Re: Is Homogeneity Of Membership Good Or Bad?
Posted: Thu May 04, 2017 10:16 am
Toronto Rapture wrote:Bill Marsh wrote:You're absolutely right, Warrior. The Big East is more stable today than it was 10 years ago. Just to be clear, stability is not the issue for me, long term earning power is.
I don't see West Virginia, or UConn, or Kansas, or any other football school coming to the Big East. Those days are over. If the Big 12 implodes, the remnants will likely form a new all sports conference with the best of the American. At least, that's how I see it.
I agree. I wonder, would it be a better option for the remnants of the Big XII to join up with the AAC as opposed to try and carry on as some semblance of the Big XII and add it's own members outside of the AAC? If the two were to join, I think that even what are perceived as lower tier Big XII programs would be a substantial improvement in both football and basketball over much of the AAC and would elevate the status of the AAC in both football and basketball, but thats assuming that some of the better AAC programs are not poached themselves (UCONN, Cincinnati). But even then, as Golden Warrior brought up below, would that league be considered on the level of a power conference and receive the according TV deals and so on? Still, I think that might be the best chance for the remnants of the Big XII as opposed to going independent in football.GoldenWarrior11 wrote:I agree with you, Bill. But, let's look at the possibility of three schools being left behind in the Big 12: Iowa State, Kansas State and Baylor (as an example). Those three, coupled with BYU/Colorado State/Houston/SMU/Tulsa/Memphis/Cincinnati/UCF/USF still isn't getting a Big 12 deal. I find it hard that this group evens gets a substantial bump from the current AAC deal. Would it be more financially viable, then, for certain football programs to go independent (BYU, ISU, KSU, BU, UConn, Temple, Cincinnati, BYU, UMass) and have a defacto "Independent" scheduling agreement? Those schools then would park Olympics in more regional-based conferences, thus saving money on travel and other expenses.
FBS Independence, today - IMHO, is a death-sentence for a football program. However, there was a point in time where many successful football programs were independents. If there was a collaborative decision from a handful of schools to go that route (thus keeping all TV revenue for themselves regionally for any football games), it *could* end up being a better financial decision for these types of schools, rather than being in a national G5 conference where you are sending your teams all over the place in hopes of getting a lottery ticket out.
Again, I'm not saying this will happen, but I do think more athletic programs need to have alternative methods of success for FBS football, rather than - especially for AAC/G5 schools - hoping for the best and praying against the worst.
Some people speculate that it is only a matter of time before ND is no longer an independent. If that were to happen, it would be a further indictment over remaining independent in football in today's landscape, and going into the future. But things could change.
I'm going to go out on a line and suggest/predict that the number of universities fielding FBS-level football will decrease dramatically over the next 30-ish years. I see KU as the classic example. During the last round of realignment, there was talk of going to four, 16-team superconferences. When looking at who might end up where in those scenarios, KU, KSt and Iowa St were left out--maybe end up in the MWC. Amazing that that might have been the destiny of the school that partially owns the invention of college hoops and remains a legitimate blue blood to this date. Their athletic department spends waaayyy more on football than bball, but their FB is a dumpster fire--no one goes to their games, the stadium is crappy and small, etc. The state of KS has had budget difficulties for a long time. So say a major conference realignment event occurs, and KU gets left out. Now they are looking at AAC/MWC level revenues for football, and no decent conference to park their premier sport. I think at some point, the state legislature may decide to save $25M/year (or whatever) and bag football. I'm not saying it happens today, but the business model of many major university athletic programs is based upon FBS-level football revenues, and as we've seen with UConn and others, if you aren't in an F5 conference and getting good TV money to cover your football/other athletic dept expenses, you are hemorrhaging money.
If it goes to 4 16-team conferences, I bet those break off from the NCAA (or form a new, top-level "division") and leave the rest out of the top money deals (however those media rights deals may look ten years from now and beyond). This is what I fear the most in terms of the future of the BEast. We are hoops-only (which I love), but that may not earn us a seat at the table if/when another major shift happens.
Maybe we should rename this thread "The future of the BEast" to represent where the conversation has been going. I love the ideas and discussion about whether to expand or not (and if so, when), the future make up of media rights deals (and the amount of money contained in them), etc. I truly see things shaking up big time, and sooner (next 10 years) rather than later.