Conference Realignment: What Next?

[GoldenWarrior11]

I predict Wichita State looks to return to the Valley, move to the MWC or to the A10. This isn't the AAC they signed up for and they won't look to remain in a basketball league comprised of so many basketball-weak programs.

If I was their President/AD, I'd be trying to get a meeting together with Gonzaga, Tulsa and SMU and pitch this group to move to the MWC.

[DeltaV]

Seth Greenberg
@SethOnHoops
· 1h
For those wondering about how the next realignment will impact the @BIGEASTMBB how about the Big East-West. Take the best non football playing programs and create a 20 team super conference with two division with cross over games. Imagine a league with @NovaMBB and @ZagMBB

All this talk of expansion for the sake of expansion is asinine; the expansions have a rationale behind it, and it isn't just to be larger. SEC is taking Texas and Oklahoma because they're good and have huge followings. Big12 is taking whomever to survive, and the schools (at least UCF) might be good enough to play with the big boys. Big East took UConn because they're a team with tradition and a history of basketball success, we didn't take them just to increase our membership. Hell, the Big 10 didn't take Rutgers just to have a team everyone else could always defeat, they did it because they are good in academics and people used to think media markets counted.

Any further expansion, the way the teams on the outside are stacked up at the moment, would just dilute the Big East (or cause a massive issue with travel, sorry Gonzaga). A '20 team superconference' wouldn't be super, it would be more like the old A10, with a few teams at the top and the rest not keeping up. If that changes (VCU, Davidson, Dayton, StL go on multi-year successful runs), then our league considers them. But until then, we'd just be expanding for the sake of expanding.

[kayako]

that's gross....the most I can fathom is 16 and that's if the Big XII dies and everyone consolidates:

He's made uninformed comments before, but Greenberg's stooped to pure fanfic level stupidity this time Nevermind that all but one best available basketball programs are in the eastern half of the country, Nova can simply schedule Gonzaga if that's what Jay Wright wants.

[kayako]

If that changes (VCU, Davidson, Dayton, StL go on multi-year successful runs), then our league considers them. But until then, we'd just be expanding for the sake of expanding.

Reading the comments on this topic, I think a lot of people are content waiting for someone sexy to give up football. IMO that's generations away because college fb hasn't started terminally declining as many had thought just a few years ago. Leaving unrealistic scenarios aside, we'd certainly be expanding for the sake of expanding without any candidates going on a bit of a run. But lately I am feeling less dismissive about WSU and A10 trio of VCU, Dayton, and SLU. All 4 have decent on-campus arenas, and more importantly their basketball budget is already above Butler's (Wichita is ahead of Seton Hall, Xavier, and DePaul as well) according to 3 man weave's research. Seeing Gonzaga and Memphis getting so much headline lately, I don't know if I buy a basketball school being too "mid-major" to damage the BE brand.

https://www.three-man-weave.com/3mw/college-basketball-budgets-2020

[gtmoBlue]

Nah... the BEast is fine, just as it is...for now.

Folks just want to see some movement for movements' sake...'proof of life'.
Leave all those darlin' midmajors alone. Let the B12 do whatever it must to try and survive. Enjoy the show!

Me? Ol' git? I'll just continue to eat popcorn and sip on the Blue juice. It's a good show and potentially getting
better. "One never knows what the tide will bring." F3 Alliances, B12 expansion, B1G/ACC standing pat? This round
is just getting started... more popcorn please.



3manweave? Hrumpf. However they did use the DoE's data, so there's that.

Back in the day, my boy Kyle Whelliston (the MidMajority.com website, circa 2005-2014) established the metric for determining the line of demarcation between the Big Boys and the Mids.
'The Red Line' (2008) was at that time, the cutoff between the two. The Red Line was an Athletic Budget of $20 Million minimum/$2 Million minimum on basketball/school/year.
That was 13 years ago. There were outlier leagues/teams back then: Leagues A-10 & MVC; Teams: Zags, Xavier, VCU.

Kyle Whelliston, publisher of the Web site midmajority.com, has developed the Red Line Theory for identifying who gets classified as a mid-major. Whelliston this winter researched the annual athletic budget for each Division I basketball school and averaged the figures by conference. He then ranked the conferences in descending order and drew a "red line" separating the leagues with a greater than $20 million average from the pack.

Eight leagues landed above the line -- the six conferences that compose the Bowl Championship Series in football, and the Mountain West and Conference USA, which Whelliston calls "money leagues."

There are outlier leagues/teams today. Money was the major denominator then and still is today.

