Conference Realignment..?

[pdub]

It isn’t a good thing.

[MICHHAWK]

with all that new monies the athletic departments will be raking in. i would expect the universities to lower their tuition.

look for it.

[CrimsonNBlue]

it may be inevitable, but ncaa fb turning into nfl-lite doesn’t seem like a good thing

I find the latter to be outrageously more entertaining.

Both are disgusting looked at through a moral lens, though.

[KUTradition]

it may be inevitable, but ncaa fb turning into nfl-lite doesn’t seem like a good thing

I find the latter to be outrageously more entertaining.

Both are disgusting looked at through a moral lens, though.

i’m not so sure it would even be more entertaining

sure, some of the matchups might be, but if they’re taking the place of established regional matchups that have developed within conferences, then it could very easily be a downgrade…especially when you factor in a likely reduction in fan attendance for the road teams

[KUTradition]

is rutgers vs ucla must-see tv?

[CrimsonNBlue]

it may be inevitable, but ncaa fb turning into nfl-lite doesn’t seem like a good thing

I find the latter to be outrageously more entertaining.

Both are disgusting looked at through a moral lens, though.

i’m not so sure it would even be more entertaining

sure, some of the matchups might be, but if they’re taking the place of established regional matchups that have developed within conferences, then it could very easily be a downgrade…especially when you factor in a likely reduction in fan attendance for the road teams

I'm only speaking to fixing the postseason, which is downright terrible in CFB. Always has been.

[KUTradition]

gotcha

[InfiniteJ]

ut and ou were publicly committed to the Big 12 too…until they weren’t

and did anyone have a clue about ucla and usc?

So it seems like UCLA and USC hot-shotted this whole thing due to some serious money woes.

UCLA's AD told the LA Times this week that if they weren't able to pull off this move to the Big 10, their deficit is so big they were going to start cutting sports.

USC wanted a chunk of that new billion-dollar TV deal that's coming for the Big 10 because their big money donors had stopped donating to the athletic department/administration and instead started giving their money to the NIL collectives to go to the athletes directly.

yeah, i read that about ucla too

seems like the whole UC system has been in financial difficulty for more than a decade (not just athletic depts.)

UCLA's athletic department racked up $102.8 million in debt over the last three fiscal years.

[Sparko]

Nothing a weekend in Vegas with Duke wouldn't iron out. And some sleeping pills maybe.

[KUTradition]

So it seems like UCLA and USC hot-shotted this whole thing due to some serious money woes.

UCLA's AD told the LA Times this week that if they weren't able to pull off this move to the Big 10, their deficit is so big they were going to start cutting sports.

USC wanted a chunk of that new billion-dollar TV deal that's coming for the Big 10 because their big money donors had stopped donating to the athletic department/administration and instead started giving their money to the NIL collectives to go to the athletes directly.

yeah, i read that about ucla too

seems like the whole UC system has been in financial difficulty for more than a decade (not just athletic depts.)

UCLA's athletic department racked up $102.8 million in debt over the last three fiscal years.

absurdity

[TDub]

ut and ou were publicly committed to the Big 12 too…until they weren’t

and did anyone have a clue about ucla and usc?

So it seems like UCLA and USC hot-shotted this whole thing due to some serious money woes.

UCLA's AD told the LA Times this week that if they weren't able to pull off this move to the Big 10, their deficit is so big they were going to start cutting sports.

USC wanted a chunk of that new billion-dollar TV deal that's coming for the Big 10 because their big money donors had stopped donating to the athletic department/administration and instead started giving their money to the NIL collectives to go to the athletes directly.

can't be, I've been assured by our resident aquaman that all of this is good, only good things come from NIL. If you dont agree you're the problem.

[TDub]

it may be inevitable, but ncaa fb turning into nfl-lite doesn’t seem like a good thing

its a terrible thing.....in all sports.

[Deleted User 863]

Seems like it will be a good thing for the actual players though. Which is important. Amateur sports are supposed to be about the athletes. Not fans. Not making money for a school.

[TDub]

Seems like it will be a good thing for the actual players though. Which is important. Amateur sports are supposed to be about the athletes. Not fans. Not making money for a school.

Hows that work out if the athletic departments can't operate because they don't have funding? Seems bad for the athlete......AND the student. Important because 99% of these athletes aren't playing pro, but they might end up with a degree at least, and increase their options for future success.

[CrimsonNBlue]

yeah, i read that about ucla too

seems like the whole UC system has been in financial difficulty for more than a decade (not just athletic depts.)

