(02-10-2022 01:49 PM)JRsec Wrote:  You just keep thinking like a president Frank while networks continue to surprise you. Conferences are merely dancing for dollars and to whatever tune is played.

As I've explained carefully many times, the SEC likely isn't interested in Clemson. ESPN is interested in the value of Clemson vs an SEC slate as it maximizes Clemson's value for them. Is the SEC interested in UVa or Va Tech and UNC? Sure. But ESPN again will shelter whatever brands they value most in the SEC and will likely buy the B12 rights outright and park economy brands there.

What's moe Frank the B1G is far more vulnerable than many realize. That happens when 72.4% of the B1G's value resides in 6 schools. It means you have 7 holding the top 6 back and 1 at neutral value.

I'm going to enjoy watching this play out for those who perceive themselves to be masters of the world. Only the Big 12 had more power concentrated in fewer schools than the Big 10 and of that 72.4% nearly half of that is Michigan and Ohio State.

Why is a lowballed PAC relatively safe? Aside from geography they, along with the SEC have the most equitable spreading of value. That means they are hard to kill. The ACC would be relatively healthy if not more tightly sharing markets with the B1G and SEC.

So, while the B1G is stable now, as money drives more sports value and as Federal and State revenue shrinks, and as presidents finally grasp the dichotomy of Academic endeavors and pay for play athletics, associations that try to shoehorn academics and athletics under one umbrella will fail because each limits the other and they will discover the importance of separating them and when they do Michigan and Ohio State and likely Penn State will look to maximize sports values by leaving B1G laggards behind, just like Texas and Oklahoma.

But you can keep drinking the Kool-Aid and I bet you Notre Dame wakes up first, not to conference membership but to how their location and natural rivals put Disney in areas of the country where their market dominance isn't as great and for a lot less than B1G money.

You're pulling these value numbers out of thin air.

The whole reason why the Big Ten has been dominating on the revenue front (despite the SEC having much better on-the-field success) is that it is, by far, the LEAST concentrated in terms of value among schools. You can keep on pretending like the Big Ten hasn't been making more revenue than the SEC, but it's not true and it hasn't been the case even with the SEC being at its peak dominance on the field.

Further to that point, some of the least valuable football schools in the Big Ten - my alma mater of Illinois, Northwestern, Rutgers, and Maryland - are still the reasons why New York, Chicago and DC are able to deliver the Big Ten Network for basic cable subscription revenue. Heck, even the combo of Indiana and Purdue deliver the Indianapolis market, which is larger than every SEC TV market outside of Texas, Florida and Georgia. Those are the least valuable schools that have the smallest football fan bases in the conference and yet they are still being a monetized in a way that other conferences haven't been able to do.

Now, does that mean that the Big Ten doesn't have any risks? Of course not. The BTN revenue model is going to change drastically with cord cutting. The Big Ten's demographic footprint isn't growing in the same manner as the footprints of the SEC, ACC and Pac-12. Those are issues that the conference must resolve in the long-term.

However, I think you continue to greatly underestimate the importance of academic associations. It may not be a point of emphasis in the SEC, but it's simply always a core tenet of the Big Ten culture. People might call that outdated, irrelevant for sports and/or anachronistic, but the schools *really* care about it. Michigan and Wisconsin, in particular, are in a totally different stratosphere on that point (even beyond places like Stanford, Duke and Northwestern), so that firmly includes the high "sports value" schools within the Big Ten.

(02-10-2022 04:30 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 01:49 PM)JRsec Wrote:  You just keep thinking like a president Frank while networks continue to surprise you. Conferences are merely dancing for dollars and to whatever tune is played.

As I've explained carefully many times, the SEC likely isn't interested in Clemson. ESPN is interested in the value of Clemson vs an SEC slate as it maximizes Clemson's value for them. Is the SEC interested in UVa or Va Tech and UNC? Sure. But ESPN again will shelter whatever brands they value most in the SEC and will likely buy the B12 rights outright and park economy brands there.

What's moe Frank the B1G is far more vulnerable than many realize. That happens when 72.4% of the B1G's value resides in 6 schools. It means you have 7 holding the top 6 back and 1 at neutral value.

I'm going to enjoy watching this play out for those who perceive themselves to be masters of the world. Only the Big 12 had more power concentrated in fewer schools than the Big 10 and of that 72.4% nearly half of that is Michigan and Ohio State.

Why is a lowballed PAC relatively safe? Aside from geography they, along with the SEC have the most equitable spreading of value. That means they are hard to kill. The ACC would be relatively healthy if not more tightly sharing markets with the B1G and SEC.

So, while the B1G is stable now, as money drives more sports value and as Federal and State revenue shrinks, and as presidents finally grasp the dichotomy of Academic endeavors and pay for play athletics, associations that try to shoehorn academics and athletics under one umbrella will fail because each limits the other and they will discover the importance of separating them and when they do Michigan and Ohio State and likely Penn State will look to maximize sports values by leaving B1G laggards behind, just like Texas and Oklahoma.

But you can keep drinking the Kool-Aid and I bet you Notre Dame wakes up first, not to conference membership but to how their location and natural rivals put Disney in areas of the country where their market dominance isn't as great and for a lot less than B1G money.

You're pulling these value numbers out of thin air.

The whole reason why the Big Ten has been dominating on the revenue front (despite the SEC having much better on-the-field success) is that it is, by far, the LEAST concentrated in terms of value among schools. You can keep on pretending like the Big Ten hasn't been making more revenue than the SEC, but it's not true and it hasn't been the case even with the SEC being at its peak dominance on the field.

Further to that point, some of the least valuable football schools in the Big Ten - my alma mater of Illinois, Northwestern, Rutgers, and Maryland - are still the reasons why New York, Chicago and DC are able to deliver the Big Ten Network for basic cable subscription revenue. Heck, even the combo of Indiana and Purdue deliver the Indianapolis market, which is larger than every SEC TV market outside of Texas, Florida and Georgia. Those are the least valuable schools that have the smallest football fan bases in the conference and yet they are still being a monetized in a way that other conferences haven't been able to do.

Now, does that mean that the Big Ten doesn't have any risks? Of course not. The BTN revenue model is going to change drastically with cord cutting. The Big Ten's demographic footprint isn't growing in the same manner as the footprints of the SEC, ACC and Pac-12. Those are issues that the conference must resolve in the long-term.

However, I think you continue to greatly underestimate the importance of academic associations. It may not be a point of emphasis in the SEC, but it's simply always a core tenet of the Big Ten culture. People might call that outdated, irrelevant for sports and/or anachronistic, but the schools *really* care about it. Michigan and Wisconsin, in particular, are in a totally different stratosphere on that point (even beyond places like Stanford, Duke and Northwestern), so that firmly includes the high "sports value" schools within the Big Ten.

No Frank, the come straight from the percentage of revenue generated and from economic impact evaluations (which correlate) given by the WSJ. And you are wrong about why the B1G commanded higher media value. Per capita wealth of citizens combined with viewership appeals more to advertisers.

As usual Frank you draw only on the data which supports your viewpoint. In a market where actual eyeballs and not just population numbers count, and where wealth demographics can be matched to those eyeballs it is much easier to assess value to each member school much more precisely. And as networks seek to sculpt competition so as to maximize the ad reach of each game it is no accident that actual viewers, assessed by economic demographics, and measured for overall density of actual viewers will impact how realignment is shaped.

You still lag in the conference-oriented footprint mode of thinking circa 2010-2. Times have changed. NIL and Pay for Play shook Texas's world as suddenly they realized that with Oklahoma the represented 56.3% of the value of a 10 member conference. And that people wanted to watch them play and truly wanted to see them play better brands and that lucrative media money could be significantly increased if the did so. What's more they would no longer carry most of the burden. 36.7% of the total B1G value is in Ohio State and Michigan. Then there are 4 more schools which each earn more than 8% of the total. Then Michigan State pulls 6.6% and everyone else lags. Academia is all that holds the B1G together because that is your shared history. Academics already impede improvement of athletic revenue. When players become employees there is no reason Michigan and Ohio State should forego athletic endeavors in order to stay in an academic association as the link between student and athlete will be broken.

