Kolek planning to go pro
For a school that had a 40+ million athletic budget deficit, the idea that this same school would pony up another $30 million in exit fees (per the Big East agreement with UConn during the first six years in the league) is genuinely laughable.UConn is not going anywhere. If anything, with this new FBS landscape unfolding before our eyes, there is a stronger likelihood of UConn moving to FBS-1B than it is to move to a P4 conference.
I was thinking about this also. How much would it take for a power football conference to pluck a team from the Big East? If the ACC offers a pro-rated share to Villanova at $8 million a year, that doubles what Villanova gets now from the Big East, and is a drop in the bucket for the ACC. No way Villanova turns that down.This is why I think the Big East isn't as secure as people think. Yes, football drives the bus and basketball is an afterthought. But the Big East has no leverage. If the power football conferences want to start their own basketball tournament, they could easily pluck the best BBall only schools (Nova, Zags, etc...) and those BBall only conferences become an afterthought.
It appears as though the ACC is looking to expand to counter the SEC (and perhaps avoid a B12-esque catastrophe if Clemson and FSU were to leave). I have no doubt WVU would be a main target, and I could see one or both of UConn and Cincy being targets, as well. I would be genuinely surprised if UConn is still in the Big East when this all shakes out.So, if that's the case, does the Big East just go back to being a 10-team conference? Or do we replace UConn? Put me in the camp that would like to see Dayton in our league (**ducks**).
F dayton
I agree with everything you and FBM said. None of the football conferences are going to add a BBall only schools for $ right now. And the hybrid model doesn't work - right now. The future I see is one where the football schools want their own basketball tournament so that they can keep all of that tournament $ for themselves. BBall only conferences would obviously object, but any leverage they have is lost by the fact that the absolute best BBall only programs could be bought from BBall only conferences for very little money. Villanova (or Marquette) would happily join a hybrid conference if the payouts are 2x what they're getting from the Big East. And in my opinion the power football conferences would make that offer if they felt having their own basketball tournament was worth it financially. The football cash cow will dry up eventually, or stop growing at it's current rate, and those conferences will look elsewhere to find growth.
This is all about football. For basketball, specifically March Madness, the P5/P4/P2 will be unable to radically change the format for two big reasons. 1) the TV contract for that runs through 2032 (and the Big 12's deal is up in in 2025, hence the urgency of UT/OU moving on). 2) the value, from a viewership perspective, is the idea of a Cinderella making a run, the interest in mid-major upsets and the number of games across the several weekends. A P5-only tournament would radically kill ratings and interest - which the powers that be recognize. Now, I do think we are going to see a consolidation within D1 (we already are seeing that). But conferences like the Big East, the top D1 conferences, will still come along with - due to their spending, fan support and overall success. Football, truly, is a different animal. For other sports, even the top-tier still needs other conferences in order to function. What we will see is, probably, the drop-down from within D1 among the likes of the MEAC, Southland, WAC, Summit, SWAC and maybe a few others. Each of those conferences take automatic bids and revenues from the March Madness deal. It would be the easiest thing to cut out the bottom (much like what is going on now), and secure more spots for the top-half of D1, and keeping more of the revenues for those institutions themselves.
I am not sure that a P5 only tournament would kill ratings as much as you suggest. Sure people *love* the idea of a cinderella, but the tournament's big rating games are when two large schools are playing. I am not sure how much the "magic" of the tournament translates into viewers.
Would politics play a role here? I remember when there was thought of the BE being left in the cold, people pointed to the Georgetown alums in Congress and other schools. Not sure if that really would have an impact or not.
West Virginia has long had difficulty gaining admittance into the ACC. Not only does it it not offer a top-25 athletic brand, but it comes from a weak recruiting state, a poor viewership state and its academics would be the lowest in the conference (even lower than Louisville, which the ACC academics were less than thrilled about). The only expansion candidate for the ACC for #16 is Notre Dame, and they aren't coming. Once again, there are no available brands out there that increase the value of the ACC's TV deal with ESPN (signed through 2036). Any addition would just be adding another mouth to feed with the same pie.
I don't think academic qualifications will play a part in these decisions. As you noted, the ACC gave up on that when they admitted U of L, and WVU is not ranked too far below them. There only so many "big" schools with decent-to-good football programs to go around, particularly east of the Mississippi. My guess is that the ACC tries to remain competitive (in football, at least) by grabbing the most relevant of the "available" eastern state schools - WVU, Cincy, and/or UConn. Will that be enough to keep Clemson and FSU around? Probably not, but at least then they're not stuck in the B12's current position of having too few teams to even fill out a schedule.
I think you're right. It probably wouldn't impact ratings, just because so many people either went to a big state school, or already support a big state school because they went to a little state school in the same state. That said, I do wonder what the breaking point of all of this realignment is. For those of you who follow soccer a bit, there was a recent attempt to form a new soccer league which would have made a ~16 teams extremely wealthy while essentially excluding all of the "little" teams. Fans pushed back, and the league was put to bed (for now). Is there a similar event that could happen with college sports where fans finally say enough is enough? It seems like fans don't really mind if football teams move around for money. I do wonder if consolidation and/or exclusion of the "little" teams from the NCAA tournament would be enough for people to push back in a significant way.
I guess I don't get the super conference idea. It seems like the Wisconsins or Mississippis or UCLAs are always playing for 3rd or 4th place.
No...and after reading many many psosts from people on this board that do...I have to say I'm MUCH better off, if this is the type of "intelligence" a degree from MU gets you. It sure is on full display I will say that.
The problem with the comparisons to the Super League is that it wasn't simply the fans, it was also UEFA and the EPL (and other domestic leagues) who were ready to enact pretty hefty penalties. There is no strong, central entity at play here. If the NCAA hadn't lost power to the conferences a generation ago, my guess is that you wouldn't see the amount of conference affiliation changes for the sake of short term $$$.Also, college football's regionalization doesn't help. "Bedlam" between Oklahoma and OSU means a great deal to the people of Oklahoma. To me, it's just another game that I may watch if it means something. So 90% of the viewing public doesn't really care if that game no longer happens, just like they didn't care that Texas and A&M stopped playing.That being said, if the rest of the Big 12 is left out in the cold, that would be the first time in these rounds of consolidations that a number of traditional "insiders" have been forced "outside." Sure there have been schools like UCF, Cincinnati and Boise that haven't been treated fairly, but none of those schools ever really had a seat at the table before. Kansas State, Oklahoma State, etc. were all members of the old Big 8. Texas Tech and Baylor were in the old Southwest Conference.So maybe that breaking point is now? Who knows. But what happens if they next round of consolidation leaves Vanderbilt, Ole Miss and Northwestern at the "have not" table?
Ole Miss -NEVER - Mississippi State? - there you have an argument. So far, no one's been squeezed out of a conference, just teams getting left behind when the cream of their conference's athletic programs left to go elsewhere. I don't think that that will ever happen, but who hasn't been surprised at least once during the realignments? With all the money getting concentrated in a few conferences, it's got to be time for the University of Chicago to reactivate their Big 10 membership!Yes, believe it or not, THE University of Chicago still has some sort of mechanism back into the Big 10. I hope they try. It would be the athletic version of the mouse that roared.