To make it work I think you would have to emphasize that those getting relegated or participating in the relegated division aren't taking a massive financial or exposure hit. So if the PAC is the shell for the top tier teams and the MWC is the shell for the lower tier teams, the MWC teams would still need to be on TV and get a healthy slice of revenue that isn't too much lower than those in the PAC.

Something like this might work
Each league would need 8 teams minimum to meet FBS conference requirements
8 Team PAC - WSU, OSU, SDSU, Fresno, Boise, Air Force, Colorado St, UNLV
8 team MWC - UTEP, NMSU, San Jose St, Utah St, Nevada, Wyoming, Hawaii, New Mexico

7 conference games with the 8th a PAC-MWC game that will allow rivalries to be ensured.
In this instance UNLV-Nevada would be guaranteed

All 16 members get the same base payout.
A graduated performance incentive is implemented so the top 2 of the PAC get a big bonus, the 3rd and 4th place get a smaller bonus, and the bottom 4 get an even smaller bonus.

This would help eliminate the higher financial disparity between jumping from the MWC to the PAC.

You would also have to ensure with your combined media deal between the two leagues that the MWC teams get linear exposure and its not all focused on the PAC teams

If you could sell a TV partner on this idea and get everyone to buy in, they now have the mechanisms to make it a reality.

(09-29-2023 08:10 AM)solohawks Wrote:  To make it work I think you would have to emphasize that those getting relegated or participating in the relegated division aren't taking a massive financial or exposure hit. So if the PAC is the shell for the top tier teams and the MWC is the shell for the lower tier teams, the MWC teams would still need to be on TV and get a healthy slice of revenue that isn't too much lower than those in the PAC.

Something like this might work
Each league would need 8 teams minimum to meet FBS conference requirements
8 Team PAC - WSU, OSU, SDSU, Fresno, Boise, Air Force, Colorado St, UNLV
8 team MWC - UTEP, NMSU, San Jose St, Utah St, Nevada, Wyoming, Hawaii, New Mexico

7 conference games with the 8th a PAC-MWC game that will allow rivalries to be ensured.
In this instance UNLV-Nevada would be guaranteed

All 16 members get the same base payout.
A graduated performance incentive is implemented so the top 2 of the PAC get a big bonus, the 3rd and 4th place get a smaller bonus, and the bottom 4 get an even smaller bonus.

This would help eliminate the higher financial disparity between jumping from the MWC to the PAC.

You would also have to ensure with your combined media deal between the two leagues that the MWC teams get linear exposure and its not all focused on the PAC teams

If you could sell a TV partner on this idea and get everyone to buy in, they now have the mechanisms to make it a reality.

R
I’m not so sure why this seems so hard for people.

It’s done for football and basketball only.

It’s, for once, performance based. So in football Wyoming is deservedly up and CSU or SDSU would be down. In basketball, Fresno would be down which I am certainly fine with. SDSU and WSU don’t need our underperforming team dragging their ass down.

Coaches contracts for football and basketball would now have a significant variable pay factor. You have a slight parachute level between the promoted and relegated teams to not have a straight cliff.

Good coaches will win and get paid, bad coaches get relegated. Other sports play in standard leagues with standard contracts. If the league wanted to get creative it could withhold some money off the top for performance bonuses in other sports.

(09-22-2023 12:31 PM)HawaiiMongoose Wrote:  

(09-22-2023 06:43 AM)BeatWestern! Wrote:  Good article here by Ralph D. Russo of the Associated Press:

https://apnews.com/article/conference-re...fa8c1b346d

This pretty much confirms that the driving forces behind the promotion/relegation proposal are the Pac-2's interest in rebuilding the Pac as a small coast-to-coast BOR football conference and the desire of the top MWC football schools to be included without having to pay MWC exit fees. It makes sense that Boise State in particular is pushing for this. And while Aresco is dead-set against the idea, I think it's quite possible some of his members are at least intrigued. I'd be surprised if UTSA, Memphis and Tulane aren't open to talking about it.