I'm sure your academic alliances will hold, and possibly grow. But which athletic association a school has will be a separate matter and schools will act in their own self-interest.

You sir are the one who is bat crap crazy for assuming everything in this rapidly changing world will remain a gestalt. If you could go back pre WWII and look at schools like Fordham, Penn, and others which were stalwarts, and see Vandy as one of the toughest outs in the SEC along with Tulane and Georgia Tech you would grasp how big of a paradigm shift that air travel and TV would bring. 5G and smart technology is about (with changes in law for players rights) usher in the era of the super brands and compensation from media will organize all of it to their advantage, and as schools compete for fewer students exposure will be more important than ever. And Frank that means massive changes for everyone. And brands you thought were bound to others by history and tradition will change again and there will be new Fordhams, Penns, Vanderbilts, Tulanes and Georgia Techs and they will be named Minnesota, Indiana, Purdue, Rutgers, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Syracuse, West Virginia, and maybe and more from the PAC and NB12, and even the SEC.

ESPN and other networks will want to organize product by values. The top 10 will still be the top 10 and the next 10 will still be the next 10, and those who can wax and wane relevant quickly will be the next dozen and those will likely play each other regardless of present conference affiliation and the networks will likely pay the in excess of 110 million each per year.

Then the next 24 to 32 will be grouped by value so that in order to get Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Texas A&M, Florida, Florida State, Auburn, Tennessee, LSU, Wisconsin, Iowa, USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington they don't have to overpay everyone else.

And that young man is on its way. Next year? Nah. Next five? Maybe not. Next 10? Most likely. NIL is only going to re-enforce stratification. Athlete employees in a for profit Athletic Department will fully separate athletics from campus academics, or at least severely strain the relationship in practice, and with it maximizing athletic profit will reign. Title IX will likely be funded by for profit athletics as a tax write off. And conferences as we know them will cease as schools play only those which maximize their revenue and magnify their brand, and you will be nuts not to bank on it. College athletics are about to be fully corporatized.

(02-10-2022 05:37 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 04:30 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 01:49 PM)JRsec Wrote:  You just keep thinking like a president Frank while networks continue to surprise you. Conferences are merely dancing for dollars and to whatever tune is played.

As I've explained carefully many times, the SEC likely isn't interested in Clemson. ESPN is interested in the value of Clemson vs an SEC slate as it maximizes Clemson's value for them. Is the SEC interested in UVa or Va Tech and UNC? Sure. But ESPN again will shelter whatever brands they value most in the SEC and will likely buy the B12 rights outright and park economy brands there.

What's moe Frank the B1G is far more vulnerable than many realize. That happens when 72.4% of the B1G's value resides in 6 schools. It means you have 7 holding the top 6 back and 1 at neutral value.

I'm going to enjoy watching this play out for those who perceive themselves to be masters of the world. Only the Big 12 had more power concentrated in fewer schools than the Big 10 and of that 72.4% nearly half of that is Michigan and Ohio State.

Why is a lowballed PAC relatively safe? Aside from geography they, along with the SEC have the most equitable spreading of value. That means they are hard to kill. The ACC would be relatively healthy if not more tightly sharing markets with the B1G and SEC.

So, while the B1G is stable now, as money drives more sports value and as Federal and State revenue shrinks, and as presidents finally grasp the dichotomy of Academic endeavors and pay for play athletics, associations that try to shoehorn academics and athletics under one umbrella will fail because each limits the other and they will discover the importance of separating them and when they do Michigan and Ohio State and likely Penn State will look to maximize sports values by leaving B1G laggards behind, just like Texas and Oklahoma.

But you can keep drinking the Kool-Aid and I bet you Notre Dame wakes up first, not to conference membership but to how their location and natural rivals put Disney in areas of the country where their market dominance isn't as great and for a lot less than B1G money.

You're pulling these value numbers out of thin air.

The whole reason why the Big Ten has been dominating on the revenue front (despite the SEC having much better on-the-field success) is that it is, by far, the LEAST concentrated in terms of value among schools. You can keep on pretending like the Big Ten hasn't been making more revenue than the SEC, but it's not true and it hasn't been the case even with the SEC being at its peak dominance on the field.

Further to that point, some of the least valuable football schools in the Big Ten - my alma mater of Illinois, Northwestern, Rutgers, and Maryland - are still the reasons why New York, Chicago and DC are able to deliver the Big Ten Network for basic cable subscription revenue. Heck, even the combo of Indiana and Purdue deliver the Indianapolis market, which is larger than every SEC TV market outside of Texas, Florida and Georgia. Those are the least valuable schools that have the smallest football fan bases in the conference and yet they are still being a monetized in a way that other conferences haven't been able to do.

Now, does that mean that the Big Ten doesn't have any risks? Of course not. The BTN revenue model is going to change drastically with cord cutting. The Big Ten's demographic footprint isn't growing in the same manner as the footprints of the SEC, ACC and Pac-12. Those are issues that the conference must resolve in the long-term.

However, I think you continue to greatly underestimate the importance of academic associations. It may not be a point of emphasis in the SEC, but it's simply always a core tenet of the Big Ten culture. People might call that outdated, irrelevant for sports and/or anachronistic, but the schools *really* care about it. Michigan and Wisconsin, in particular, are in a totally different stratosphere on that point (even beyond places like Stanford, Duke and Northwestern), so that firmly includes the high "sports value" schools within the Big Ten.

No Frank, the come straight from the percentage of revenue generated and from economic impact evaluations (which correlate) given by the WSJ. And you are wrong about why the B1G commanded higher media value. Per capita wealth of citizens combined with viewership appeals more to advertisers.

As usual Frank you draw only on the data which supports your viewpoint. In a market where actual eyeballs and not just population numbers count, and where wealth demographics can be matched to those eyeballs it is much easier to assess value to each member school much more precisely. And as networks seek to sculpt competition so as to maximize the ad reach of each game it is no accident that actual viewers, assessed by economic demographics, and measured for overall density of actual viewers will impact how realignment is shaped.

You still lag in the conference-oriented footprint mode of thinking circa 2010-2. Times have changed. NIL and Pay for Play shook Texas's world as suddenly they realized that with Oklahoma the represented 56.3% of the value of a 10 member conference. And that people wanted to watch them play and truly wanted to see them play better brands and that lucrative media money could be significantly increased if the did so. What's more they would no longer carry most of the burden. 36.7% of the total B1G value is in Ohio State and Michigan. Then there are 4 more schools which each earn more than 8% of the total. Then Michigan State pulls 6.6% and everyone else lags. Academia is all that holds the B1G together because that is your shared history. Academics already impede improvement of athletic revenue. When players become employees there is no reason Michigan and Ohio State should forego athletic endeavors in order to stay in an academic association as the link between student and athlete will be broken.

I'm sure your academic alliances will hold, and possibly grow. But which athletic association a school has will be a separate matter and schools will act in their own self-interest.

You sir are the one who is bat crap crazy for assuming everything in this rapidly changing world will remain a gestalt. If you could go back pre WWII and look at schools like Fordham, Penn, and others which were stalwarts, and see Vandy as one of the toughest outs in the SEC along with Tulane and Georgia Tech you would grasp how big of a paradigm shift that air travel and TV would bring. 5G and smart technology is about (with changes in law for players rights) usher in the era of the super brands and compensation from media will organize all of it to their advantage, and as schools compete for fewer students exposure will be more important than ever. And Frank that means massive changes for everyone. And brands you thought were bound to others by history and tradition will change again and there will be new Fordhams, Penns, Vanderbilts, Tulanes and Georgia Techs and they will be named Minnesota, Indiana, Purdue, Rutgers, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Syracuse, West Virginia, and maybe and more from the PAC and NB12, and even the SEC.

