(01-22-2014 05:22 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  Wow, you brought the heat, JR! I definitely need to chew it over. My first devil's advocate impulse is that part of the intrigue and success of the SEC is the well defined culture. I would be afraid that mixing the SEC, ACC , and Big 12 to the point where culture is confusing (see AAC) would give the PAC and Big 10 the only card to play that, if properly employed, would give them what the SEC has worked hard to build for several generations.

Now remember I said 2 conferences in 1 league. The SEC would only be changed by one 5 team Western division. The core of who we are would still be intact. And I would say segregating the Western most teams would help us keep that cultural identity among the other 3 divisions.

Now you know that I would much rather get the old Southern Conference back together, but if we did that we would potentially lose some very large markets in Boston, New York and around Pittsburgh. Solidifying Texas, picking up Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Iowa would be a door slamming on the ability of any other league competing with our income capabilities. The Big 10 and PAC would only have each other and while that is large, it pales by giving the two most watched products the largest market in the U.S. in which to strut their stuff. It's a game over move.

(01-22-2014 05:40 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(01-22-2014 05:22 PM)bigblueblindness Wrote:  Wow, you brought the heat, JR! I definitely need to chew it over. My first devil's advocate impulse is that part of the intrigue and success of the SEC is the well defined culture. I would be afraid that mixing the SEC, ACC , and Big 12 to the point where culture is confusing (see AAC) would give the PAC and Big 10 the only card to play that, if properly employed, would give them what the SEC has worked hard to build for several generations.

Now remember I said 2 conferences in 1 league. The SEC would only be changed by one 5 team Western division. The core of who we are would still be intact. And I would say segregating the Western most teams would help us keep that cultural identity among the other 3 divisions.

Now you know that I would much rather get the old Southern Conference back together, but if we did that we would potentially lose some very large markets in Boston, New York and around Pittsburgh. Solidifying Texas, picking up Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Iowa would be a door slamming on the ability of any other league competing with our income capabilities. The Big 10 and PAC would only have each other and while that is large, it pales by giving the two most watched products the largest market in the U.S. in which to strut their stuff. It's a game over move.

Good points... I think our conversations are dovetailing. Check out what I just posted on the basketball realignment topic.

I've reconsidered:

At 16 add these Texas and Oklahoma
At 18 add these North Carolina and Virginia
At 20 add these Duke, Georgia Tech

(02-08-2014 11:05 AM)JRsec Wrote:  I've reconsidered:

At 16 add these Texas and Oklahoma
At 18 add these North Carolina and Virginia
At 20 add these Duke, Georgia Tech

Texas and Oklahoma would be no brainers at 16 or 20, but see below.

Kansas is a basketball king that likely would be worth a slot.

You might want North Carolina and Duke but you cannot get the first without NCS, and if you get the second and coach K retires or gets hit by a bus, what do you have? A small school with great academics comprised largely of students from outside the region, a very old and small basketball area and a football program that with the best coaching cannot sustain a high degree of success.

As for UVA, they are another school that excels at academics, but not in athletics, and the Holies bring more TV eyeballs in Virginia. Could you get UNC without UVA? Maybe, I'm not sure.

The SEC cannot leave the two football powers FSU and Clemson right in our backyard. We have wanted them for decades, just not the last few years because they offer no new markets, but there is no way we leave them behind if we go to 20. UF and USC is not going to want to play 9 SEC games and their instate rivals with them not being a conference game.

GT is in some ways Duke without the great basketball coach, but they are a public school, they do have an instate rival who would like their rival game be a conference game if nine are to be played, and most important of all, they are right smack in the middle of the largest city in the south not including Texas. No way does the SEC want the B1G in Atlanta.

I think taking all of the above into account what is plain to me is you can have Texas or North Carolina and stop at 20, but both means going to 24.

(02-09-2014 02:10 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  

(02-08-2014 11:05 AM)JRsec Wrote:  I've reconsidered:

At 16 add these Texas and Oklahoma
At 18 add these North Carolina and Virginia
At 20 add these Duke, Georgia Tech

Texas and Oklahoma would be no brainers at 16 or 20, but see below.

