Conference Realignment Thread v. 2016

[stever20]

a lot different though. If Big 12 loses the Grant of Rights they're dead. That's why they would take it to court. They would have absolutely no choice but to do so. A lot different than the WV situation.

And Texas won't leave w/o their tv rights.

The details are different, but the GOR isn't as iron clad as some seem to think.

The GOR though the conference would fight a whole hell of a lot more than just a simple exit like WV. There would be absolutely no settlement on the conference side.

[GoldenWarrior11]

ECUAthletics ‏@ECUAthletics 3h3 hours ago
Looks like @ECUAthletics would be an excellent travel partner along with @WVUSports!


Always nice to have a current member of a conference actively seek, through social media, to leave and join another conference - especially when said university has a 2% chance of getting a Big 12 invitation.

[Jet915]

ECUAthletics ‏@ECUAthletics 3h3 hours ago
Looks like @ECUAthletics would be an excellent travel partner along with @WVUSports!


Always nice to have a current member of a conference actively seek, through social media, to leave and join another conference - especially when said university has a 2% chance of getting a Big 12 invitation.

Well, this is what ECU's AD said: "I believe strongly East Carolina deserves to be in the Big 12 as we can deliver the entire state of North Carolina."

Paul Finebaum (SEC hack) and Sportscenter then made fun of the comments....

Finebaum said the AD should go into politics because he is making speeches/comments that he can't back up with facts....Finebaum mentions the 4 ACC Schools plus the "border" schools in South Carolina...

Host is laughing in hysterics...when he can barely say "ECU couldn't even deliver the greater Greenville area"...

Finebaum then said "I live in North Carolina...and until you read that statement, I had no idea that school was even IN North Carolina."

[SJHooper]

It really is amazing what's happening to UConn. They are literally sacrificing their currently prestigious blue blood basketball program to try and become the next Texas or Oklahoma in football. CT is a pro state. NY is a pro state. NJ is a pro state. The entire tri-state area is. I can understand if this was UCF where they actually have the breeding ground for a massive program with a big following in a college football state. But this is UConn in the Northeast where no one cares about college football. The only time people here care are in 2 situations: A) They are a frontrunner and randomly root for Michigan, Alabama, ND, etc. just for kicks. B) The BCS championship. No one gives a flying you know what about UConn football.

It just goes to show how badly money can blind people. You start to stray from what your bread and butter is and you start taking dumb chances with very little chance of success. Why do so many schools want major football when the overwhelming majority lose money on it? How can so many of these programs afford to lose and lose and lose as if it's not even a big deal? UConn is not yet in a power conference, so they can definitely still bring football back down. There may even be pressure from basketball supporting donors who are sick of seeing them sit back and slowly fade into irrelevance in the AAC waiting for the Big12/ACC invite that seems to never come. Another 5 years in the AAC without Memphis, Cincy, UCF, a bad again SMU, etc. and UConn will no doubt fade. If it looks like they will be in the AAC for the long haul just imagine the UConn women recruiting...what girls will want to play Tulane and Tulsa? Sure they could schedule Notre Dame OOC, but their conference schedule would be offensively awful. Same with the men.

To be totally honest, I don't even think UConn fans would show up if the team was pretty good. I think they would need a top 25 ranked team to show up and the opponent would have to be a name brand i.e. Texas. The fanbase for college football and specifically UConn is just not there for a national presence. Hell, even Rutgers was ranked recently and had some decent seasons and no one cared. UConn's football program is basically where Syracuse is at...they are both on par with Stony Brook, a FCS program which nearly knocked off Cuse last year. They look like they belong much more with FCS teams than FBS ones.

Dear UConn, there is 1 lifeboat left: the SS Big East. We stayed true and stuck to what our tradition and strength was: basketball. You sold out to be something you aren't. Time to make a choice: either rot in the AAC for another decade or join the conference you belong in.

[DeltaV]

ECUAthletics ‏@ECUAthletics 3h3 hours ago
Looks like @ECUAthletics would be an excellent travel partner along with @WVUSports!


Always nice to have a current member of a conference actively seek, through social media, to leave and join another conference - especially when said university has a 2% chance of getting a Big 12 invitation.

Well, this is what ECU's AD said: "I believe strongly East Carolina deserves to be in the Big 12 as we can deliver the entire state of North Carolina."

Paul Finebaum (SEC hack) and Sportscenter then made fun of the comments....

Finebaum said the AD should go into politics because he is making speeches/comments that he can't back up with facts....Finebaum mentions the 4 ACC Schools plus the "border" schools in South Carolina...

Host is laughing in hysterics...when he can barely say "ECU couldn't even deliver the greater Greenville area"...

Finebaum then said "I live in North Carolina...and until you read that statement, I had no idea that school was even IN North Carolina."

There is no way that Texas or Oklahoma would ever allow themselves to be in the same conference as East Carolina University. I'd have a hard time seeing them take any of the directional state schools (USF, UCF, are there any others in the AAC?).

Hell, I used to wonder 'WTF is this crap' when I saw USF on Nova's schedule. Can you imagine Texas or Oklahoma traveling to, well, wherever the hell those schools are?

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

The possible expansion of the Big 12 is obviously football revenue driven, so it could be reasonable to assume that the opinions of the Big 12 football head coaches might carry more weight than most of the other evaluation criteria available. Irishdawg posted their opinions last week:

Brett McMurphy ‏@McMurphyESPN - July 20, 2016

BYU & Houston (5 votes each) top @ESPN poll of Big 12 coaches on expansion. Next: Cincinnati, Memphis (4 votes each); CSU, UCF (1 vote each)

Big 12 Expansion: UConn, USF lead; Houston at bottom in athletics ‘worth’ per report - Austin American Statesman - July 25, 2016

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, if the Big 12 officials want to use “worth” when it comes to selecting new members, Houston wouldn’t be close to making the cut.