ESPN and other networks will want to organize product by values. The top 10 will still be the top 10 and the next 10 will still be the next 10, and those who can wax and wane relevant quickly will be the next dozen and those will likely play each other regardless of present conference affiliation and the networks will likely pay the in excess of 110 million each per year.

Then the next 24 to 32 will be grouped by value so that in order to get Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Texas A&M, Florida, Florida State, Auburn, Tennessee, LSU, Wisconsin, Iowa, USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington they don't have to overpay everyone else.

And that young man is on its way. Next year? Nah. Next five? Maybe not. Next 10? Most likely. NIL is only going to re-enforce stratification. Athlete employees in a for profit Athletic Department will fully separate athletics from campus academics, or at least severely strain the relationship in practice, and with it maximizing athletic profit will reign. Title IX will likely be funded by for profit athletics as a tax write off. And conferences as we know them will cease as schools play only those which maximize their revenue and magnify their brand, and you will be nuts not to bank on it. College athletics are about to be fully corporatized.

I agree that maybe the footprint model in and of itself isn't going to be outcome determinative in the future (although there's still always an inherently strong correlation between market size and market value, whether it's for TV or recruiting).

However, I simply totally disagree about the separation between athletic associations and academic associations at least at the top levels. That has long been a fan-based wish on forums like this one but it simply won't be true.

Sure, the G5 and midmajor conferences will need to simply take the best sports schools that are available, but it's a totally different ballgame when you get to the P5 level. Even with the SEC, the fact is that the largest reason why Texas refused to join them for decades was because they believed/perceived that the SEC was academically inferior and beneath them. It wasn't until the SEC was able to at least neutralize that issue (where the SEC now has a higher collection of academic schools compared to the Big 12) that they were able to get the UT academic administration on board with the move. The increased money by a UT move to the SEC has *long* been there as an incentive, but the Big 12 had to lose the bulk of its best academic schools (Texas A&M, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska) before UT could holistically make a move to the SEC.

I guess I just don't see the incongruence between having an academic association that is tied to an athletic association in terms of maximizing revenue. The Big Ten isn't simply trying to get football fans - it's also looking at its cultural and institutional power in the financial centers of NYC and Chicago and the political center of DC within its footprint and their strong ties to places like Silicon Valley and Hollywood outside of their footprint.

You can keep trying to argue that the athletic brands and academic brands should be separate, yet look at the following question: "What's the most academically elite group of colleges in this country?"

The most common answer by FAR is going to be the name of an athletic conference: the Ivy League.

The association between academics and athletics are simply going to be intertwined at the highest levels whether fans want to believe it should be the case or not. For all of this talk about future SEC revenue, the fact remains that the Big Ten is still making the most revenue using this supposedly anachronistic academic/athletic model and it may even still continue to do so with the next TV contract that it will get into place within the next couple of years.

I'm not saying that the SEC approach is wrong for the SEC. It certainly works for them.

However, thinking that the SEC approach is going to simply be replicated and work for the Big Ten (or Pac-12, for that matter), is totally misguided. For example, Michigan has REAL wealth as an institution (not just athletic department wealth) and it's as a result of the fact that it truly and sincerely believes that it's the single best university in the country. (I'm not exaggerating. Watch their pregame football video at the Big House and that's exactly what they state. They sincerely believe that they can beat Harvard at academics as much as they can beat Ohio State at football.)

As a result, I wouldn't underestimate the elitism that inherently exists with the people making these decisions (even if it's supposed to be "only" about sports). Academia has its own version of the CFP rankings and they play a huge part of athletic decisions because they know full well that sports are the proverbial front porch of the university and the athletic association IS the academic association in the minds of the general public. People know what an "Ivy League school" is and they have a good idea of what a "Big Ten school" and an "SEC school" is in their minds - the athletic and academic branding are inextricably linked whether fans want to agree with it or not.

(02-10-2022 06:27 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 05:37 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 04:30 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 01:49 PM)JRsec Wrote:  You just keep thinking like a president Frank while networks continue to surprise you. Conferences are merely dancing for dollars and to whatever tune is played.

As I've explained carefully many times, the SEC likely isn't interested in Clemson. ESPN is interested in the value of Clemson vs an SEC slate as it maximizes Clemson's value for them. Is the SEC interested in UVa or Va Tech and UNC? Sure. But ESPN again will shelter whatever brands they value most in the SEC and will likely buy the B12 rights outright and park economy brands there.

What's moe Frank the B1G is far more vulnerable than many realize. That happens when 72.4% of the B1G's value resides in 6 schools. It means you have 7 holding the top 6 back and 1 at neutral value.

I'm going to enjoy watching this play out for those who perceive themselves to be masters of the world. Only the Big 12 had more power concentrated in fewer schools than the Big 10 and of that 72.4% nearly half of that is Michigan and Ohio State.

Why is a lowballed PAC relatively safe? Aside from geography they, along with the SEC have the most equitable spreading of value. That means they are hard to kill. The ACC would be relatively healthy if not more tightly sharing markets with the B1G and SEC.

So, while the B1G is stable now, as money drives more sports value and as Federal and State revenue shrinks, and as presidents finally grasp the dichotomy of Academic endeavors and pay for play athletics, associations that try to shoehorn academics and athletics under one umbrella will fail because each limits the other and they will discover the importance of separating them and when they do Michigan and Ohio State and likely Penn State will look to maximize sports values by leaving B1G laggards behind, just like Texas and Oklahoma.

But you can keep drinking the Kool-Aid and I bet you Notre Dame wakes up first, not to conference membership but to how their location and natural rivals put Disney in areas of the country where their market dominance isn't as great and for a lot less than B1G money.

You're pulling these value numbers out of thin air.

The whole reason why the Big Ten has been dominating on the revenue front (despite the SEC having much better on-the-field success) is that it is, by far, the LEAST concentrated in terms of value among schools. You can keep on pretending like the Big Ten hasn't been making more revenue than the SEC, but it's not true and it hasn't been the case even with the SEC being at its peak dominance on the field.

Further to that point, some of the least valuable football schools in the Big Ten - my alma mater of Illinois, Northwestern, Rutgers, and Maryland - are still the reasons why New York, Chicago and DC are able to deliver the Big Ten Network for basic cable subscription revenue. Heck, even the combo of Indiana and Purdue deliver the Indianapolis market, which is larger than every SEC TV market outside of Texas, Florida and Georgia. Those are the least valuable schools that have the smallest football fan bases in the conference and yet they are still being a monetized in a way that other conferences haven't been able to do.

Now, does that mean that the Big Ten doesn't have any risks? Of course not. The BTN revenue model is going to change drastically with cord cutting. The Big Ten's demographic footprint isn't growing in the same manner as the footprints of the SEC, ACC and Pac-12. Those are issues that the conference must resolve in the long-term.

However, I think you continue to greatly underestimate the importance of academic associations. It may not be a point of emphasis in the SEC, but it's simply always a core tenet of the Big Ten culture. People might call that outdated, irrelevant for sports and/or anachronistic, but the schools *really* care about it. Michigan and Wisconsin, in particular, are in a totally different stratosphere on that point (even beyond places like Stanford, Duke and Northwestern), so that firmly includes the high "sports value" schools within the Big Ten.

No Frank, the come straight from the percentage of revenue generated and from economic impact evaluations (which correlate) given by the WSJ. And you are wrong about why the B1G commanded higher media value. Per capita wealth of citizens combined with viewership appeals more to advertisers.

As usual Frank you draw only on the data which supports your viewpoint. In a market where actual eyeballs and not just population numbers count, and where wealth demographics can be matched to those eyeballs it is much easier to assess value to each member school much more precisely. And as networks seek to sculpt competition so as to maximize the ad reach of each game it is no accident that actual viewers, assessed by economic demographics, and measured for overall density of actual viewers will impact how realignment is shaped.