Kansas is a basketball king that likely would be worth a slot.

You might want North Carolina and Duke but you cannot get the first without NCS, and if you get the second and coach K retires or gets hit by a bus, what do you have? A small school with great academics comprised largely of students from outside the region, a very old and small basketball area and a football program that with the best coaching cannot sustain a high degree of success.

As for UVA, they are another school that excels at academics, but not in athletics, and the Holies bring more TV eyeballs in Virginia. Could you get UNC without UVA? Maybe, I'm not sure.

The SEC cannot leave the two football powers FSU and Clemson right in our backyard. We have wanted them for decades, just not the last few years because they offer no new markets, but there is no way we leave them behind if we go to 20. UF and USC is not going to want to play 9 SEC games and their instate rivals with them not being a conference game.

GT is in some ways Duke without the great basketball coach, but they are a public school, they do have an instate rival who would like their rival game be a conference game if nine are to be played, and most important of all, they are right smack in the middle of the largest city in the south not including Texas. No way does the SEC want the B1G in Atlanta.

I think taking all of the above into account what is plain to me is you can have Texas or North Carolina and stop at 20, but both means going to 24.

Interesting Lurker.
You need to take these facts into account.
1-Dook is one of the top 5 schools in terms of all time basketball wins......this was true even before coach K.
2-re: UVa. The trio of Dook, UVa and Carolina historically (over the last 60 years, which is a pretty long sample) have won over 50% of all ACC championships played. It would not be accurate to malign the athletic department of any of those three.

(02-09-2014 02:10 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  

(02-08-2014 11:05 AM)JRsec Wrote:  I've reconsidered:

At 16 add these Texas and Oklahoma
At 18 add these North Carolina and Virginia
At 20 add these Duke, Georgia Tech

Texas and Oklahoma would be no brainers at 16 or 20, but see below.

Kansas is a basketball king that likely would be worth a slot.

You might want North Carolina and Duke but you cannot get the first without NCS, and if you get the second and coach K retires or gets hit by a bus, what do you have? A small school with great academics comprised largely of students from outside the region, a very old and small basketball area and a football program that with the best coaching cannot sustain a high degree of success.

As for UVA, they are another school that excels at academics, but not in athletics, and the Holies bring more TV eyeballs in Virginia. Could you get UNC without UVA? Maybe, I'm not sure.

The SEC cannot leave the two football powers FSU and Clemson right in our backyard. We have wanted them for decades, just not the last few years because they offer no new markets, but there is no way we leave them behind if we go to 20. UF and USC is not going to want to play 9 SEC games and their instate rivals with them not being a conference game.

GT is in some ways Duke without the great basketball coach, but they are a public school, they do have an instate rival who would like their rival game be a conference game if nine are to be played, and most important of all, they are right smack in the middle of the largest city in the south not including Texas. No way does the SEC want the B1G in Atlanta.

I think taking all of the above into account what is plain to me is you can have Texas or North Carolina and stop at 20, but both means going to 24.

I understand perfectly what you are saying and I once thought that way as well. However there are some things that changed my perception and some of them have nothing to do with athletics.

1. As long as ESPN holds New England basketball schools, Atlantic coast basketball schools, and all of the Southeast's football schools under contract there will be no raiding of the ACC by the SEC and since at no time has either raided the other we will remain quite secure against Big 10 incursion by remaining two separate and distinct entities with mutual interests politically, with cultural ties, and our own love of sports with a blurring of interests in them, but distinct priorities about them.

Why should ESPN place Clemson, Florida State, Virginia Tech or N.C. State in the SEC when together with the SEC they own them all already and don't have to pay them quite as much as SEC schools? The product that ESPN needs (and wants) to secure is a portion of the Big 12.

