers (I had to look that one up) just isn't going to cut it.
something strange about a guy with so many opinions on B1G expansion who didn't know Viriginia's mascot. It's a free site, so chime away I suppose.
That was what part of my point above was about. Regardless of what is done, the dividing of teams needs to be 2, 4, or 8 (for number's sake, it would never happen, but you get the point) because in order to determine some sort of conference champion through a series of conference playoff games, you will need to have that number unless you were providing a bye to a couple teams. I don't think a bye is something they'll consider with how unbalanced the schedules (not just within the conference, but OOC as well) are. So 2 divisions of 10 or 4 divisions of 5 seem like the logical choice but now you deal with NCAA rules in terms of the amount of games you can play if you go to the 4 divisions (or pods). How proactive will the NCAA be in increasing this number? The only exceptions at this point are those in a conference championship game and (I imagine) those who will be in the playoff format in 2014. Because of all of that, I just think 2 is probably the one with the least amount of issues surrounding it and the likely one we'd go with if this all actually occurs.
Outstanding contributions as usual, ANDYVANCE. I upvoted all of'em.
Regarding the NCAA, isn't the keyword, "current?" SETMAN and Run_Fido_Run have made comments about the viability of the NCAA, going forward. A few weeks back on 97.1, Dr. Gee openly wondered about college football, without the NCAA. The NCAA may be usurped.
re: pods
would the rules have to be changed? I thought the rule required us to have two divisions at the beginning of the season for a championship game, is there a rule against those two divisions changing teams every year to accomodate the pod structure?
No rule against changing which teams are in what divisions every year.
It would never happen, but you could theoretically have two divisions and treat them like tiers. In other words, have promotion and relegation- at the end of each year the worst two teams from the "top" division go down to the "lower" division and the best two from the "lower" division move up.
You can then do the championship one of two ways- 1) Top two teams in the "top" division or 2) top team in each division
The advantages to the promotion/relegation system are: your best teams are playing stronger in-conference schedules and are more likely to qualify for the NCAA championship playoffs accordingly, and your lower teams have a better chance at a good record due to their easier schedules and more teams are therefore bowl eligible.
Your disadvantages are: half the conference knows it is irrelevant going into the season and is only playing to try to be relevant next year, more of upper level teams end up not bowl eligible due to tougher schedules, rivalries are not protected (you only play your tier)
This wouldn't work well with the conference system, but I've long wondered if relegation might not work best if applied to all current "FBS" schools, split into upper and lower tiers.
The reason is that schools like Wake Forest, Temple, and Rice are never going to be competitive in part because they do not wish to spend lots of money/resources on football - but during peak seasons maybe they could actually compete for a championship in the lower tier.
Meanwhile, up-and-coming schools could use promotion to test out their competitiveness at the higher level. If it doesn't work out, they'd be relegated back to the more appropriate lower-tier, which would minimize some of the damage.
In that sense, every school has a chance to win the ultimate prize (upper tier NCG), if they're willing to put their $ where their mouths are, yet not every school will be expected to play "big time" cfb if it doesn't wish to do so.
this was presented a long time ago and would never happen, but it's awesome in theory
http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-football/2012/5/16/3022653/conference-reali...
You're probably right. But, this was a fascinating read. Thanks for sharing. +1.
I have to disagree with the one theory, that we will take a Missouri, who will decide to leave the SEC. If we didn't take them before, we certainly won't now. They bring two top markets to the table, St. Louis, which Illinois already gives the B1G inroads to, and Kansas City, which Nebraska sorta does. Missouri really provides very little that couldn't be trumped by other candidates.
As far as the pod system being not allowed by the NCAA. If the B1G gets to 16-20 teams, I think Delany will dare them to say no. To say no to a conference covering a third of the country, or more. A conference with one of the more supportive fanbases in the country. IIRC, the pod system was declared not an option after the old 16 team MWC broke apart. The B1G has a lot more leverage and influence. If the time and conference structure comes that the B1G feels they need a pod sytem, they will get it, and Emmert will be having the press conference the next day saying what a great day and opportunity this brings for college athletics.
Yeah, the Big Ten might have to inform the NCAA, at some point, about a few rules changes that will need to take place - with or without the NCAA (I'd prefer the latter).
I'm not sure the BT (SEC, B12, P12) even needs 20 schools to tell the NCAA "what's up"; rather, the BT has been okay with the arrangement by which NCAA officials in Indianapolis delude themselves into believing that their power & authority exists independently of leaders like Gee, Delany, Mike Slive, etc.
When it is time to send the memo to the NCAA informing them of the new 13-game regular season schedules and conference pod systems, the memo can politely note, "dear NCAA, we appreciate your wise counsel, but your input will not be necessary regarding these two particular matters. Please go back to enjoying your regularly scheduled private jet flights around the country."
