by Xudash » Wed Jul 13, 2022 1:54 pm
Jasper, I actually believe your post is well thought out. Your underlying premise is about maximizing assets. That is logically taking place first and foremost in big time college football, because that is what generates the truly big media payouts.
I believe you are spot on about these big "battleships" - like Texas - taking the position that they had had enough with having to subsidize the likes of an Iowa State. The SEC and the B1G are essentially in a race against one another, working with their media partners to figure out which additions create a "lights out" differential between those conferences and the other remaining conferences, particularly what had been the other P5 conferences.
Timing and intent now come into play with all of this. When the dust settles around the most recent major moves, we'll end up with the following:
- SEC = 16
- B1G = 16
- ACC = 14
- BIG 12 = 12
- PAC (n) = 10
- Notre Dame
69 teams in total (up from what had been 65, by virtue of the Big 12 raiding the AAC to make up for the loss of Texas and Oklahoma).
So, big question #1: Are the SEC and B1G inclined to break away from the FBS in order to establish their own playoff and championship format? A lot of factors play into such a possible move, but I simply don't believe that is likely in the near term. 32 out of 125 FBS schools get uppity and go off to create their own thing? They don't need to do that. They're already solving for their CONFERENCE MEDIA PAYOUTS PER SCHOOL. I would think, with the advantages they're creating with gobs more money, that they'll simply be set up that much better for grabbing the majority of slots that will be available for the championship playoff format. The NCAA is certainly in no position to tell the SEC and B1G what they can and cannot do moving forward. And even Nick Saban at Alabama has voiced his concern over competitive balance in college football - the idea of leveling the field with respect to N I L money, etc. My guess is that they stay in the fold, so to speak, at least for the foreseeable future.
That kind of takes care of the top for now, if you agree with my thinking. What about the bottom, before we get to your point about the middle? That's easy, and it also is painful - for the bottom. But, then again, the bottom has been operating under duress for a long time now. The MAC, Sunbelt, C-USA, AAC, Mountain West - whatever - probably decide to play on as they've played up until now, so long as they continue to find a way to generate income statements that are acceptable to the boards of trustees of those institutions. It isn't about the "walking dead" for them. They just want to continue to offer football and project a certain image to the students they attract. Personally, as just one example, I cannot imagine Ohio University not having football at what is now the FBS level. Onward they go, especially by being sacrificial lambs at places like Ohio Stadium for big paydays for their athletic departments.
Now to your point, and to the middle. What do you do if you had been in the club, but you find out one day that the club has changed and that you are no longer in THE club? What do you do if you are a Wake, Oregon State, Okie State, Baylor, etc.? Obviously, we're watching that play out now.
What do we know at present:
1. The gap between the SEC and B1G will be material with respect to media payouts per school, regardless of what the middle cobbles together.
2. The ACC, as a conference, has a shelf life of about 14 years "as-is", unless some creative attorneys working for the likes of FSU and Clemson can figure out how to break through the GoR, etc. FSU and Clemson see nothing but angst with all this. Schools like Boston College, Wake, Duke and Syracuse see nothing but a temporary stay of execution; an hourglass that has been turned over in a situation that already is stressful.
3. The Big12 and the Pac(n) are scrambling, frankly along with the ACC, except that the first two are scrambling to destroy each other in order to survive in some fashion.
Now very directly to your point. While some of these jolted schools are basketball-centric, they probably will attempt to save football by every means possible. I've been hopefully thinking that, as an example, BC, Syracuse, etc. end up put in a position of having the GoR wrecked and the ACC blown up. Thay may result in them landing backwards into some conference arrangement that had the effect of reducing their annual media payout from the existing mid-30's millions to, say, $15 or $20 million. How would their administrations handle that? How do you handle that if your are private and you have a relatively small student population that prohibits you from making it up via heavier student fee subsidies?
Well, if you want to keep football, and you've come to realize that, in your case, it has become time to allow the tale to wag the dog - to emphasize basketball over football, or to at least emphasize them together to maximize return on their two key assets, then perhaps you do what you're suggesting.
It may be expansion candidate opportunities lost for us, especially given their propensity to not want to have to fold up their FBS football program heritages. Long story short: it has been about solving for football. What we end up with here, given your thought, is that some of them end up working through a solution by emphasizing both, given what some of them bring to the table with hoops. That is certainly a viable way of looking at it.
If that's how it turns out, and assuming UCONN doesn't get a wild hair and leaves us - finds itself in a situation where it could rather desperately jump to such a conference - we should still be okay with respect to NCAA basketball.
And if it does turn out along the lines of what you have identified here, any program in the middle that is private and smallish will still end up taking a haircut in its media payouts (e.g. Baylor and TCU will be up first for that) and experience new found financial stress in its athletic department. On that note, there is only so much "maximizing" they'll be able to do.
XAVIER