2. An SEC with Texas and Oklahoma would own 7 of the top 10 most profitable programs in the United State. Two more "national" brands would make every college football fan in the nation have to consider purchasing the SECN and it would be a no brainer for every Southerner just as much as purchasing the ACCN will become a no brainer for every hoops fan up the East coast. ESPN has decided (and logically so) that they can control the top 2 sports and the 1 potential money growth sport with those two conferences and that is why we prosper. The basketball in the SEC has won just as many national titles over the last 20 years as the ACC has, but their conference top to bottom is stronger. The ACC has won some national championships in football as well, but is nowhere near as strong as the SEC as a conference. Own both and setup annual crossover games in both sports and you maximize the content for ACC basketball with games against Florida, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky. You maximize SEC football with games against Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and perhaps a North Carolina or Louisville. You can own a national title tilt like Florida State vs Auburn, or Duke vs Kentucky. But if you put them in the same conference that never happens. And between the SEC and ACC you have 2/3rds of the best College baseball in the nation.

Pick up Texas and Oklahoma and now you own the Southwest as well, especially since Arkansas and Texas A&M and Missouri are already on board. If somehow Kansas (T3 rights under contract to ESPN) could find its way into the group then hello!

3. The PAC has the worst viewing market for college sports as a whole in the nation and it doesn't matter what the sport is. Placing Texas and Oklahoma in the PAC won't change that. It could even mean that rabid casual fans in the Southwest might lose some interest in them. Put them in the SEC and you just placed that casual rabid about football viewer on steroids.

More importantly the PAC is not owned in any way by FOX or ESPN. FOX owns 51% of the BTN. FOX owns 0% of the SEC or ACC. ESPN and FOX have about equal ownership of Big 12 product but not in any uniformed way. ESPN holds extra rights (significantly so with Texas) to Texas and Kansas. FOX owns about the same dollars worth of T3 rights with Oklahoma as ESPN does with Kansas. Either of those contracts could be bought out by the other entity so in reality the key product on lock down is Texas. You won't see Oklahoma go where Texas does not. The rest of the Big 12's T3 rights are owned by FOX but don't represent any kind of obstacle to movement.

4. The Big 10 is the real potential threat to ESPN because it is the only vehicle in which FOX can pair the economic power of the conference with their own large purse and try to buy product away from ESPN. As long as the ACC/SEC cultural marriage continues happily there is little incentive for either of those conferences to consider such a move. All ESPN has to do is keep us close economically. Travel, loss of cultural identity which plays into fan apathy, and loss of self controlling interest are enough to hold us in place. Maryland moved because of money and really because when Syracuse and Pitt came in to the North they lost through the spreading of branding any real power they had left in the ACC and they had no instate little brother to watch out for.

Jim Delany is interested in Southern & Northeastern expansion because of a variety of reasons. Yes both regions help in athletic recruitment but that part of the reasoning is only obliquely important. His demographics are changing as is the political landscape. Every Southern target mentioned North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia Tech, potentially Florida State is a growth area both economically (some more some less) but especially in political representation. And all but F.S.U. are research universities of note. Since Federal grants dwarf the best football revenue in the country by 10 to 1 and the Big 10 has built itself upon research and those grants, he was also insuring that his schools could continue to rely upon that revenue stream, or grow it, while holding onto the political power that is needed to stay in favor as a group.

Should the unthinkable happen and Virginia and North Carolina move to the Big 10 then the ability of a burgeoning South and renaissance of Southern educational prominence is curtailed to an extent. The reason I suggested the schools I did at 20 is because should Kansas and Texas find their ways into either the SEC or ACC then between our conferences we would have 11 AAU schools located in the best economic portion of the nation outside of the Pacific Northwest, with a cultural base as solid as that of the Upper Mid West at the time the Big 10 rose to athletic and political prominence, coupled with the most rabid fan base in the nation. We would be only second to the Big 10 in the number of actual research universities by a 3 or 4 should they expand further but in all likelihood by 2. Plus we have Emory, Rice, and Tulane all squarely in our footprint and we culturally cooperate with those schools already. U.A.B. is prominent in research as are others. Other schools have been hampered by the rules not permitting research carried out by an educational entity outside of the geographic boundaries of the campus to be considered as part of their research. The Medical College of Georgia has impeded UGA's due recognition in this way.

