Re-alignment question

[CrazyEcho]

Which school is more valuable to a conference:  Georgetown or Iowa State? 

The general version of this question:  Is a school with a great basketball program (no football program) more or less valuable than a school with a middling football & basketball program? 

Why?  I need a better explanation than "football is key/king."  What makes a football program at somewhere like Iowa St./Colorado so important?   

[KipsBayEagle]

Colorado is much more important than iowa State because of A.  The market it is in, and B.  Academic reputation. 

[damuts222]

Colorado only bailed out of the Big 12 because it was going to be either them or Baylor that would be left out of moving into the Pac-10. Therefore Colorado quickly jumped the sinking ship that is the Big 12 before Baylor had a chance. Now Baylor is one of the teams that will be left out of the moving party...for now.

[Husker4MU]

You take the football school every time b/c it's a 2-for-1 deal.  You get the basketball product and the more valuable football product.

[CrazyEcho]

You take the football school every time b/c it's a 2-for-1 deal.  You get the basketball product and the more valuable football product.

My question is a great basketball school v. a middling basketball/football school.  And why?

[Dawson Rental]

My question is a great basketball school v. a middling basketball/football school.  And why?

The answer is neither, unless you need a football school to get to 12, the conference championship game number which would add that revenue, assuming, of course that the conference needs that extra revenue which depends on how good their football TV deal is.

If you're a BCS conference you don't add a school with middling football and basketball programs unless you have to, otherwise you're just adding another slice to come out of the pie without increasing the size of the pie. (revenue pie)  Which results in a lower payout for the current conference members and a fired conference commissioner.  The two exceptions to this is if the school is in a big enough market that you want to add it to your TV package (Rutgers) and add to your TV revenue, or if the school's football team has a large national following (ND, Nebraska), so that you know the added national TV revenue will cover that school's payout and add something to the other school's payouts.

If your conference has an identity as a football and basketball conference, some, it not most of your members are not going to want to add a school without a football team regardless of the quality of their basketball program, arguing that it wouldn't be a good fit.  This might, in fact, be true since almost all of the conferences decisions would be driven by first looking at the impact it would have on football.  So BCS conferences don't add basketball only schools, unless they have to in order to remain big enough to survive. (Big East)

[GGGG]

The answer is neither, unless you need a football school to get to 12, the conference championship game number which would add that revenue, assuming, of course that the conference needs that extra revenue which depends on how good their football TV deal is.

If you're a BCS conference you don't add a school with middling football and basketball programs unless you have to, otherwise you're just adding another slice to come out of the pie without increasing the size of the pie. (revenue pie)  Which results in a lower payout for the current conference members and a fired conference commissioner.  The two exceptions to this is if the school is in a big enough market that you want to add it to your TV package (Rutgers) and add to your TV revenue, or if the school's football team has a large national following (ND, Nebraska), so that you know the added national TV revenue will cover that school's payout and add something to the other school's payouts.

If your conference has an identity as a football and basketball conference, some it not most of your members are not going to want to add a school without a football team regardless of the quality of their basketball program, arguing that it wouldn't be a good fit.  This might, in fact, be true since almost all of the conferences decisions would be driven by first looking at the impact it would have on football.  So BCS conferences don't add basketball only schools, unless they have to in order to remain big enough to survive. (Big East)

This is 100% accurate.

[MUBurrow]

nicely done Murs, I actually copied and pasted that in an email to my gf who is trying (god bless her soul) to understand this whole mess.

[HouWarrior]

nicely done Murs, I actually copied and pasted that in an email to my gf who is trying (god bless her soul) to understand this whole mess.

Nicely done, and god bless your soul, to have a woman who actually cares enough to want to understand-- if its not on HGTV, or BRAVO  my wife would  not care

[brewcity77]

Nice one, Murs, probably the best and most succinct summation I've seen yet.