Super-Conferences?!

[Balmer Bomber]

I've been posting about this in the college football forum' date=' since ultimately this is really about football. Anyway, the more I think about it the more I think we aren't going to see the Super 4...at least not in the foreseeable future. I think the Pac-10 will actually be the first to expand, before the Big 10. They will add 2 teams, probably Colorado and Utah. The Big 10 will probably add 3 teams to go to 14....I'm guessing Rutgers, Syracuse and Missouri. They will ask Notre Dame, and ND will stubbornly hold on to its independence for football. Both the Big East and Big 12 will recuperate from the losses and will keep their automatic entry into the Big East.

Of course, that didn't stop me from coming up with my own Superconference expansion scenario. So here's how I see it. I don't think the Pac-10 goes all the way to 16 teams...the geography and population of the western states just doesn't make it feasible. That allows the Big 12 to survive, barely. Whether or not they could hang onto an automatic BCS bid with what they have left remains to be seen. They do the best they can by absorbing the upper echelon of the Mountain West, Boise St, and some Texas schools just to keep a presence in one of the top football recruiting areas...along with big TV markets. The Big East ceases to exist as a football conference and goes back to its roots as a basketball-only conference, led by Georgetown, Villanova, St Johns, etc. South Florida, Louisville and Cincinnati will get left out in the cold and will probably have to beg their way back into Conference USA. Like I said, even though this is the basketball forum, football is the sport that will drive the bus here.

[u']Big Ten[/u]

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Michigan

Michigan State

Minnesota

Northwestern

Ohio State

Penn State

Purdue

Wisconsin

Notre Dame

Missouri

Nebraska

Rutgers

Syracuse

ACC

Boston College

Clemson

Duke

Florida State

Georgia Tech

Maryland

Miami

North Carolina

North Carolina State

Virginia

Virginia Tech

Wake Forest

Connecticut

West Virginia

Pittsburgh

Navy

SEC

Alabama

Arkansas

Auburn

Georgia

Florida

LSU

Kentucky

Mississippi

Mississippi State

South Carolina

Tennessee

Vanderbilt

Texas

Texas A&M

Oklahoma

Oklahoma State

Pac-10

Arizona

Arizona State

California

Oregon

Oregon State

Stanford

UCLA

USC

Washington

Washington State

Colorado

Utah

Big 12

Kansas

Kansas State

Iowa State

Texas Tech

Baylor

TCU

BYU

Air Force

Boise State

Fresno State

Houston

SMU

I think If the Pac 10 expands, they will bring in two teams from the same state. If you look at the schools in the conference already, you can see each state has pairings. California has 4 schools but they have 2 in the LA area and 2 in the Bay area. It makes travel easier for road games in non-revenue generating sports.

When the Pac 10 expands, I would look for them to follow what they have done before. They did it back when they added the two Arizona schools and grew from the Pac 8 to the Pac 10. So I think they would add the pair of BYU and Utah, or the pair of Colorado and Colorado St. Or they could just add all 4 and become a 14 team conference.

[Birds of B'more]

Ok, but they are a poor program with little potential. I don't see it. They'd also try to get Syracuse who SG mentioned may have an ACC preference.

If Syracuse is invited to join the Big 10, then that is where they will go. The Big 10 distributed $22 million in TV money to its members last year thanks to the Big 10 Network. I forget the exact number, but the ACC under its current TV contracts can offer somewhere around half of that. This is all about money, and money only. With the skyrocketing cost of running an athletic department these days, schools have to take the best offer.

[Birds of B'more]

I think If the Pac 10 expands, they will bring in two teams from the same state. If you look at the schools in the conference already, you can see each state has pairings. California has 4 schools but they have 2 in the LA area and 2 in the Bay area. It makes travel easier for road games in non-revenue generating sports.

When the Pac 10 expands, I would look for them to follow what they have done before. They did it back when they added the two Arizona schools and grew from the Pac 8 to the Pac 10. So I think they would add the pair of BYU and Utah, or the pair of Colorado and Colorado St. Or they could just add all 4 and become a 14 team conference.

That was the original thinking, but there are two reasons it won't happen that way.

1) BYU steadfastly refuses to play sports on Sundays, and the Pac-10 does not want to adjust its scheduling formats to accommodate that.

2) Adding two schools from the same state only increases their TV footprint a little bit. Adding the major schools in both Utah and Colorado expands it even more.

The reason the Pac-10 is expanding now (and will probably move quickly on it) is because their TV contracts end after the 2010-2011 school year and they will begin negotiations for new ones very shortly. They want to go into those negotiations with expansion plans already in place.

[paulcoates]

Now the SEC is gearing up

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5138055

[hoosiers]

It's an interesting discussion. I did not realize the Big 10 was in such a great position to dictate what happens. This is driven by a couple factors obvious to nearly all - $, recruiting and, well, power - as in kill or be killed.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-top-public

Not to bang on anyone's diploma, and I'm using a known resource that is definitely not the final arbiter (and it helps in posting that UMd is rated higher than IU in this one), but it's nice to see all 10 BT public universities (excludes Northwestern) in the Top 33. The ACC is well represented - though FSU is down the list a ways. It will be interesting to see how far down the list the B10 might go academically to create additional sports revenue.