At stake, not through realignment, but politically, is the autonomy and recognition of Southern schools as the educational and cultural centers of an evolving region of the United States. As population shifts it is only reasonable that Federal support should be meted out to our schools in a proportional way. It's not a Red State / Blue State political issue.

Appropriate funding and cohesion are essential to our schools, their culture, and only fair, especially at a time when resources are drying up due to failed national economic policies and the nation is relying more and more upon the economy of the South to prop up its slowing regions. We just need to be careful that in the development of the South we don't waste our natural resources the way they were wasted in the past elsewhere in our nation.

So I picked those schools to form a Southern consortium for research cooperation and a motivation for a political lobby to garner representational proportions of funding for our schools.

(02-09-2014 09:46 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-09-2014 02:10 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  

(02-08-2014 11:05 AM)JRsec Wrote:  I've reconsidered:

At 16 add these Texas and Oklahoma
At 18 add these North Carolina and Virginia
At 20 add these Duke, Georgia Tech

Texas and Oklahoma would be no brainers at 16 or 20, but see below.

Kansas is a basketball king that likely would be worth a slot.

You might want North Carolina and Duke but you cannot get the first without NCS, and if you get the second and coach K retires or gets hit by a bus, what do you have? A small school with great academics comprised largely of students from outside the region, a very old and small basketball area and a football program that with the best coaching cannot sustain a high degree of success.

As for UVA, they are another school that excels at academics, but not in athletics, and the Holies bring more TV eyeballs in Virginia. Could you get UNC without UVA? Maybe, I'm not sure.

The SEC cannot leave the two football powers FSU and Clemson right in our backyard. We have wanted them for decades, just not the last few years because they offer no new markets, but there is no way we leave them behind if we go to 20. UF and USC is not going to want to play 9 SEC games and their instate rivals with them not being a conference game.

GT is in some ways Duke without the great basketball coach, but they are a public school, they do have an instate rival who would like their rival game be a conference game if nine are to be played, and most important of all, they are right smack in the middle of the largest city in the south not including Texas. No way does the SEC want the B1G in Atlanta.

I think taking all of the above into account what is plain to me is you can have Texas or North Carolina and stop at 20, but both means going to 24.

I understand perfectly what you are saying and I once thought that way as well. However there are some things that changed my perception and some of them have nothing to do with athletics.

1. As long as ESPN holds New England basketball schools, Atlantic coast basketball schools, and all of the Southeast's football schools under contract there will be no raiding of the ACC by the SEC and since at no time has either raided the other we will remain quite secure against Big 10 incursion by remaining two separate and distinct entities with mutual interests politically, with cultural ties, and our own love of sports with a blurring of interests in them, but distinct priorities about them.

Why should ESPN place Clemson, Florida State, Virginia Tech or N.C. State in the SEC when together with the SEC they own them all already and don't have to pay them quite as much as SEC schools? The product that ESPN needs (and wants) to secure is a portion of the Big 12.

2. An SEC with Texas and Oklahoma would own 7 of the top 10 most profitable programs in the United State. Two more "national" brands would make every college football fan in the nation have to consider purchasing the SECN and it would be a no brainer for every Southerner just as much as purchasing the ACCN will become a no brainer for every hoops fan up the East coast. ESPN has decided (and logically so) that they can control the top 2 sports and the 1 potential money growth sport with those two conferences and that is why we prosper. The basketball in the SEC has won just as many national titles over the last 20 years as the ACC has, but their conference top to bottom is stronger. The ACC has won some national championships in football as well, but is nowhere near as strong as the SEC as a conference. Own both and setup annual crossover games in both sports and you maximize the content for ACC basketball with games against Florida, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky. You maximize SEC football with games against Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and perhaps a North Carolina or Louisville. You can own a national title tilt like Florida State vs Auburn, or Duke vs Kentucky. But if you put them in the same conference that never happens. And between the SEC and ACC you have 2/3rds of the best College baseball in the nation.

