OdinFrigg
Gone Fishing
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RE: Time, Monetary Disparity, Pressure, and No Brokering Equals Unexpected Consequences
(01-14-2020 09:34 PM)JRsec Wrote: (01-02-2020 02:40 PM)Gamecock Wrote: (12-30-2019 12:11 PM)JRsec Wrote: (12-30-2019 09:40 AM)Gamecock Wrote: Just taking a step back, if you're the SEC what incentive is there to expand at this point? If the new deal starts causing payouts to exceed 50 million per school then does Oklahoma and Texas really move the meter much at that point? Is 2-4 million more per year really worth bringing in two blue blood schools that will make a very tough conference even that much more difficult?
At this point I think it's more likely that we take the huge raise and stand pat.
1. The addition of either of them locks the SEC into a dead heat with the Big 10 for the top slot in revenue.
2. The addition of both locks us into the superior position for revenue for the foreseeable future.
3. The addition of Texas and Oklahoma gives the SEC divisions symmetry. The RRR in the West and the Iron Bowl in the East become two of the premier events TV wise of the year. And since Auburn and Alabama would move East and Missouri would move West the resulting divisions would enable the dropping of the protected annual rivals.
Then you play 7 division games 2 games that rotate annually against the other division and you rotate through all 15 of the other schools every 4 years. You schedule 1 OOC P game and make sure it syncs up as a home game when you are on the 4 home conference game year and your two buy games give you 7 home tickets every year.
So expanding with those two schools gives us an opportunity to make divisional play more local, to balance the divisions, and to cement our advantages moving forward.
That's why you make the move. And the pair of them actually add ~5 million more to the annual payouts in content value and they boost our T3 network as well.
I guess what I'm saying is at only 5 million more per school I'm not sure we haven't reach a point of diminishing returns.
The league is already exceptionally difficult to win as it is, is it worth essentially locking out the bottom 8-10 teams in the league from ever winning? Hell, we have several schools (A&M, Ole Miss, UK, Vandy) that have never even won their division and others (SC, Miss St, Missouri, Arkansas) that have gone to Atlanta only 1-3 times.
Perhaps it's worth it to lock out the Big Ten from getting them but honestly if I was the president of SC (or Arkansas, Vandy, UK, Miss St, etc) I'd rather take 50 million and stand pat than take on those behemoths and get 55 million.
If we were fortunate enough to add Texas and Oklahoma the SEC is very likely done with realignment. Our revenue would be the leader of all conferences and could not be surpassed and the Big 10 with the additions of a Kansas and later Notre Dame could remain very close and neither of us would have incentive to add again because there would be literally no programs left that were contiguous and could add value to one of the two conferences unless we raided each other, which I don't see happening.
Arkansas, Louisiana State, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M
Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt
Those divisions don't need protected rivals. Play your 7 divisional games and rotate 2 from the other division every year for 9 conference games, have 1 OOC P game which might be an annual rival, and two buy games. Rotate the OOC P game as a home game in the years you have 4 conference home games and 5 conference away game and with the 2 buy games every school still has 7 home dates.
Nothing needs to change beyond that. Texas can use their two buy games to play in state foes and they will have their 7 home games, A&M on away years, and the 2 buy games to give them at worst 9 games in the state of Texas a year and possibly 10. They can still work a home and home with the P OOC game with anyone they wish which is essentially the business model they run now.
By doing this Texas moves from 5 P teams within their state plus OU and OSU to 2 P teams with SEC branding within their state and only OU with SEC branding competing with them for recruits. This will revive Texas football faster than anything else they could do.
These moves should also help to revitalize Arkansas and Missouri and the relationship only enhances L.S.U. because it helps to get Alabama distanced a bit from Louisiana recruits.
That's the basic rationale for Texas to gravitate to the SEC. However, Texas may still be holding onto a vision of a utopian structure whereby Texas dominates politically, economically, and athletically, and their conference brethren are appropriately prominent, but are subservient to, and enabling of, UT's interests. The B12 still has that model to a degree, but it is fragile. It is delusional that Texas can carry such a framework into any of the other P4 conferences as they are currently constituted.
All conferences have schools with disproportional power. We know who they are. However, both Notre Dame and Texas insist on special treatment. Texas is fine with conference football, but shared equity in control hasn't been their operational style. For Notre Dame, it's to be enabled for keeping football independence, while having their other sports accommodated and flourishing in an upper tier conference of prestige.
The SEC is the best conference for Texas. Creating a new conference whereby Texas picks 9 to 11 other members with by-laws and financial conditions dictated by Texas, is not going to happen. The B12 is the closest thing they have for that. If OU, and/or Kansas leave, it tumbles or becomes a shell of it's former self. Basically, another round of non-UT defections leaves the big fish with a puddle instead of a small pond.
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(This post was last modified: 01-15-2020 11:09 AM by OdinFrigg.)
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