However to get the proposal off the ground, I think there have to be more compelling incentives to participate for the MWC (and potentially AAC) schools that wouldn't be included in the Pac initially. In particular, getting promoted into the Pac needs to be close to automatic for non-Pac schools that compile winning records, and the revenue differential between Pac and non-Pac schools needs to be small. As I suggested in a previous post, I could see it coming together if the number of teams promoted and relegated at the end of each season is four rather than two, and the payout differential doesn't exceed $1-2 million.

In effect, this would make promotion and relegation similar to qualifying or not qualifying for a bowl. If your team has a winning conference season, you're probably staying in the top division or moving up to it. If your team has a losing conference season, you're probably staying in the lower division or moving down to it. If you do stay or land in the top division, it gives you better visibility and enriches you a bit, but doesn't make or break your program's future competitively or financially. If you don't, at least you have a reasonable chance of turning things around the next season if you can win a few more games.

So I am on record wanting Hawaii included but I disagree the league has to cater to the bottom half. Ultimately this will be presented as a way to give everyone a path. If the bottom teams reject it then the will vote to disband or leave in 25 for 17M.

At most I see 4 8 subs where Championship weekend has 4 games played.

1 west versus 1 east PAC Championship
7 west (Pac West) 9 west (MWC West) relegation game
8 is automatically relegated and 9 promoted
9 West versus 9 east MWC Championship
7 east (PAC East) 9 east (MWC East) relegation game

The top 8-10 teams in the west could land a bigger TV deal than if they negotiated with 14-16 total teams.

So if youre in the top half, why would you let the others come along?

(09-29-2023 10:29 AM)Sactowndog Wrote:  ... It’s done for football and basketball only.

This is the question. If it's done for football and basketball only, it's one large conference, because to be an FBS conference, you need to be a multi-sport conference, and the basketball side has to have a minimum of 14 conference games. If the Basketball divisions are nine members each, then a divisional double round robin of 16 games satisfies that requirement, and cross-division games would be a strategic issue of how many conference games are desired ... if you wanted to have 20 conference games, you could draw up four cross-division opponents each (2H/2A) for inter-division play prior to the launch of divisional play.

If the promotion/relegation games in basketball are structured as part of the championship tournament, then they have to be single elimination, since the championship tournament exemption from the maximum number of games is a single-elimination championship tournament. If a single game to win promotion is considered too few, then as a back of the envelope idea, perhaps you might have a 12 team tournament, top four from Division 1 with a bye, bottom team from Division 1 relegated and not playing in the tournament, and teams 5-8 from Division 1 playing teams 1-4 from Division 2, and Division 2 teams #2-#4 that advance to the semi-final round win promotion.

In any event, Football or Basketball promotion / relegation is between two divisions of the conference, and under the new conference football CCG rules, the conference CCG can be between the two best teams in Division 1 ... with the right 18, the CCG winner of the game between the best two after the Division 1 complete round robin would have a very strong case for the FBS champion #5 spot in the CFP12.

You still need to amend NCAA rules to allow the division one relegation playoff contender(s) to play after the regular season when they often won't have 6 wins.

________

(09-29-2023 10:46 AM)PicksUp Wrote:  The top 8-10 teams in the west could land a bigger TV deal than if they negotiated with 14-16 total teams.

So if youre in the top half, why would you let the others come along?

Because they may well not land a TV deal that is big enough to pay all of those exit fees.

Theyll have to vote to dissolve the conference, that wont be easy either.

(09-29-2023 11:07 AM)PicksUp Wrote:  Theyll have to vote to dissolve the conference, that wont be easy either.

If everyone in the MWC has a spot in the new conference and there is a 2m+ pay increase for the Division 2 football schools versus the MWC status quo, the vote to dissolve the MWC shouldn't be too hard.

And if there isn't a strong enough incentive to make the conference dissolution vote a formality, then that means that the business model doesn't work out after all. The whole promotion/relegation plan hinges on whether there is a prospective media partner willing to pay enough for the promotion/relegation games and the conference CCG to make it worthwhile, even after diluting it across 18 members.

We can speculate all we want over whether or not it is, but ultimately it is a market test.