Pick up Texas and Oklahoma and now you own the Southwest as well, especially since Arkansas and Texas A&M and Missouri are already on board. If somehow Kansas (T3 rights under contract to ESPN) could find its way into the group then hello!

3. The PAC has the worst viewing market for college sports as a whole in the nation and it doesn't matter what the sport is. Placing Texas and Oklahoma in the PAC won't change that. It could even mean that rabid casual fans in the Southwest might lose some interest in them. Put them in the SEC and you just placed that casual rabid about football viewer on steroids.

More importantly the PAC is not owned in any way by FOX or ESPN. FOX owns 51% of the BTN. FOX owns 0% of the SEC or ACC. ESPN and FOX have about equal ownership of Big 12 product but not in any uniformed way. ESPN holds extra rights (significantly so with Texas) to Texas and Kansas. FOX owns about the same dollars worth of T3 rights with Oklahoma as ESPN does with Kansas. Either of those contracts could be bought out by the other entity so in reality the key product on lock down is Texas. You won't see Oklahoma go where Texas does not. The rest of the Big 12's T3 rights are owned by FOX but don't represent any kind of obstacle to movement.

4. The Big 10 is the real potential threat to ESPN because it is the only vehicle in which FOX can pair the economic power of the conference with their own large purse and try to buy product away from ESPN. As long as the ACC/SEC cultural marriage continues happily there is little incentive for either of those conferences to consider such a move. All ESPN has to do is keep us close economically. Travel, loss of cultural identity which plays into fan apathy, and loss of self controlling interest are enough to hold us in place. Maryland moved because of money and really because when Syracuse and Pitt came in to the North they lost through the spreading of branding any real power they had left in the ACC and they had no instate little brother to watch out for.

Jim Delany is interested in Southern & Northeastern expansion because of a variety of reasons. Yes both regions help in athletic recruitment but that part of the reasoning is only obliquely important. His demographics are changing as is the political landscape. Every Southern target mentioned North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia Tech, potentially Florida State is a growth area both economically (some more some less) but especially in political representation. And all but F.S.U. are research universities of note. Since Federal grants dwarf the best football revenue in the country by 10 to 1 and the Big 10 has built itself upon research and those grants, he was also insuring that his schools could continue to rely upon that revenue stream, or grow it, while holding onto the political power that is needed to stay in favor as a group.

Should the unthinkable happen and Virginia and North Carolina move to the Big 10 then the ability of a burgeoning South and renaissance of Southern educational prominence is curtailed to an extent. The reason I suggested the schools I did at 20 is because should Kansas and Texas find their ways into either the SEC or ACC then between our conferences we would have 11 AAU schools located in the best economic portion of the nation outside of the Pacific Northwest, with a cultural base as solid as that of the Upper Mid West at the time the Big 10 rose to athletic and political prominence, coupled with the most rabid fan base in the nation. We would be only second to the Big 10 in the number of actual research universities by a 3 or 4 should they expand further but in all likelihood by 2. Plus we have Emory, Rice, and Tulane all squarely in our footprint and we culturally cooperate with those schools already. U.A.B. is prominent in research as are others. Other schools have been hampered by the rules not permitting research carried out by an educational entity outside of the geographic boundaries of the campus to be considered as part of their research. The Medical College of Georgia has impeded UGA's due recognition in this way.

At stake, not through realignment, but politically, is the autonomy and recognition of Southern schools as the educational and cultural centers of an evolving region of the United States. As population shifts it is only reasonable that Federal support should be meted out to our schools in a proportional way. It's not a Red State / Blue State political issue.

Appropriate funding and cohesion are essential to our schools, their culture, and only fair, especially at a time when resources are drying up due to failed national economic policies and the nation is relying more and more upon the economy of the South to prop up its slowing regions. We just need to be careful that in the development of the South we don't waste our natural resources the way they were wasted in the past elsewhere in our nation.