You've hit the nail on the head when it comes to solving one "problem" that has crept up with the question of a 10-game conference slate. Why not have a 13-game regular season? We've done it in the past, albeit prior to the conference champsionship era, and one more game would be good for everyone concerned (cue academics and other nanny-staters telling us it's bad for the student athletes, but, no, just no). Revenue, scheduling, etc., all taken care of by adding one more game we'd all love to watch.
The first part of your argument doesn't sway me, but I'm wholly on board with the second paragraph: As Fido points out, the NCAA will not be able to say no to Jim Delaney once he flexes his Darth powers at their fullest.
On Mizzou, Delaney has gone on the record as saying that he'd have taken both the Tigers and the Jayhawks along with UNL in one fell swoop if he'd realized how quickly the dominoes would start to fall. For that reason alone, aside from the other reasons I've outlined in my analyses of the subject, I think they're absolutely a viable candidate (and don't forget, to be able to thumb the SEC in the eye by "stealing" a team would be reason enough).
I thought something similar in regards to Mizzou. To be honest, I more or less think that was a very subtle, albeit polite, way of an SEC fan saying, "I'm not happy about this addition and it brings the value of our conference down, so why don't you take them since you flirted with them before?"
The way I look at Mizzou is more of a "if I have no other options, then why not?" kind of thing. They were the supposed favorite up until when Nebraska swooped in but then we realized that they were never really the favorite all along. If we went with the blog's potential additions, I think Mizzou still lines up in a Sesame Street "Which of these just doesn't belong here?" theme and is picked over every time.
As with the pod system and the NCAA, I think my thought on it kind of falls in line with an ongoing discussion I've had with one of my best friends who went to Pitt (and is now a big ACC homer because of it). Part of the discussion has been the future of cable networks in general and how they may become extinct in the not so distant future. He would send me a handful of links on how changes may start coming soon and then relate it to B1G expansion and how the additions of Rutgers and Maryland may turn out to be the downfall of the B1G since they don't bring any additional cache to the table athletically. My argument has been that it's nice to keep an eye on the everchanging technological advancements, but to sit idly by and wait for changes to take place is more detrimental than actually making lateral (at best) moves. Since you can't prepare and accommodate for unforeseen developments, there's no use speculating what kind of affect it may or may not have. The dissolution of the NCAA or the changing of the rules to accommodate these moves that are purely rumors at this point is tough to figure out. There's no precedent within the major conferences to show what the outcome could be. The influence is certainly high and I would like to think that the NCAA would need to fall in line if another BCS conferences wants to as well, but what if they do put their foot down instead of letting 1 or 2 conferences rule the NCAA? I just think that there are way too many variables to say that this would be a definitive bowing down from the NCAA given their reluctancy to make so many changes.
So given what we know and assuming that the institution remains in place as it has for so long, the pod system would be an issue in terms of total total number of games, conference championships, and playoffs. If the NCAA does start to crumble and we move to 4 major conferences of 16-20 teams, maybe we move in that direction and it would probably work very well.
Couple of semi-random reallignment comments:
Things have been pretty quite from everything I have read. UVA is a lock and has submitted a transaction plan. They are waiting for a partner to make the jump official, especially since the ACC has begun holding back proceeds from Maryland to pay for their exit penalty (whatever it ends up being). At this point, all eyes are on Maryland and waiting to see what happens.
I still hold out hope for FSU but they seem to be a long shot. As I have said before, they have presented a plan for achieving AAU status in 5 years to the B1G and this was in the works prior to reallignment.
I really don't want BC but I still hear that one thrown around.
Kansas is still one that the B1G presidents have said that they want, but that is a bit of a long shot as well, due to the GOR. It has been said that Delaney has little appetite for creating a blueprint for breaking up a conferences GOR since the B1G operates with one (though it is different than the B12's GOR). This, of course, goes out the window if Texas was willing to jump ship. I see this as having no chance of happening as they seem to be very much against further expansion, unless that is all a well played smoke screen.
The following is pure message board rubbish, but I found it interesting even though I am against giving Notre Dame any special concessions:
The thought was that you could bring ND in all other sports and partially in for football if the pod system was adopted. They would have to play everyone in their pod (3 or 4 games) Plus another 3 or 4 games against B1G foes. Then they could play their other traditional rivals outside the B1G (with requirements that they don't only schedule cupcakes out of conference). If they won their pod, they could play in the B1G Semis like any other B1G team.
"Because the rules won't let you go for three." - Woody Hayes
THE Ohio State University
I really think it's going to be UVA, UNC, Ga Tech, and Kansas. I really really think they are going to try, with the last 2 spots to add Notre Dame and Texas.
That puts them in growing states like North Carolina and Virginia. Gives them a presence in the south's biggest city, and allows them to expand west to give Texas another team that geographically makes sense. Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Illinois and Iowa. BOOM, there's a POD for you.