You still lag in the conference-oriented footprint mode of thinking circa 2010-2. Times have changed. NIL and Pay for Play shook Texas's world as suddenly they realized that with Oklahoma the represented 56.3% of the value of a 10 member conference. And that people wanted to watch them play and truly wanted to see them play better brands and that lucrative media money could be significantly increased if the did so. What's more they would no longer carry most of the burden. 36.7% of the total B1G value is in Ohio State and Michigan. Then there are 4 more schools which each earn more than 8% of the total. Then Michigan State pulls 6.6% and everyone else lags. Academia is all that holds the B1G together because that is your shared history. Academics already impede improvement of athletic revenue. When players become employees there is no reason Michigan and Ohio State should forego athletic endeavors in order to stay in an academic association as the link between student and athlete will be broken.

I'm sure your academic alliances will hold, and possibly grow. But which athletic association a school has will be a separate matter and schools will act in their own self-interest.

You sir are the one who is bat crap crazy for assuming everything in this rapidly changing world will remain a gestalt. If you could go back pre WWII and look at schools like Fordham, Penn, and others which were stalwarts, and see Vandy as one of the toughest outs in the SEC along with Tulane and Georgia Tech you would grasp how big of a paradigm shift that air travel and TV would bring. 5G and smart technology is about (with changes in law for players rights) usher in the era of the super brands and compensation from media will organize all of it to their advantage, and as schools compete for fewer students exposure will be more important than ever. And Frank that means massive changes for everyone. And brands you thought were bound to others by history and tradition will change again and there will be new Fordhams, Penns, Vanderbilts, Tulanes and Georgia Techs and they will be named Minnesota, Indiana, Purdue, Rutgers, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Syracuse, West Virginia, and maybe and more from the PAC and NB12, and even the SEC.

ESPN and other networks will want to organize product by values. The top 10 will still be the top 10 and the next 10 will still be the next 10, and those who can wax and wane relevant quickly will be the next dozen and those will likely play each other regardless of present conference affiliation and the networks will likely pay the in excess of 110 million each per year.

Then the next 24 to 32 will be grouped by value so that in order to get Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Texas A&M, Florida, Florida State, Auburn, Tennessee, LSU, Wisconsin, Iowa, USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington they don't have to overpay everyone else.

And that young man is on its way. Next year? Nah. Next five? Maybe not. Next 10? Most likely. NIL is only going to re-enforce stratification. Athlete employees in a for profit Athletic Department will fully separate athletics from campus academics, or at least severely strain the relationship in practice, and with it maximizing athletic profit will reign. Title IX will likely be funded by for profit athletics as a tax write off. And conferences as we know them will cease as schools play only those which maximize their revenue and magnify their brand, and you will be nuts not to bank on it. College athletics are about to be fully corporatized.

I agree that maybe the footprint model in and of itself isn't going to be outcome determinative in the future (although there's still always an inherently strong correlation between market size and market value, whether it's for TV or recruiting).

However, I simply totally disagree about the separation between athletic associations and academic associations at least at the top levels. That has long been a fan-based wish on forums like this one but it simply won't be true.


Sure, the G5 and midmajor conferences will need to simply take the best sports schools that are available, but it's a totally different ballgame when you get to the P5 level. Even with the SEC, the fact is that the largest reason why Texas refused to join them for decades was because they believed/perceived that the SEC was academically inferior and beneath them. It wasn't until the SEC was able to at least neutralize that issue (where the SEC now has a higher collection of academic schools compared to the Big 12) that they were able to get the UT academic administration on board with the move. The increased money by a UT move to the SEC has *long* been there as an incentive, but the Big 12 had to lose the bulk of its best academic schools (Texas A&M, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska) before UT could holistically make a move to the SEC.

I guess I just don't see the incongruence between having an academic association that is tied to an athletic association in terms of maximizing revenue. The Big Ten isn't simply trying to get football fans - it's also looking at its cultural and institutional power in the financial centers of NYC and Chicago and the political center of DC within its footprint and their strong ties to places like Silicon Valley and Hollywood outside of their footprint.

You can keep trying to argue that the athletic brands and academic brands should be separate, yet look at the following question: "What's the most academically elite group of colleges in this country?"

The most common answer by FAR is going to be the name of an athletic conference: the Ivy League.

The association between academics and athletics are simply going to be intertwined at the highest levels whether fans want to believe it should be the case or not. For all of this talk about future SEC revenue, the fact remains that the Big Ten is still making the most revenue using this supposedly anachronistic academic/athletic model and it may even still continue to do so with the next TV contract that it will get into place within the next couple of years.

I'm not saying that the SEC approach is wrong for the SEC. It certainly works for them.

However, thinking that the SEC approach is going to simply be replicated and work for the Big Ten (or Pac-12, for that matter), is totally misguided. For example, Michigan has REAL wealth as an institution (not just athletic department wealth) and it's as a result of the fact that it truly and sincerely believes that it's the single best university in the country. (I'm not exaggerating. Watch their pregame football video at the Big House and that's exactly what they state. They sincerely believe that they can beat Harvard at academics as much as they can beat Ohio State at football.)

As a result, I wouldn't underestimate the elitism that inherently exists with the people making these decisions (even if it's supposed to be "only" about sports). Academia has its own version of the CFP rankings and they play a huge part of athletic decisions because they know full well that sports are the proverbial front porch of the university and the athletic association IS the academic association in the minds of the general public. People know what an "Ivy League school" is and they have a good idea of what a "Big Ten school" and an "SEC school" is in their minds - the athletic and academic branding are inextricably linked whether fans want to agree with it or not.

1. The separation will be factual and legal.

2. You're still flailing against the walls of the box your head is in. It's not going to remain the same. And it's the flexibility of the SEC model that landed Texas and Oklahoma. Oklahoma needed it. Yes, the SEC enhanced its academic profile but not at the expense of its athletic profile. Whereas Maryland and Rutgers did impact the Big 10's athletic profile.

It's examples like this which point to the failing nature of the B1G's approach which will only be amplified in an NIL pay for play world.

3. The future will out the result Frank. The once powerful Big 10 now measures success in Volleyball. And when the Boomers have passed do you really believe attitudes in the B1G will embrace their past, or do you think they will adapt to current realities and do what it takes to compete? I'll bet on the latter, as they have precious few memories of big-time athletic success.

The SEC model has been winning for 25 years. Until you change the SEC's success will only continue.

So, your options are exactly as the Alliance suggests. You'll either set up your own competition and quit trying to compete with the SEC, or you will join us in what is coming. It's going to be one or the other because we aren't slowing down for your sake.
A
There is one philosophy which should be embraced here, but sadly isn't. It's Aristotelian in nature. True education is only successful when harmony exists between mind, body, and spirit. Today we ignore the spirit of humanity and argue over the mind and body.

So what have we produced Frank? A generation without social skills, confidence in self and lousy physical development, and with minds skewed in application and abilities.

A strong mind and weak body and weak spirit will be enslaved by the strong and wicked.

A strong spirit with a weak mind and strong body will be duped and used.

A strong mind and a strong body with a weak spirit will be abusive.

Only a strong mind and a strong body with strong spirit will succeed and be fit to lead.

Balance Frank is the secret to all endeavors in life. Education in all areas is deficient in building such leaders. It was this belief that once made the B1G so successful. It has been culturally abandoned. [/color]

Sounds like Sankey still cares about "playing school" from this tweet. Straight from the jackas- oops, horses mouth are "student-athletes" used twice and "academic counseling". Maybe the SEC commissioner and message board commissioners are on different pages?

(02-10-2022 07:49 PM)cubucks Wrote:  Sounds like Sankey still cares about "playing school" from this tweet. Straight from the jackas- oops, horses mouth are "student-athletes" used twice and "academic counseling". Maybe the SEC commissioner and message board commissioners are on different pages?

Well, they are student athletes until the SCOTUS changes that designation, aren't they? And when they aren't they won't be will they?