So I picked those schools to form a Southern consortium for research cooperation and a motivation for a political lobby to garner representational proportions of funding for our schools.

Great post, again, JR!

I do not disagree with any of your points, and agree wholeheartedly on your view of the role this will play in future Southern politics, for reasons related to federal dollars and Blue/Red culture. For this reason alone I would take UVA.

But I really want VT. Same with GT, FSU, and NCS, all of which are burgeoning graduate research powerhouses in the making. Of course I want UNC, Texas and Oklahoma. I also want Clemson, Kansas and Duke, ideally, but the maximum number of future additions is 10. It likely is 6, maybe only 2.

Of the 11 schools above, the first I would sacrifice is Duke. That is a really hard decision because of academics and because they are a basketball king. However, the most important criteria moving foreword is the size of a schools fan base as measured by the number of butts in seats at football stadiums and on couches watching football games on TV. On these metrics Duke fails. The same with Kansas. I sacrifice Duke first over Kansas because the latter brings in a new state that would also be lost to FOX.

I also have a plan that keeps Duke, ESPN and almost everyone else happy, but such post is still fermenting in my mind and is not ready to be poured into these here internets just yet.

(02-09-2014 11:03 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  

(02-09-2014 09:46 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-09-2014 02:10 AM)Lurker Above Wrote:  

(02-08-2014 11:05 AM)JRsec Wrote:  I've reconsidered:

At 16 add these Texas and Oklahoma
At 18 add these North Carolina and Virginia
At 20 add these Duke, Georgia Tech

Texas and Oklahoma would be no brainers at 16 or 20, but see below.

Kansas is a basketball king that likely would be worth a slot.

You might want North Carolina and Duke but you cannot get the first without NCS, and if you get the second and coach K retires or gets hit by a bus, what do you have? A small school with great academics comprised largely of students from outside the region, a very old and small basketball area and a football program that with the best coaching cannot sustain a high degree of success.

As for UVA, they are another school that excels at academics, but not in athletics, and the Holies bring more TV eyeballs in Virginia. Could you get UNC without UVA? Maybe, I'm not sure.

The SEC cannot leave the two football powers FSU and Clemson right in our backyard. We have wanted them for decades, just not the last few years because they offer no new markets, but there is no way we leave them behind if we go to 20. UF and USC is not going to want to play 9 SEC games and their instate rivals with them not being a conference game.

GT is in some ways Duke without the great basketball coach, but they are a public school, they do have an instate rival who would like their rival game be a conference game if nine are to be played, and most important of all, they are right smack in the middle of the largest city in the south not including Texas. No way does the SEC want the B1G in Atlanta.

I think taking all of the above into account what is plain to me is you can have Texas or North Carolina and stop at 20, but both means going to 24.

I understand perfectly what you are saying and I once thought that way as well. However there are some things that changed my perception and some of them have nothing to do with athletics.

1. As long as ESPN holds New England basketball schools, Atlantic coast basketball schools, and all of the Southeast's football schools under contract there will be no raiding of the ACC by the SEC and since at no time has either raided the other we will remain quite secure against Big 10 incursion by remaining two separate and distinct entities with mutual interests politically, with cultural ties, and our own love of sports with a blurring of interests in them, but distinct priorities about them.

Why should ESPN place Clemson, Florida State, Virginia Tech or N.C. State in the SEC when together with the SEC they own them all already and don't have to pay them quite as much as SEC schools? The product that ESPN needs (and wants) to secure is a portion of the Big 12.