It seems that most of this is football generated from the articles and it would be nice to bring Notre Dame into the fold. After that, it appears there is a $ grab to break into certain markets farther south or east. Rutgers is interesting if the B10 can help that school build better football and bball programs.

I say it is all very interesting because I like the various and unique geographic conferences and the controversial debates in college football without a playoff system and, well, as much as I respect Syracuse and Rutgers both schools seem far, far away from IU and obviously further for Minn and Illinois and it's difficult to perceive any sort of rivalry growing there.

On the other hand, the Big 10 might want to use this power while we have it instead of letting some other conference dictate terms later.

[RShack]

I've been posting about this in the college football forum' date=' since ultimately this is really about football. Anyway, the more I think about it the more I think we aren't going to see the Super 4...at least not in the foreseeable future. [/quote']

I agree it won't happen.

Every fifteen years or so, there's a new scheme and it's always aimed at the exact same thing: letting a few rich conferences define a small club that locks out most schools, so the members of the small club can get their greedy little mitts on all the TV money and keep it for themselves. First, there was the College Football Association that overthrew NCAA-control of football-TV in the '80's. That shifted the way TV worked to conference-based TV-contracts, and that caused the end of the era of independent schools who had their own regional deals... except ND, who's big-deal NBC contract screwed up the CFA, which eventually died in the '90's. Then, in the aftermath of all that, by the late '90's the word was that things would evolve into 6 major 12-team conferences, and they would get to keep all the TV money. Everybody knew that was gonna happen, but that scheme didn't pan out either, just like this one won't.

We're gonna end up with some kind of honest-to-God playoff eventually. The Big 10, plus the ancient-bowl-club, will have to be dragged into it, kicking and screaming. But the whole thing is gonna get bigger, not smaller, and TV money is why. This kind of scheme is just the old power base trying to hang on to the special status to which they think they're permanently entitled. But sooner or later, the TV guys are gonna figure out how to get the most money out of college football, and it will get arranged whether the Big 10 likes it or not... and they won't like it, because what's good for the Big Picture of Big Money is not what's best for them keeping it all for themselves, so it will take longer to drag them along, but it's gonna happen anyway. Personally, I think this current stab at it is just a reaction to the growing inevitability of a playoff system, which they don't like because it reduces their specialness, which they seem to think is something God told Moses they deserve...

[Greg Pappas]

Should the ACC be proactive, expanding to 16 teams?

With the legitimate possibility of super-conferences (16-Team Football Conferences) on the horizon, should the ACC be pro-active and add four more teams before the Big Ten/others strike first?

I'd like to see the ACC take on Pitt, WVU, Syracuse and UConn. Rutgers is another possibility. There is the issue of lesser academics with WVA, but I believe something could be worked out.

The New ACC... South Division/North Division:

1> North Carolina State

2> Clemson

3> Duke

4> Florida State

5> Georgia Tech

6> Wake Forest

7> Miami (FL)

8> North Carolina

9> Boston College

10> Virginia

11> Virginia Tech

12> Maryland

13> Connecticut

14> Pittsburgh

15> Syracuse

16> West Virginia

Thoughts?

[Birds of B'more]

I agree it won't happen.

Every fifteen years or so, there's a new scheme and it's always aimed at the exact same thing: letting a few rich conferences define a small club that locks out most schools, so the members of the small club can get their greedy little mitts on all the TV money and keep it for themselves. First, there was the College Football Association that overthrew NCAA-control of football-TV in the '80's. That shifted the way TV worked to conference-based TV-contracts, and that caused the end of the era of independent schools who had their own regional deals... except ND, who's big-deal NBC contract screwed up the CFA, which eventually died in the '90's. Then, in the aftermath of all that, by the late '90's the word was that things would evolve into 6 major 12-team conferences, and they would get to keep all the TV money. Everybody knew that was gonna happen, but that scheme didn't pan out either, just like this one won't.

We're gonna end up with some kind of honest-to-God playoff eventually. The Big 10, plus the ancient-bowl-club, will have to be dragged into it, kicking and screaming. But the whole thing is gonna get bigger, not smaller, and TV money is why. This kind of scheme is just the old power base trying to hang on to the special status to which they think they're permanently entitled. But sooner or later, the TV guys are gonna figure out how to get the most money out of college football, and it will get arranged whether the Big 10 likes it or not... and they won't like it, because what's good for the Big Picture of Big Money is not what's best for them keeping it all for themselves, so it will take longer to drag them along, but it's gonna happen anyway. Personally, I think this current stab at it is just a reaction to the growing inevitability of a playoff system, which they don't like because it reduces their specialness, which they seem to think is something God told Moses they deserve...