UCLA's athletic department racked up $102.8 million in debt over the last three fiscal years.

absurdity

A lot of that is because of COVID.

But, the UC system and its relationship with athletics is extremely complex to really intelligently discuss here. I can't help but think that that aspect is playing into the future of the Pac-12. At any moment, we could see California declare athletes as employees, and then the ivory tower loses its shit.

[Sparko]

After a flurry of activity, slowed way down here too. The ominous part of what is happening in secret is the ESPN free radical which really seems to want to torpedo good outcomes for the Big 12. The loose alliance business sounded like an ESPN "not so fast" idea to slow the roll. We'll see, but I am no fan of the way the way this has unfolded all along.

[CrimsonNBlue]

After a flurry of activity, slowed way down here too. The ominous part of what is happening in secret is the ESPN free radical which really seems to want to torpedo good outcomes for the Big 12. The loose alliance business sounded like an ESPN "not so fast" idea to slow the roll. We'll see, but I am no fan of the way the way this has unfolded all along.

I thought it was pretty presumptuous to just assume that the Pac-12 teams were there for the picking by the Big 12 or MWC. Can't assume that schools like Washington and Oregon are ready to just skip 2-3 time zones and leave 100's of years of tradition. The Pac-12 is definitely in a weaker position, but folding still seems like their last resort.

And with the ACC, I know it's a contract, but they surely have a way to hold ESPN's feet to the fire to renegotiate a new deal. The SEC is just there waiting to add big brands from the ACC and ESPN sees that money fly out the door to CBS.

I would still bet on 20+ team conferences and the death of the NCAA, but these TV deals need to expire--could be until the turn of the decade. It's been like 11 years or so since UNL left the Big 12.

[UnholyLivingDead]

ESPN has the ACC by the balls. They have an extremely network-friendly contract that runs for another 10+ years. ESPN and Fox are driving this thing.

ESPN needed a healthy Pac-12 to fill those night time tv slots. Fox just blew that up for them by stealing away the most lucrative Pac-12 market.

Basically, every college football team is a tv show. You get 12-15 episodes a year depending on if you make a bowl, go the playoffs, whatever. The networks are now essentially assembling the strongest lineup of shows they can. The next step will be streaming services like Apple and Amazon to get involved.

[KUTradition]

Across the nation, paunchy over-exalted ticket managers who title themselves athletic directors are racing in ungainly circles trying to find a padded, covering seat for their butts in a game of musical chairs. For years they cried that name, image and likeness payments to players would be a threat to the game’s tradition and uniqueness. It’s nothing compared to the destruction wrought by these administrative gluttons with their combination of treachery and ineptitude, who would give away a century to grab a television minute.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2 ... g-ten-sec/

…They have arrived at a situation where Stanford, Texas Christian, Cincinnati and Central Florida could all wind up clapped into the same distended conference, in which players must take red eye flights home from games, just so said administrators can claim to be media honchos while covering their years of overdrafts.
…
College athletics is supposed to be a break-even proposition, a nonprofit endeavor with education as its aim. Amateurism was never required for that. Simple integrity was. The right intention.
…
These continental leaps by schools toward creating bloated “superconferences,” are not the result of the “rapidly changing sports media and college athletic landscapes,” as Southern Cal President Carol Folt tried to sell it disingenuously to her constituency. They are the result of the slow gathering of lousy practices over decades, which were the furthest thing from well-intentioned...

[CrimsonNBlue]

Sally Jenkins might be the absolute best sports columnist and she fucking nails that. Been saying that all along in regards to NIL. See the forest for the trees.


This is poetry:

These functionaries would do any kind of business, no matter how unseemly, rather than do the most fundamental thing: balance sensible budgets in the name of academia. College athletics is supposed to be a break-even proposition, a nonprofit endeavor with education as its aim. Amateurism was never required for that. Simple integrity was. The right intention.

. . .

It dates to the powers schools’ subversion of Supreme Court’s 1984 antitrust ruling in the case of NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, which stripped the NCAA of its ability to regulate college football’s TV contracts and team appearances on the air. The ruling was intended to be a corrective to the NCAA’s overbearing exercise of its powers, but the problem with it is that it failed to recognize there is a legitimate state regulatory interest in curbing the excess profiteering of athletic department scoundrels who are simply using the kids for skim.

. . .

This “new landscape” of college football is not new at all but rather the black decay of a half century of totally unrestrained commercialization by the administrators. And the game they’re blighting is likely to be a lot less captivating and worthwhile as a result. That’s what will ultimately kill interest in the sport, not the cash in the pockets of the kids.