2. An SEC with Texas and Oklahoma would own 7 of the top 10 most profitable programs in the United State. Two more "national" brands would make every college football fan in the nation have to consider purchasing the SECN and it would be a no brainer for every Southerner just as much as purchasing the ACCN will become a no brainer for every hoops fan up the East coast. ESPN has decided (and logically so) that they can control the top 2 sports and the 1 potential money growth sport with those two conferences and that is why we prosper. The basketball in the SEC has won just as many national titles over the last 20 years as the ACC has, but their conference top to bottom is stronger. The ACC has won some national championships in football as well, but is nowhere near as strong as the SEC as a conference. Own both and setup annual crossover games in both sports and you maximize the content for ACC basketball with games against Florida, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky. You maximize SEC football with games against Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and perhaps a North Carolina or Louisville. You can own a national title tilt like Florida State vs Auburn, or Duke vs Kentucky. But if you put them in the same conference that never happens. And between the SEC and ACC you have 2/3rds of the best College baseball in the nation.

Pick up Texas and Oklahoma and now you own the Southwest as well, especially since Arkansas and Texas A&M and Missouri are already on board. If somehow Kansas (T3 rights under contract to ESPN) could find its way into the group then hello!

3. The PAC has the worst viewing market for college sports as a whole in the nation and it doesn't matter what the sport is. Placing Texas and Oklahoma in the PAC won't change that. It could even mean that rabid casual fans in the Southwest might lose some interest in them. Put them in the SEC and you just placed that casual rabid about football viewer on steroids.

More importantly the PAC is not owned in any way by FOX or ESPN. FOX owns 51% of the BTN. FOX owns 0% of the SEC or ACC. ESPN and FOX have about equal ownership of Big 12 product but not in any uniformed way. ESPN holds extra rights (significantly so with Texas) to Texas and Kansas. FOX owns about the same dollars worth of T3 rights with Oklahoma as ESPN does with Kansas. Either of those contracts could be bought out by the other entity so in reality the key product on lock down is Texas. You won't see Oklahoma go where Texas does not. The rest of the Big 12's T3 rights are owned by FOX but don't represent any kind of obstacle to movement.

4. The Big 10 is the real potential threat to ESPN because it is the only vehicle in which FOX can pair the economic power of the conference with their own large purse and try to buy product away from ESPN. As long as the ACC/SEC cultural marriage continues happily there is little incentive for either of those conferences to consider such a move. All ESPN has to do is keep us close economically. Travel, loss of cultural identity which plays into fan apathy, and loss of self controlling interest are enough to hold us in place. Maryland moved because of money and really because when Syracuse and Pitt came in to the North they lost through the spreading of branding any real power they had left in the ACC and they had no instate little brother to watch out for.

Jim Delany is interested in Southern & Northeastern expansion because of a variety of reasons. Yes both regions help in athletic recruitment but that part of the reasoning is only obliquely important. His demographics are changing as is the political landscape. Every Southern target mentioned North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia Tech, potentially Florida State is a growth area both economically (some more some less) but especially in political representation. And all but F.S.U. are research universities of note. Since Federal grants dwarf the best football revenue in the country by 10 to 1 and the Big 10 has built itself upon research and those grants, he was also insuring that his schools could continue to rely upon that revenue stream, or grow it, while holding onto the political power that is needed to stay in favor as a group.

Should the unthinkable happen and Virginia and North Carolina move to the Big 10 then the ability of a burgeoning South and renaissance of Southern educational prominence is curtailed to an extent. The reason I suggested the schools I did at 20 is because should Kansas and Texas find their ways into either the SEC or ACC then between our conferences we would have 11 AAU schools located in the best economic portion of the nation outside of the Pacific Northwest, with a cultural base as solid as that of the Upper Mid West at the time the Big 10 rose to athletic and political prominence, coupled with the most rabid fan base in the nation. We would be only second to the Big 10 in the number of actual research universities by a 3 or 4 should they expand further but in all likelihood by 2. Plus we have Emory, Rice, and Tulane all squarely in our footprint and we culturally cooperate with those schools already. U.A.B. is prominent in research as are others. Other schools have been hampered by the rules not permitting research carried out by an educational entity outside of the geographic boundaries of the campus to be considered as part of their research. The Medical College of Georgia has impeded UGA's due recognition in this way.