I think what we'll actually see is the Pac-10 adding two teams (Utah and Colorado). The Big-12 can replace Colorado with TCU. Then the Mountain West will need to add 2 schools to replace TCU and Utah. Boise St would seem one obvious choice, just to try and maintain the relevancy the MW has built in football. But without TCU and Utah, I'm not so sure Boise is interested. The MW will now have no chance of joining the list of automatic BCS invites, even thought their close right now. And the MW really hosed itself on its TV deals when they snubbed ESPN to start their own network, the mtn. That didn't go too well....so Boise St might be better served staying in the WAC, where they have a better TV deal and an easier conference to dominate, hence a potentially easier path to the BCS money. So I'm not really sure where the MW will go from there.

As for the Big East, I think they could actually be proactive here and keep the Big 10 from ransacking the conference. What they need to do is go to Notre Dame and say "You're either in as a full member, football included, or you're out completely." (Honestly, I never really saw what good the BE got out of that relationship anyway) ND will of course say goodbye. Now with no home for their non-football sports, all of a sudden a Big 10 invite looks pretty appealing, even though it means sacrificing their precious football independence (these myopic people really need to let go of the past). And if the Big 10 can finally get ND, I think it's entirely possible they might just stop there and call it a day, now that they finally have their white whale AND a 12th team that allows them to hold the coveted and lucrative conference championship game.. Then the Big East just needs to go out and find 1 new member, be it Central Florida, East Carolina, Memphis, or whomever....and then it's business as usual for them.

[hoosiers]

Should the ACC be proactive, expanding to 16 teams?

Thoughts?

A huge advantage of the B10 is that the TV contracts are all merged into one giant cable offering.

I do not understand the financial advantages of going to the ACC when a similar situation does not exist there. I think some folks hinted as much above - if the ACC and the B10 both came calling, where would a school go?

Not trying to start a B10-ACC argument, just saying, which conference would a school president and AD prefer?

[Birds of B'more]

A huge advantage of the B10 is that the TV contracts are all merged into one giant cable offering.

I do not understand the financial advantages of going to the ACC when a similar situation does not exist there. I think some folks hinted as much above - if the ACC and the B10 both came calling, where would a school go?

Not trying to start a B10-ACC argument, just saying, which conference would a school president and AD prefer?

As I said before, I think the Pac-10 will be the first to expand. But that's because they are on a shorter timetable than the Big-10, and obviously they wouldn't be targeting the same schools anyway. But I agree with you that as far as the eastern half of the country, the Big-10 will be the one to make the first move, and the other dominoes will fall behind them. If the Big-10 raids the Big East to the point where it cannot recover as a football conference, then the ACC will be the one to scoop up the most desirable leftovers. There is some speculation that the SEC might also be interested in picking at the BE carcass too, but I believe their target would be the two Texas schools and the two Oklahoma schools. That scenario would not only be the death of the Big East as a football conference, but would be a potentially fatal blow to the Big 12 as well.

Still, as to whether I think this drastic version of expansion will actually happen anytime soon, if at all....I'll believe it when I see it.

[Greg Pappas]

A huge advantage of the B10 is that the TV contracts are all merged into one giant cable offering.

I do not understand the financial advantages of going to the ACC when a similar situation does not exist there. I think some folks hinted as much above - if the ACC and the B10 both came calling, where would a school go?

Not trying to start a B10-ACC argument, just saying, which conference would a school president and AD prefer?

The Big Ten has the larger monetary advantage, which was the reason I felt that it would be prudent to consider that the ACC strike first... as the Big Ten may or may not come calling, at all.

Were I the ACC head, I'd think long and hard how to fix the disparity between our conference and those considered better financial conferences. Were these Super-Conferences to form, we may get left holding the bag. Better to be at the head of the wave then under it. Food for thought, though there are myriad details I am quite unaware of.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Here's my question:

If the Big 10 expanded to 16 teams, would they finally end the charade of their name?

[Greg Pappas]

Here's my question:

If the Big 10 expanded to 16 teams, would they finally end the charade of their name?

I think they would... the Big 16 being one possibility.

[Birds of B'more]

The Big Ten has the larger monetary advantage, which was the reason I felt that it would be prudent to consider that the ACC strike first... as the Big Ten may or may not come calling, at all.

If the ACC were to expand, its most likely target would be Big East schools. After the ACC's raid on them earlier in the decade, the remaining schools agreed to a "loyalty clause" that requires a 2-year waiting period (e.g. lame duck status) and more importantly a $5 million fee to leave the conference. Given that, I don't think the ACC could make a good enough offer money-wise for any BE school to consider it. But the Big -10, with its network and bigger deals with ESPN/ABC, can. But if the Big-10 does lure enough BE schools away, I could envision them having little choice but to disband as a football conference, and then the ACC could almost have their choice of what remains. The BE would then go back to its roots as a basketball-only conference. You'd have Georgetown, Villanova, Seton Hall, St. Johns, Providence, Marquette, DePaul....and I forget who else. And they would probably try to add several other prominent schools that don't play 1-A football.

[Birds of B'more]

Here's my question:

If the Big 10 expanded to 16 teams, would they finally end the charade of their name?

I can almost guarantee you they wouldn't. The "Big Ten" name is part of their brand. Not to mention the name of their network too. As much as it doesn't make sense, they'll keep it.