Thanks for posting as this blows Wilner's estimates out of the water! Looks like Wilners estimate for FY2021 was 13 million low for the SEC.

(02-10-2022 08:00 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 07:49 PM)cubucks Wrote:  Sounds like Sankey still cares about "playing school" from this tweet. Straight from the jackas- oops, horses mouth are "student-athletes" used twice and "academic counseling". Maybe the SEC commissioner and message board commissioners are on different pages?

Well, they are student athletes until the SCOTUS changes that designation, aren't they? And when they aren't they won't be will they?

Thanks for posting as this blows Wilner's estimates out of the water! Looks like Wilners estimate for FY2021 was 13 million low for the SEC.

I borrowed it from a thread on the main board.

I worry about what is good for young minds more than I do about money made by universities. Not that anyone gives a damn, but it's sad to see folks gloat about TV money as much as they do. There is truth about what is being said on this thread by you and others; I just don't see a breakaway of athletics from academics, though I've been wrong before.

(02-10-2022 08:26 PM)cubucks Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 08:00 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 07:49 PM)cubucks Wrote:  Sounds like Sankey still cares about "playing school" from this tweet. Straight from the jackas- oops, horses mouth are "student-athletes" used twice and "academic counseling". Maybe the SEC commissioner and message board commissioners are on different pages?

Well, they are student athletes until the SCOTUS changes that designation, aren't they? And when they aren't they won't be will they?

Thanks for posting as this blows Wilner's estimates out of the water! Looks like Wilners estimate for FY2021 was 13 million low for the SEC.

I borrowed it from a thread on the main board.

I worry about what is good for young minds more than I do about money made by universities. Not that anyone gives a damn, but it's sad to see folks gloat about TV money as much as they do. There is truth about what is being said on this thread by you and others; I just don't see a breakaway of athletics from academics, though I've been wrong before.

Not gloating over the Bucks CU. I told posters in another thread Wilner's numbers were made up and they insisted I was wrong.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule athletes to be employees. A previous ruling strongly indicated this position but 2 upcoming cases, one filed yesterday, are aimed at this issue.

Should it become law it changes everything. Frank says no. I say he's fooling himself. That argument is not reflective of my political stance, which is fiscally conservative and decidedly against this corporate takeover of our college sports.

However, I'm not going to deny the likely outcome or the change it will bring to everything though many posters here are heavily entrenched in denials which have not a germ of reason to be true.

What is absurd is the declaration to "think like a university president" when since the late 90's this has been driven by network execs.

The SEC decided last summer to prepare for pay for play and you know who made our presidents see the handwriting on the wall? Our attorneys who said this was all but a fete accompli and that we would be hurt by liability to stall it. Stalling it is part of the basis of the alliance. Texas and Oklahoma were also convinced that it was futile to fight it so here we are. We either get on the same page as conferences or we are going to wind up in 2 associations and only one of them playing at the top tier and that is reality and one I don't think your school wants to be on the wrong side of. OSU and PSU aren't going to go quietly into second tier sporrts status.

I think the argument that the past realignment has been driven more by network execs than by presidential assent is more correct, unfortunately. Where I think FTT's argument falls is in thinking that ESPN can be a good ally to the Big Ten. I have been one of the few that argued on his blog that ESPN can not be trusted to be a good partner to college conferences apart from one. The old Big East was a prime example of this, programs just started migrating from there without any real chance of stopping. Traditions built on East Coast basketball torn away, all the while fans of programs blamed each other, staff and commissioners blame the programs, etc.. It was a complete mess.

Where I disagree with JR is his notion that networks don't care about conferences. ESPN hates the Big Ten. That sounds like "caring" to me. It's simple: the Big Ten is an old organization that believes in a model of college athletics. That contrasts greatly with the cynical business model of Disney and its 4-letter subsidiary. The difference is because of economic realities the 4-letter network has had to do business with the Big Ten due to the latter's substantial and wide-reaching alumni networks.

With that said, the only "leagues" they really respect are the professional ones. The pros don't bother with anything except for what makes them more money. And of those, the NFL is the only one that has the real market power to tell networks what to do.

That's why I believe that conferences like the Big Ten and Pac-12 need to get ahead of the curve and combine their market reach to gain leverage against the networks in an emerging new college sports reality.

(02-10-2022 11:31 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  My goodness - I just saw this thread now.

I'm still having a really hard time understanding the point of an SEC superconference when they just added the single most valuable piece of them all: Texas.

After adding Texas, virtually every single other expansion candidate is providing diminishing returns.

Having said that, I would concede that the SEC would take UNC and UVA if they actually wanted to move there. (So would the Big Ten.) I think the SEC interest in Florida State is conceivable in the sense that a UF/FSU combo would lock down a critically important state (Florida) in the same manner as the UT/A&M combo in Texas. I've long felt that any SEC interest in Clemson is overrated and colored by recent on-the-field results as opposed to off-the-field metrics.

Note that I don't believe any of the above will happen. IMHO, the UT/OU combo is the single most valuable expansion that any conference could reasonably expect and it was achieved with the addition of only 2 schools. Remember that any other combo actually has to add *more* than that UT/OU combo since you have to spread the pie among a larger number of members and I just don't see it. Getting larger for the sake of getting larger simply isn't the goal of conference realignment - it has to make business sense.

Finally, any notion of Notre Dame going to the SEC is absolutely bats**t crazy even by the standards of this message board. If their goal was to maximize TV money, then they would have joined the Big Ten a decade ago. It's pretty clear to me that independence in and of itself is what matters and that's a bright line issue for their alums. ND is the one school where alumni donations *do* matter because their alums send checks there religiously as they would to an actual church. ND's endowment is larger than half of the Ivy League - the direct football dollars are effectively rounding error compared to their insane level of alumni support and those alums have made it clear that independence is non-negotiable.

Frank, with all due respect, I remember you stating that Texas going to the SEC was a "non-starter" due to academic incompatibility. If I remember correctly, back during the previous upheaval of 2010, you also said Texas A&M wouldn't move our direction.

I'm not saying you don't make some astute observations every now and then, but your track record is not that great.

(02-10-2022 10:14 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 11:31 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  My goodness - I just saw this thread now.

I'm still having a really hard time understanding the point of an SEC superconference when they just added the single most valuable piece of them all: Texas.

After adding Texas, virtually every single other expansion candidate is providing diminishing returns.

Having said that, I would concede that the SEC would take UNC and UVA if they actually wanted to move there. (So would the Big Ten.) I think the SEC interest in Florida State is conceivable in the sense that a UF/FSU combo would lock down a critically important state (Florida) in the same manner as the UT/A&M combo in Texas. I've long felt that any SEC interest in Clemson is overrated and colored by recent on-the-field results as opposed to off-the-field metrics.

Note that I don't believe any of the above will happen. IMHO, the UT/OU combo is the single most valuable expansion that any conference could reasonably expect and it was achieved with the addition of only 2 schools. Remember that any other combo actually has to add *more* than that UT/OU combo since you have to spread the pie among a larger number of members and I just don't see it. Getting larger for the sake of getting larger simply isn't the goal of conference realignment - it has to make business sense.

Finally, any notion of Notre Dame going to the SEC is absolutely bats**t crazy even by the standards of this message board. If their goal was to maximize TV money, then they would have joined the Big Ten a decade ago. It's pretty clear to me that independence in and of itself is what matters and that's a bright line issue for their alums. ND is the one school where alumni donations *do* matter because their alums send checks there religiously as they would to an actual church. ND's endowment is larger than half of the Ivy League - the direct football dollars are effectively rounding error compared to their insane level of alumni support and those alums have made it clear that independence is non-negotiable.

Frank, with all due respect, I remember you stating that Texas going to the SEC was a "non-starter" due to academic incompatibility. If I remember correctly, back during the previous upheaval of 2010, you also said Texas A&M wouldn't move our direction.