At stake, not through realignment, but politically, is the autonomy and recognition of Southern schools as the educational and cultural centers of an evolving region of the United States. As population shifts it is only reasonable that Federal support should be meted out to our schools in a proportional way. It's not a Red State / Blue State political issue.

Appropriate funding and cohesion are essential to our schools, their culture, and only fair, especially at a time when resources are drying up due to failed national economic policies and the nation is relying more and more upon the economy of the South to prop up its slowing regions. We just need to be careful that in the development of the South we don't waste our natural resources the way they were wasted in the past elsewhere in our nation.

So I picked those schools to form a Southern consortium for research cooperation and a motivation for a political lobby to garner representational proportions of funding for our schools.

Great post, again, JR!

I do not disagree with any of your points, and agree wholeheartedly on your view of the role this will play in future Southern politics, for reasons related to federal dollars and Blue/Red culture. For this reason alone I would take UVA.

But I really want VT. Same with GT, FSU, and NCS, all of which are burgeoning graduate research powerhouses in the making. Of course I want UNC, Texas and Oklahoma. I also want Clemson, Kansas and Duke, ideally, but the maximum number of future additions is 10. It likely is 6, maybe only 2.

Of the 11 schools above, the first I would sacrifice is Duke. That is a really hard decision because of academics and because they are a basketball king. However, the most important criteria moving foreword is the size of a schools fan base as measured by the number of butts in seats at football stadiums and on couches watching football games on TV. On these metrics Duke fails. The same with Kansas. I sacrifice Duke first over Kansas because the latter brings in a new state that would also be lost to FOX.

I also have a plan that keeps Duke, ESPN and almost everyone else happy, but such post is still fermenting in my mind and is not ready to be poured into these here internets just yet.

At 16 or at 20 Duke, Tulane, Rice, and Vanderbilt could or should all go the route of Notre Dame in association with football conferences. Then it is very possible to place the best of academic institutions within our conference without sacrificing competitiveness on the gridiron. So when you play with a 24 team conference consider this approach. It frees space at 20 for better on field products without sacrificing academics. Those schools could easily schedule 6 conference games each as they would be P4, and could take the place of G5 schools on the schedule. They would have to rely upon the G5 to get their 6 home games.

I've been out of the loop a while and just jumping back in, so good conversation. Not sure if you have seen them, Lurker, but a while back, we had a thread about what the private schools should do. We spelled out all kinds of scenarios, even up to 32 schools in the SEC (really, it would be a league more than a conference). Vandy is making a push for more competitiveness, but it is still dwarfed by the efforts of the state schools. Whatever, Vandy, WF, Duke, even Miami, try to do, the state schools will just double down. JR's suggestion about going the way of Notre Dame is not a bad idea. If all of the private schools in the SEC and ACC were partial members, it would leave 21 full public school members with Pittsburgh as the farthest north of the full members. It is a stretch, but it could work. If not, such a scenario is such a game changer, anyway, that Pitt could possibly find a home in a heavily changed approach from the Big 10.

Also, such a drastic change would likely not really be SEC expansion; it would be a merger. Is that what ESPN wants to do? As long as everyone behaved and were on board, it would take one season of all of their broadcasters, upper brass, school administrators, coaches, and major boosters to get behind a "Rebirth of the Southern Conference" idea, and show that this would be a rebirth, not an invention. I would be totally fine with this, by the way. I am more concerned about Southern collaboration to make every school and state stronger than pride in just the SEC name. Regardless of how they package it, JR has done a good job for a while showing how the SEC and ACC roles within ESPN are going to be complementary, not adversarial.

If I could have anybody to make 16 I think I'd take Florida State and then either North Carolina or Clemson/Ga Tech; those three are about even.

GO EAST young man! Haven't you been told? North Carolina's full of women, whiskey and gold!

(02-10-2014 03:18 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  GO EAST young man! Haven't you been told? North Carolina's full of women, whiskey and gold!

Toby....Toby...Toby!!!