(08-29-2015 08:18 AM)VirginiaPirate Wrote: (08-02-2015 08:02 AM)hawghiggs Wrote: (08-02-2015 02:58 AM)murrdcu Wrote: (08-01-2015 10:34 PM)hawghiggs Wrote: My list is a little different.
1, Oklahoma
2, Texas
3, Kansas
4, Iowa state
5, Kansas State
6, TCU
7, East Carolina
8, Cincinnati
9, Okie state
10, West Virginia
I can't argue with one or two or three, but four through 9 just don't seem to carry enough of their home markets to get me excited about adding them. I would put WVU up a lot higher.
Not exactly scientific, but interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/...14,-91.285
Higgs, what would your list look like with some ACC schools thrown in it?
I never throw ACC schools in due to the fact that I just don't believe the SEC would ever poach the ACC. The ACC and the SEC have had a long standing relationship and it has been extremely beneficial for both. Now currently with the unstable nature of the Big 12. A lot of those programs can quickly come into play.
This group makes the most sense based on new markets and the GOR issue with the ACC, SEC network expansion, etc. I can't see the SEC poaching the ACC either. I know there are folks on here who think Cincy and ECU can't carry their home states but given a SEC label they would at a minimum compete with the Perceived top dog ratings wise. ECU for sure. Mainly because they have been whipping State and Carolina lately in football. It is now expected ECU will win those games. Cincy would have a much harder time with OSU.
Let's put one canard to rest, the SEC can't poach the ACC. The only truth to this assumption rests in the hands of ESPN who while holding the contracts on both conferences has told the SEC that they simply won't pay the SEC to take ACC schools. It's not because the SEC couldn't attract ACC schools if the market was open and free. The growing monetary gap alone would be the difference for most and football prestige the reason for others. But then ESPN doesn't want to have to pay more for an ACC school that moves to the SEC and they don't want the SEC destabilizing the ACC by diminishing its product value.
There was no gentlemen's agreement between schools to blackball offers to others schools in the same state either. In '91 Florida sponsored F.S.U. and in 2011 expressed a desire to do so again. Now their dumb cluck fanboy message board readers might say otherwise but their administration was concerned that if expansion got larger the ability to schedule OOC games with other P5 programs whose conferences were also getting larger might be doubly difficult. Florida's biggest money game annually is F.S.U. and not because of ticket sales but because of donations to get in the pecking order for buying tickets to that game, particularly when it is in Tallahassee. South Carolina officials felt the same way. In fact in 2011 F.S.U. and Clemson both wanted in with the SEC. ESPN said no.
ESPN is the only damn glue holding the ACC together and it is because ESPN wanted in 2011 to land Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, and Notre Dame into the ACC to move to 16. ESPN wanted to boost the SEC's markets for their yet to be announced SECN with the additions of N.C. State and Virginia Tech so that each conference would move to 16 and ESPN would control in those two conferences the top football product in the nation minus U.S.C. & Oregon & Stanford from the PAC where they had 50% interest and six schools from the Big 10 where they had the all important T1 rights agreement giving them first pick of those games.
In other words their master plan was to control the majority of top brands in the conferences they owned the highest % of, and access to the other top brands through lease and partial agreements where they didn't have to pay top dollar for everybody's also rans.
North Carolina feared losing control if they lost two votes (N.C. State and Va Tech) out of their voting block of Carolina and Virginia schools. At the last minute at Wake & Duke's urging they said no to ESPN. It was so late in fact that the SEC through leaked information had already vetted the additions with the public, had held formal meetings with VT at the Greenbriar in West Virginia, and was preparing to meet with N.C. State when that meeting fell through.
This was also the basis for Deloss Dodds remarks at Texas about looking East and why ESPN went the extra mile with the SECN. And did a mea culpa with Texas by giving them the LHN and giving Kansas a sweet T3 deal for hoops. Needless to say that if it were not for ESPN the economic leverage that the SEC has would have scored some results to the East by now, probably not in North Carolina, but quite possibly in Florida and Virginia.
Now as to E.C.U.'s ability to go P5. It will depend upon what the final P4 looks like. Since there are a handful of G5 schools that might be able to cause some legal issues even after entrance criteria are established: size of stadiums, attendance minimums, ability to pay full cost scholarships, number of sports offered, and athletic endowment size, the possibility exists that the most logical way to proceed would be for each of the P4 conferences to move to 18 to increase the total of included schools to 72.
There are some clear economic breaks between schools at 54th, 61st, 67th, and the 71st position in earnings and other factors. The inclusion of schools like Brigham Young, Cincinnati, Connecticut, and three others would go a long way to establishing a clearer divide between the future P4 and other schools. If East Carolina wants inclusion they don't have to be better than Texas and Alabama all they have to do is pass those three mentioned in the areas cited above. Then inclusion will be possible.
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Wonder what Greg Sankey's expansion shortlist would look like....