I'm not saying you don't make some astute observations every now and then, but your track record is not that great.

I was straight up wrong about Texas A&M. No question there.

On Texas, the SEC *was* an academic non-starter in 2010. The Big 12 then lost nearly all of its top academic schools outside of Texas itself, including 2 of them to the SEC (Texas A&M and Missouri). That effectively neutralized the academic issue because the SEC is now a better academic conference than the Big 12. To the extent that there was any surprise from me about the Texas to SEC move, it was that the SEC was able to do it with just the other big brand of Oklahoma without having to bring Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. Kudos to the SEC for making that happen - I said from day one that this was the greatest heist in conference realignment history.

The thing is that I believe that the UT and OU move to the SEC is so massive (whether financially or in terms of on-the-field power) that it effectively makes even moves like adding Florida State and UNC look small by comparison. The basic economics of conference realignment effectively require each move to be larger than the last one or you’re taking a revenue hit. If adding UT and OU is the original Star Wars trilogy, then any other move is like the Star Wars prequels: there’s just no comparison. You’re at a point of diminishing returns for expansion unless the league starts *dropping* schools like Mississippi State.

To that last point, I think there’s a very large difference between creating a super league of the top 20-plus brands from scratch versus a bunch of brands from the Big Ten joining the SEC as-is. I find both to be very unlikely, but at least the former is a true revenue maximization exercise and at least provides schools that engage in quite a bit of elitism (like Michigan and Notre Dame) with a legitimately elite group without any fat. That’s not the SEC - even the worst dregs of the Big Ten (like Rutgers and Illinois) are more valuable than schools like Mississippi State, there’s no inherent reason why South Carolina, Missouri, Ole Miss and Kentucky are more valuable than the next tier programs of the Big Ten like Iowa, Nebraska and Michigan State, Northwestern is even a better on-the-field program in a larger market (one of the most important ones for Michigan, Ohio State and ND) with higher academic rankings than Vandy, etc.

So sure, if you just take the top half of the SEC and then add on the top half of the Big Ten and sprinkle in the other elite brands like Notre Dame, USC and Florida State, you’d have a true revenue maximizing super league.

However, I don’t think the bottom half of the SEC than the bottom half of the Big Ten from a revenue maximization standpoint and I think that’s been proven with the Big Ten’s continued revenue advantage even with the SEC being better on-the-field. Even the worst Big Ten programs are still bringing in the massive markets of NYC, Chicago and DC in a way that the worst SEC programs (or frankly the worst programs anywhere in the P5) don’t, so unlike JRsec’s contention, the revenue power of the Big Ten is actually the most dispersed top-to-bottom compared to any other P5 conference.

In essence, starting a super league from scratch is one thing (albeit I still find that highly unlikely), but Big Ten schools simply joining the SEC as-is with schools like Mississippi State still in the league wouldn’t be a revenue maximization scenario. Essentially, the SEC would have to kick out the lower half of its league at a minimum to truly maximize revenue, in which case it’s really creating a separate super league as opposed to aggregating everything in the SEC specifically.

(02-11-2022 10:17 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 10:14 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 11:31 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  My goodness - I just saw this thread now.

I'm still having a really hard time understanding the point of an SEC superconference when they just added the single most valuable piece of them all: Texas.

After adding Texas, virtually every single other expansion candidate is providing diminishing returns.

Having said that, I would concede that the SEC would take UNC and UVA if they actually wanted to move there. (So would the Big Ten.) I think the SEC interest in Florida State is conceivable in the sense that a UF/FSU combo would lock down a critically important state (Florida) in the same manner as the UT/A&M combo in Texas. I've long felt that any SEC interest in Clemson is overrated and colored by recent on-the-field results as opposed to off-the-field metrics.

Note that I don't believe any of the above will happen. IMHO, the UT/OU combo is the single most valuable expansion that any conference could reasonably expect and it was achieved with the addition of only 2 schools. Remember that any other combo actually has to add *more* than that UT/OU combo since you have to spread the pie among a larger number of members and I just don't see it. Getting larger for the sake of getting larger simply isn't the goal of conference realignment - it has to make business sense.

Finally, any notion of Notre Dame going to the SEC is absolutely bats**t crazy even by the standards of this message board. If their goal was to maximize TV money, then they would have joined the Big Ten a decade ago. It's pretty clear to me that independence in and of itself is what matters and that's a bright line issue for their alums. ND is the one school where alumni donations *do* matter because their alums send checks there religiously as they would to an actual church. ND's endowment is larger than half of the Ivy League - the direct football dollars are effectively rounding error compared to their insane level of alumni support and those alums have made it clear that independence is non-negotiable.

Frank, with all due respect, I remember you stating that Texas going to the SEC was a "non-starter" due to academic incompatibility. If I remember correctly, back during the previous upheaval of 2010, you also said Texas A&M wouldn't move our direction.

I'm not saying you don't make some astute observations every now and then, but your track record is not that great.

I was straight up wrong about Texas A&M. No question there.

On Texas, the SEC *was* an academic non-starter in 2010. The Big 12 then lost nearly all of its top academic schools outside of Texas itself, including 2 of them to the SEC (Texas A&M and Missouri). That effectively neutralized the academic issue because the SEC is now a better academic conference than the Big 12. To the extent that there was any surprise from me about the Texas to SEC move, it was that the SEC was able to do it with just the other big brand of Oklahoma without having to bring Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. Kudos to the SEC for making that happen - I said from day one that this was the greatest heist in conference realignment history.

The thing is that I believe that the UT and OU move to the SEC is so massive (whether financially or in terms of on-the-field power) that it effectively makes even moves like adding Florida State and UNC look small by comparison. The basic economics of conference realignment effectively require each move to be larger than the last one or you’re taking a revenue hit. If adding UT and OU is the original Star Wars trilogy, then any other move is like the Star Wars prequels: there’s just no comparison. You’re at a point of diminishing returns for expansion unless the league starts *dropping* schools like Mississippi State.

To that last point, I think there’s a very large difference between creating a super league of the top 20-plus brands from scratch versus a bunch of brands from the Big Ten joining the SEC as-is. I find both to be very unlikely, but at least the former is a true revenue maximization exercise and at least provides schools that engage in quite a bit of elitism (like Michigan and Notre Dame) with a legitimately elite group without any fat. That’s not the SEC - even the worst dregs of the Big Ten (like Rutgers and Illinois) are more valuable than schools like Mississippi State, there’s no inherent reason why South Carolina, Missouri, Ole Miss and Kentucky are more valuable than the next tier programs of the Big Ten like Iowa, Nebraska and Michigan State, Northwestern is even a better on-the-field program in a larger market (one of the most important ones for Michigan, Ohio State and ND) with higher academic rankings than Vandy, etc.

So sure, if you just take the top half of the SEC and then add on the top half of the Big Ten and sprinkle in the other elite brands like Notre Dame, USC and Florida State, you’d have a true revenue maximizing super league.

However, I don’t think the bottom half of the SEC than the bottom half of the Big Ten from a revenue maximization standpoint and I think that’s been proven with the Big Ten’s continued revenue advantage even with the SEC being better on-the-field. Even the worst Big Ten programs are still bringing in the massive markets of NYC, Chicago and DC in a way that the worst SEC programs (or frankly the worst programs anywhere in the P5) don’t, so unlike JRsec’s contention, the revenue power of the Big Ten is actually the most dispersed top-to-bottom compared to any other P5 conference.

In essence, starting a super league from scratch is one thing (albeit I still find that highly unlikely), but Big Ten schools simply joining the SEC as-is with schools like Mississippi State still in the league wouldn’t be a revenue maximization scenario. Essentially, the SEC would have to kick out the lower half of its league at a minimum to truly maximize revenue, in which case it’s really creating a separate super league as opposed to aggregating everything in the SEC specifically.