If there is promotion and relegation you would not want to dissolve one of the conference shells. Having two conference shells allows the relegated league to still have something to play for...a conference championship and automatic bid

(09-29-2023 08:21 PM)solohawks Wrote:  If there is promotion and relegation you would not want to dissolve one of the conference shells. Having two conference shells allows the relegated league to still have something to play for...a conference championship and automatic bid

You cannot have two distinct football and basketball promotion and relegations unless it is all organized into a single conference.

If they are two different conferences, then the basketball competitions are just whomever got into the football conferences, because FBS conferences have to be multi-sport conferences, and multi-sport conferences have to sponsor basketball.

(09-29-2023 08:27 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(09-29-2023 08:21 PM)solohawks Wrote:  If there is promotion and relegation you would not want to dissolve one of the conference shells. Having two conference shells allows the relegated league to still have something to play for...a conference championship and automatic bid

You cannot have two distinct football and basketball promotion and relegations unless it is all organized into a single conference.

If they are two different conferences, then the basketball competitions are just whomever got into the football conferences, because FBS conferences have to be multi-sport conferences, and multi-sport conferences have to sponsor basketball.

Not sure I agree with that.

(09-29-2023 08:27 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(09-29-2023 08:21 PM)solohawks Wrote:  If there is promotion and relegation you would not want to dissolve one of the conference shells. Having two conference shells allows the relegated league to still have something to play for...a conference championship and automatic bid

You cannot have two distinct football and basketball promotion and relegations unless it is all organized into a single conference.

If they are two different conferences, then the basketball competitions are just whomever got into the football conferences, because FBS conferences have to be multi-sport conferences, and multi-sport conferences have to sponsor basketball.

Ah yes good point. Under the current rules you are basically a football only member and do not count towards the magic number of 8 if you don't play men and women's basketball plus 4 other men's sports and 7 other women's sports, 2 of which must be team sports .

Quote:20.02.9 Football Bowl Subdivision Conference. A
conference classified as a Football Bowl Subdivision conference shall be composed of at least eight full Football Bowl Subdivision members that satisfy all bowl subdivision requirements. An institution shall be included as one of the eight full Football Bowl Subdivision members only if the institution participates in the conference schedule in at least six men's and eight women's conference-sponsored sports, including men's basketball and football and three women's team sports, including women's basketball.

You are correct a promotion - relegation setup would have to occur in a singular conference shell with 1 auto bid per sport

The thing is, Basketball Division 1 is as likely as possible to be a multi-bid conference, because the promotion/relegation is rigging the top 9 schools to have better NET than basically any other mid-major scheduling approach.

And with the tournament I sketched, there is a direct path to the autobid for the Division 2 schools each year, through the normal single-bid path of winning the conference tournament.

And the conference tournament does have the extra appeal of three of the first round tournament games all being the first leg of a two game, single elimination promotion/relegation tournament, so there is a promotion/relegation boost to the media value of the conference basketball contract. That extended into the regular season, since toward the end of the regular season there will be Division 2 games that are helping to decide membership in the top four and the Division 2 regular season championship that claims a promotion spot, as well as "relegation fight" games.

Note that none of the sports sponsorship requirements would stand in the way of strong geographic and stable divisions in the non-revenue sports ... they don't have to play each other in the sport sponsored by the conference, so under the single conference promotion/relegation approach, the fact that two schools don't play each other in very many geographic non-revenue sport divisions, and one school that is staying in FB Division 1 and is playing in an eight team and another school is staying in FB Division 2, doesn't prevent both from contributing to the eight core members.

You'd definitely want to try to get either the Zags or the Shockers as Olympic Sports members, to have balanced basketball promotion/relegation divisions, and your aim might be both with St. Mary's.

_______________

(09-29-2023 08:21 PM)solohawks Wrote:  If there is promotion and relegation you would not want to dissolve one of the conference shells. Having two conference shells allows the relegated league to still have something to play for...a conference championship and automatic bid

Note that you could still "sell" the second conference shell if there was a group of FCS conferences that wanted to move up to FBS. Indeed, the number of schools in the promotion/relegation conference would make it easy to have a scheduling agreement with the promoted FCS schools that would allow them to promote four schools per year ... four promoting schools need a total of 16 incumbent FBS visits, and there would be 18 established FBS schools in the promotion/relegation conference, so that is one away game per conference member with a promoting FCS to FBS school per year.