Looking at the current DoE data it appears the Red Line has suffered from contract creep as well and it appears the current cutoff is $9 Million for basketball per league average and $6 Million basketball per school average.
The only thing that has significantly changed is in the growth of the amounts of money we are talking today. If they (3mw) took a look at overall athletic budgets in the DoE data, they will find a correlating demarcation line there
as well. It's about money, not rocket science.




https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os ... story.html
http://m.espn.com/ncb/notebook?id=10349 ... esktop&wjb
https://www.bannersontheparkway.com/201 ... jor-status
https://www.hoopville.com/2010/03/16/wh ... cketmania/
http://rushthecourt.net/tag/kyle-whelliston/ Read #3 on the Big East...lol
http://belmontvision.com/2010/03/show-me-the-money/

[kayako]

Read #3 on the Big East...lol

The Big East‘s magical mystery tour to irrelevance is set to continue today with multiple sources reporting that the conference will announce the addition of six new members at its annual meeting in Philadelphia. Prepare yourself for this murderer’s row on the hardwood: Central Florida, SMU and Houston will accept invitations to the conference in all sports, while Boise State, Navy and Air Force are presumed ready to accept in football only. With the league on the verge of losing powerhouses Syracuse, Pittsburgh and West Virginia, consider us rather unimpressed with the league’s “replacements.” If Louisville ultimately ends up leaving for the Big 12 and Connecticut finds its way over to the ACC, the serious basketball schools like Georgetown, Villanova, Marquette, St. John’s, Providence and Notre Dame would actually be better served to make a few calls to Butler and Xavier and initiate the dream of Dave Gavitt in a post-apocalyptic way.

lol

There were outlier leagues/teams back then: Leagues A-10 & MVC; Teams: Zags, Xavier, VCU.

Hardly rocket science.

[Xudash]

Seth Greenberg
@SethOnHoops
· 1h
For those wondering about how the next realignment will impact the @BIGEASTMBB how about the Big East-West. Take the best non football playing programs and create a 20 team super conference with two division with cross over games. Imagine a league with @NovaMBB and @ZagMBB

All this talk of expansion for the sake of expansion is asinine; the expansions have a rationale behind it, and it isn't just to be larger. SEC is taking Texas and Oklahoma because they're good and have huge followings. Big12 is taking whomever to survive, and the schools (at least UCF) might be good enough to play with the big boys. Big East took UConn because they're a team with tradition and a history of basketball success, we didn't take them just to increase our membership. Hell, the Big 10 didn't take Rutgers just to have a team everyone else could always defeat, they did it because they are good in academics and people used to think media markets counted.

Any further expansion, the way the teams on the outside are stacked up at the moment, would just dilute the Big East (or cause a massive issue with travel, sorry Gonzaga). A '20 team superconference' wouldn't be super, it would be more like the old A10, with a few teams at the top and the rest not keeping up. If that changes (VCU, Davidson, Dayton, StL go on multi-year successful runs), then our league considers them. But until then, we'd just be expanding for the sake of expanding.

"All this talk of expansion for the sake of expansion is asinine; the expansions have a rationale behind it, and it isn't just to be larger." - - Exactly.

Any further expansion, the way the teams on the outside are stacked up at the moment, would just dilute the Big East" - - Without question.

So, with it seeming evident that the Big12 is going to prop itself up with its 4 announced targets, given the loss of UT and OU, it would appear that conference reshuffling will settle down once again. The ACC doesn't have to do anything for a while anyway. The SEC is set. The B1G is set. The B1G, ACC and Pac12 have formed their alliance, albeit via a "handshake" and not a contract, but still.

Bottomline: all the parties that needed to solve for football will have solved for football once the Big12 pulls in UC, Houston, BYU and UCF. The Big 12 will take its media agreement haircut and move on. Programs like UC will believe they won in the deal. Kansas and Oklahoma State, as two examples, will be less than pleased with the outcome. The AAC will dry up on the vine, probably even if the football playoff expands, and I don't believe anything happens with that for another couple years.

No ND. No yet again to a too distant Gonzaga. No football schools that will have shaken loose to pick up.

Is Fox happy with the Big East at 11, with UCONN on board, and with no obvious expansion candidates available anyway? I guess we'll find out sooner than later.

[Bogg]

Is Fox happy with the Big East at 11, with UCONN on board, and with no obvious expansion candidates available anyway? I guess we'll find out sooner than later.

I think a lot depends on how much inventory Fox is looking for, particularly later weekday inventory, as much as anything. Are they comfortable with running Mountain West basketball at 8:30ish Eastern, or are they primarily "third game of a triple-header" material? Do they invest more heavily in the Big 12? If they want more Big East double-headers for FS1 and FS2 Tuesday-Thursday, then another central time zone team could come in handy, and that's where you call Saint Louis.

[gtmoBlue]

naw. Fox also has half of the B1G and has the Big Ten Network also. They've got content.

As for 'happy' we probably won't know until 2024 or so.

[Bogg]

naw. Fox also has half of the B1G and has the Big Ten Network also. They've got content.

As for 'happy' we probably won't know until 2024 or so.

I mean, maybe? Maybe the next deal winds up being a percentage sold to Fox and a percentage sold to CBS. Maybe Fox loses content in the next round. Gotta see how all the rights deals shake out, but that's the role SLU would fill - 8:30-9:00 est tips in the middle of the week without making someone actually tip off at 9 local.