Frank, Texas had been in earnest talks with the SEC since 1987. How do I know? I had family involved. Texas routinely checked the interest of other conferences to ascertain their value. But, the talks prior to the announced moves which happened in the early 90's were real. They remained real and remained intermittently ongoing since then, heating up on a few occasions. What Texas says publicly and what they plan to do are two different things. They play to their fans and the Texas press publicly, and operate as a serious business which involves their donor base privately, and that donor base is more conservative than UT's public image.

The only time I doubted that they would end up in the SEC was briefly in 2010-1 when Dodds was working with ESPN on a deal which involved the ACC and all the noise about Va Tech and N.C. State to the SEC. It was torpedoed within the ACC sending Maryland scurrying to the B1G, whom they had been in talks with longer than the public was aware, because they put feelers out to the SEC and B1G about the same time a couple of years earlier.

I remember your B1G prospect list from 11 or so years ago. I can't remember if Nebraska was on it, but all of those Northeastern schools were whiffs. I don't recall Rutgers being among them? I remember your Kansas and Oklahoma gambit to get Texas and your claims as to why Texas would not go SEC and that was over 20 years after they had serious discussions with the SEC over the impending demise of the SWC. So, you've never been right about any of it.

The other day I told you Wilner's numbers were BS. Looks like I was right huh?

I remember having to tell you about the rascist positions of some Northern cities in the early 60's.

My point Frank is that age is a much better vantage point from which to survey the panorama of the world in action.

Your assumption has been that it will be about academics. I wholeheartedly agree where the Big 10 is concerned. It has been that way, and for the PAC 12. You are in error to have ever assumed it would be the deciding factor for Texas. Their priorities have been to protect UT's most successful business model in college sports, to protect as long as they could other Texas schools, and their closest associations outside of Texas (Oklahoma), and to keep things regional. The SEC reached them with Arkansas, Oklahoma, and A&M and not because of academics.

I think you are an articulate and provocative poster and I'm glad you post here. But you are young, have not had the advantages of knowing those I have known who make these decisions, and live inside Big 10 Bubble Think sometimes explaining it extremely well, but at other times assuming that vision to be normative for all of academia, which it certainly is not!

You couldn't be more wrong about Texas. You are apt to be surprised about what could happen soon in the PAC 12. Your likeliest allies are some in the ACC but they are conflicted between sharing the Big 10's academic view and their Southern culture and one of them reached out to the SEC 3 days after OU and UT were announced.

The Supreme Court sets the potential new reality, and as strong as the B1G is, it will greatly impact you and quite possibly alter how you do business.

I think you should keep an open mind and drop Big 10 dogma for a while.

(02-09-2022 10:37 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  Half the ACC is composed of body bag programs.

Gimme a break.

Our conferences share in having one very obvious body bag who truly doesn't try.

(02-09-2022 09:41 PM)JRsec Wrote:  It's called a new contract. Likely 9 conference games. It's all noise! The SOS and conference product is the best available and they know it. It won't be long before all 12 are P games anyway. 1 more contract if we remain under NCAA control and immediately if we have a breakaway.

Even people I consider to be SEC cheerleaders like Pollock pan that scheduling. Rece Davis said he didn't want to cover the SEC that week on College Football Final back when he did the show. I feel like the panning goes beyond contract bluster.

(02-11-2022 01:16 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(02-09-2022 09:41 PM)JRsec Wrote:  It's called a new contract. Likely 9 conference games. It's all noise! The SOS and conference product is the best available and they know it. It won't be long before all 12 are P games anyway. 1 more contract if we remain under NCAA control and immediately if we have a breakaway.

Even people I consider to be SEC cheerleaders like Pollock pan that scheduling. Rece Davis said he didn't want to cover the SEC that week on College Football Final back when he did the show. I feel like the panning goes beyond contract bluster.

Mike Slive on scheduling changes said that we are dealing with those who hold our contract so we change nothing until we are paid to do it. Perhaps the ACC should have adopted a similar policy. It was, is, and will remain about contract concessions and contract remuneration.

(02-11-2022 11:44 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(02-11-2022 10:17 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 10:14 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 11:31 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  My goodness - I just saw this thread now.

I'm still having a really hard time understanding the point of an SEC superconference when they just added the single most valuable piece of them all: Texas.

After adding Texas, virtually every single other expansion candidate is providing diminishing returns.

Having said that, I would concede that the SEC would take UNC and UVA if they actually wanted to move there. (So would the Big Ten.) I think the SEC interest in Florida State is conceivable in the sense that a UF/FSU combo would lock down a critically important state (Florida) in the same manner as the UT/A&M combo in Texas. I've long felt that any SEC interest in Clemson is overrated and colored by recent on-the-field results as opposed to off-the-field metrics.

Note that I don't believe any of the above will happen. IMHO, the UT/OU combo is the single most valuable expansion that any conference could reasonably expect and it was achieved with the addition of only 2 schools. Remember that any other combo actually has to add *more* than that UT/OU combo since you have to spread the pie among a larger number of members and I just don't see it. Getting larger for the sake of getting larger simply isn't the goal of conference realignment - it has to make business sense.

Finally, any notion of Notre Dame going to the SEC is absolutely bats**t crazy even by the standards of this message board. If their goal was to maximize TV money, then they would have joined the Big Ten a decade ago. It's pretty clear to me that independence in and of itself is what matters and that's a bright line issue for their alums. ND is the one school where alumni donations *do* matter because their alums send checks there religiously as they would to an actual church. ND's endowment is larger than half of the Ivy League - the direct football dollars are effectively rounding error compared to their insane level of alumni support and those alums have made it clear that independence is non-negotiable.

Frank, with all due respect, I remember you stating that Texas going to the SEC was a "non-starter" due to academic incompatibility. If I remember correctly, back during the previous upheaval of 2010, you also said Texas A&M wouldn't move our direction.

I'm not saying you don't make some astute observations every now and then, but your track record is not that great.

I was straight up wrong about Texas A&M. No question there.

On Texas, the SEC *was* an academic non-starter in 2010. The Big 12 then lost nearly all of its top academic schools outside of Texas itself, including 2 of them to the SEC (Texas A&M and Missouri). That effectively neutralized the academic issue because the SEC is now a better academic conference than the Big 12. To the extent that there was any surprise from me about the Texas to SEC move, it was that the SEC was able to do it with just the other big brand of Oklahoma without having to bring Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. Kudos to the SEC for making that happen - I said from day one that this was the greatest heist in conference realignment history.

The thing is that I believe that the UT and OU move to the SEC is so massive (whether financially or in terms of on-the-field power) that it effectively makes even moves like adding Florida State and UNC look small by comparison. The basic economics of conference realignment effectively require each move to be larger than the last one or you’re taking a revenue hit. If adding UT and OU is the original Star Wars trilogy, then any other move is like the Star Wars prequels: there’s just no comparison. You’re at a point of diminishing returns for expansion unless the league starts *dropping* schools like Mississippi State.

To that last point, I think there’s a very large difference between creating a super league of the top 20-plus brands from scratch versus a bunch of brands from the Big Ten joining the SEC as-is. I find both to be very unlikely, but at least the former is a true revenue maximization exercise and at least provides schools that engage in quite a bit of elitism (like Michigan and Notre Dame) with a legitimately elite group without any fat. That’s not the SEC - even the worst dregs of the Big Ten (like Rutgers and Illinois) are more valuable than schools like Mississippi State, there’s no inherent reason why South Carolina, Missouri, Ole Miss and Kentucky are more valuable than the next tier programs of the Big Ten like Iowa, Nebraska and Michigan State, Northwestern is even a better on-the-field program in a larger market (one of the most important ones for Michigan, Ohio State and ND) with higher academic rankings than Vandy, etc.

So sure, if you just take the top half of the SEC and then add on the top half of the Big Ten and sprinkle in the other elite brands like Notre Dame, USC and Florida State, you’d have a true revenue maximizing super league.

However, I don’t think the bottom half of the SEC than the bottom half of the Big Ten from a revenue maximization standpoint and I think that’s been proven with the Big Ten’s continued revenue advantage even with the SEC being better on-the-field. Even the worst Big Ten programs are still bringing in the massive markets of NYC, Chicago and DC in a way that the worst SEC programs (or frankly the worst programs anywhere in the P5) don’t, so unlike JRsec’s contention, the revenue power of the Big Ten is actually the most dispersed top-to-bottom compared to any other P5 conference.

In essence, starting a super league from scratch is one thing (albeit I still find that highly unlikely), but Big Ten schools simply joining the SEC as-is with schools like Mississippi State still in the league wouldn’t be a revenue maximization scenario. Essentially, the SEC would have to kick out the lower half of its league at a minimum to truly maximize revenue, in which case it’s really creating a separate super league as opposed to aggregating everything in the SEC specifically.

Frank, Texas had been in earnest talks with the SEC since 1987. How do I know? I had family involved. Texas routinely checked the interest of other conferences to ascertain their value. But, the talks prior to the announced moves which happened in the early 90's were real. They remained real and remained intermittently ongoing since then, heating up on a few occasions. What Texas says publicly and what they plan to do are two different things. They play to their fans and the Texas press publicly, and operate as a serious business which involves their donor base privately, and that donor base is more conservative than UT's public image.

The only time I doubted that they would end up in the SEC was briefly in 2010-1 when Dodds was working with ESPN on a deal which involved the ACC and all the noise about Va Tech and N.C. State to the SEC. It was torpedoed within the ACC sending Maryland scurrying to the B1G, whom they had been in talks with longer than the public was aware, because they put feelers out to the SEC and B1G about the same time a couple of years earlier.

I remember your B1G prospect list from 11 or so years ago. I can't remember if Nebraska was on it, but all of those Northeastern schools were whiffs. I don't recall Rutgers being among them? I remember your Kansas and Oklahoma gambit to get Texas and your claims as to why Texas would not go SEC and that was over 20 years after they had serious discussions with the SEC over the impending demise of the SWC. So, you've never been right about any of it.

The other day I told you Wilner's numbers were BS. Looks like I was right huh?

I remember having to tell you about the rascist positions of some Northern cities in the early 60's.

My point Frank is that age is a much better vantage point from which to survey the panorama of the world in action.

Your assumption has been that it will be about academics. I wholeheartedly agree where the Big 10 is concerned. It has been that way, and for the PAC 12. You are in error to have ever assumed it would be the deciding factor for Texas. Their priorities have been to protect UT's most successful business model in college sports, to protect as long as they could other Texas schools, and their closest associations outside of Texas (Oklahoma), and to keep things regional. The SEC reached them with Arkansas, Oklahoma, and A&M and not because of academics.

I think you are an articulate and provocative poster and I'm glad you post here. But you are young, have not had the advantages of knowing those I have known who make these decisions, and live inside Big 10 Bubble Think sometimes explaining it extremely well, but at other times assuming that vision to be normative for all of academia, which it certainly is not!

You couldn't be more wrong about Texas. You are apt to be surprised about what could happen soon in the PAC 12. Your likeliest allies are some in the ACC but they are conflicted between sharing the Big 10's academic view and their Southern culture and one of them reached out to the SEC 3 days after OU and UT were announced.

The Supreme Court sets the potential new reality, and as strong as the B1G is, it will greatly impact you and quite possibly alter how you do business.

I think you should keep an open mind and drop Big 10 dogma for a while.

I sincerely appreciate the open discussion even though we may disagree from time to time.

The only thing I'll say that I wish I was still young. When I started writing my blog and frequenting these forums, I may have been young. Then, there comes a point when your kids draw a picture of you... and they use the silver crayon to draw your hair as opposed to the black hair that you've had all of your life. I've been at that point for a few years now!

I sincerely appreciate the open discussion even though we may disagree from time to time.

The only thing I'll say that I wish I was still young. When I started writing my blog and frequenting these forums, I may have been young. Then, there comes a point when your kids draw a picture of you... and they use the silver crayon to draw your hair as opposed to the black hair that you've had all of your life. I've been at that point for a few years now!
[/quote]

You're lucky that you get to be drawn with hair.

(02-11-2022 02:48 PM)SouthEastAlaska Wrote:  You're lucky that you get to be drawn with hair.

Indeed! And if I'm fortunate to have a little more life left in this body, I may have great grandchildren drawing me. One grandson is now married.

(02-10-2022 08:00 PM)JRsec Wrote:  What is absurd is the declaration to "think like a university president" when since the late 90's this has been driven by network execs.

Never moreso than now.

Thinking like a university president — and not like a network exec or a marketing firm — is what gets you nothing burger ideas like "The Alliance".

Really seems like Sankey and ESPN are playing chess and their respective counterparts are stuck at tic-tac-toe.

(02-11-2022 05:36 PM)PeteTheChop Wrote:  

(02-10-2022 08:00 PM)JRsec Wrote:  What is absurd is the declaration to "think like a university president" when since the late 90's this has been driven by network execs.

Never moreso than now.

Thinking like a university president — and not like a network exec or a marketing firm — is what gets you nothing burger ideas like "The Alliance".

Really seems like Sankey and ESPN are playing chess and their respective counterparts are stuck at tic-tac-toe.

To be clear, thinking like a university president does not mean that they're NOT thinking like a network executive or at least have some strong correlation.

The first time that I ever wrote that line was in my Big Ten Expansion Index blog post... which in the next paragraph made it clear that Big Ten expansion that was going to be driven by which schools could maximize revenue for the Big Ten Network.

While I have gotten many things wrong over the years, one of my blog posts that did have a pretty good analysis was in early 2010 when the rumors were still swirling on all levels of realignment and no moves had been made at all. Someone that worked in the media industry was able to provide local ratings data for the Big 12, Big East and several ACC schools and projected advertising rates. Their hypothesis was that you could extrapolate how much the BTN would receive in a combination of advertising and cable subscriber fee revenue for specific schools in specific markets. Unsurprisingly, Texas was #1. The next 3 on the list: Rutgers, Nebraska and Maryland.

Nebraska was the real wild card at that time because they had a small market, but this TV analysis showed that their local ratings were so high (e.g. Packers games in Wisconsin level) that the BTN would effectively charge whatever it wanted in the State of Nebraska for advertising and cable fees. That really moved Nebraska into a lock category as a Big Ten expansion target (where there was previous skepticism): they could deliver outsized revenue in a small market (in fact, significantly larger than many schools with many more people like Missouri) because their revenue per household was so insanely high. (It was basically the opposite for Rutgers.) Sure enough, the additions of Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland was exactly how Big Ten expansion ultimately played out, albeit it took a few years as opposed to a few months.

So, any notion that TV revenue considerations are somehow siloed from university president decisions is quite incorrect. In many (most?) cases, they constitute the largest single factor in a conference expansion decision.

However, what I think would be faulty extreme is a pure "League A revenue > League B revenue, therefore we're heading to League A tomorrow" reasoning and thinking it's that simple. It's just not (and the more that I've been around academia, it's even more complicated than I had ever imagined).

At the end of the day, it's still a holistic decision for a university president in the exact same manner as it's a holistic decision (at least for most of us) in choosing a new job: how much additional revenue/salary makes it worth leaving the culture/history/geography that I care about? At a personal level, the highest paying job that I ever had was the one the made me the most miserable. In contrast, the places where I felt that I had the best fit have been where I've been happiest even though I could have been a mercenary and left for more money elsewhere. Once you get to a certain standard of living, fit becomes a bigger part of the equation.

That's why I'm constantly referring to institutional fit - all of the money in the world can't resolve an institutional fit issue (and the bigger the school, whether it's Texas, Ohio State or Notre Dame, the bigger that the institutional fit issue becomes to them). People can deny it all that they want, but it is simply a big deal in academia (and it's frankly a big deal no matter what industry we're reviewing).