By combining two reports released by the Journal over the past year, Connecticut and South Florida are the clear cut leaders in “worth” when fans combine the Journal’s report on values of men’s basketball programs and football programs. UConn’s hoops team is assigned a value of $137.9 million, and its football program is given a $88.12 million tag. Combined, that $226 million is tops of 11 schools that have been bandied about for Big 12 expansion. That appraisal is higher than three current members – TCU, Baylor and West Virginia.

Rounding out the other top four candidates on the Journal’s list are USF at $159 million, BYU at $128 million and Central Florida at $117 million. The University of Houston ranks 10th of the 11 candidates with a total value of $50 million. East Carolina is last with a tag of $36 million.



According to the Journal: “(Ryan) Brewer analyzed each program’s revenues and expenses and made cash-flow adjustments, risk assessments and growth projections to calculate what a college team would be worth on the open market, if it could be bought and sold like a professional franchise.”

If the accountants collectively have more clout than the football coaches, UConn could be headed to the Big 12. Obviously, the converse is true as well.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

[Redstorm1987]

More Boneyard members want UCONN in the Big East. I've been reading that forum for a while and more people want UCONN to give up football.
They know the B12 won't take a lousy team 2000 miles away.

[NJRedman]

It really is amazing what's happening to UConn. They are literally sacrificing their currently prestigious blue blood basketball program to try and become the next Texas or Oklahoma in football. CT is a pro state. NY is a pro state. NJ is a pro state. The entire tri-state area is. I can understand if this was UCF where they actually have the breeding ground for a massive program with a big following in a college football state. But this is UConn in the Northeast where no one cares about college football. The only time people here care are in 2 situations: A) They are a frontrunner and randomly root for Michigan, Alabama, ND, etc. just for kicks. B) The BCS championship. No one gives a flying you know what about UConn football.

It just goes to show how badly money can blind people. You start to stray from what your bread and butter is and you start taking dumb chances with very little chance of success. Why do so many schools want major football when the overwhelming majority lose money on it? How can so many of these programs afford to lose and lose and lose as if it's not even a big deal? UConn is not yet in a power conference, so they can definitely still bring football back down. There may even be pressure from basketball supporting donors who are sick of seeing them sit back and slowly fade into irrelevance in the AAC waiting for the Big12/ACC invite that seems to never come. Another 5 years in the AAC without Memphis, Cincy, UCF, a bad again SMU, etc. and UConn will no doubt fade. If it looks like they will be in the AAC for the long haul just imagine the UConn women recruiting...what girls will want to play Tulane and Tulsa? Sure they could schedule Notre Dame OOC, but their conference schedule would be offensively awful. Same with the men.

To be totally honest, I don't even think UConn fans would show up if the team was pretty good. I think they would need a top 25 ranked team to show up and the opponent would have to be a name brand i.e. Texas. The fanbase for college football and specifically UConn is just not there for a national presence. Hell, even Rutgers was ranked recently and had some decent seasons and no one cared. UConn's football program is basically where Syracuse is at...they are both on par with Stony Brook, a FCS program which nearly knocked off Cuse last year. They look like they belong much more with FCS teams than FBS ones.

Dear UConn, there is 1 lifeboat left: the SS Big East. We stayed true and stuck to what our tradition and strength was: basketball. You sold out to be something you aren't. Time to make a choice: either rot in the AAC for another decade or join the conference you belong in.

Thats not entirely true. New Jersey produces a good amount of college football players. Nebraska built a dynasty on a good Jersey pipeline. Barry Alverez and the Badgers did the same thing too. Rutgers has a growing fan base and a lot of people in the tri-state area went to school in different parts of the country. The problem is for UConn is that they have no football history. No old timers who have been going to games for 50 years. UConn needed the Big East FB to stick together for another ten years to help solidify itself in FBS FB. Unfortunately for them that didn't happen. All of their regional rivals that the fans cared about playing (Cuse and Rutgers) left and they have at best Temple who I think is turning around their program in a great way. If UConn had Temples recent success I think they fight it out for a spot in the P5 like the B1G or ACC. Their struggles though point to a free fall they will have a tough time pulling out of.

[GoldenWarrior11]

More Boneyard members want UCONN in the Big East. I've been reading that forum for a while and more people want UCONN to give up football.
They know the B12 won't take a lousy team 2000 miles away.

I'm not entirely sure of that statement. A lot of Boneyard posters want nothing to do with the Big East - believing the C7 "leached" off of them for years, kicked them out of the Big East (which is 100% inaccurate), and considers all of the current teams "inferior". A majority, if not all, of their posters want to be in a power conference (who doesn't, right?). The problem is that they need football to accomplish that - and their football program is weak to say the least. In my opinion, if UConn were to rejoin the Big East (I don't think they will), their fans will always complain about "taking a step back" and joining an inferior league that isn't the Old Big East. Today, we have 10 members that love the conference and respect one another. We don't need an outsider to destroy what we have created from within.

[NJRedman]

More Boneyard members want UCONN in the Big East. I've been reading that forum for a while and more people want UCONN to give up football.
They know the B12 won't take a lousy team 2000 miles away.

I'm not entirely sure of that statement. A lot of Boneyard posters want nothing to do with the Big East - believing the C7 "leached" off of them for years, kicked them out of the Big East (which is 100% inaccurate), and considers all of the current teams "inferior". A majority, if not all, of their posters want to be in a power conference (who doesn't, right?). The problem is that they need football to accomplish that - and their football program is weak to say the least. In my opinion, if UConn were to rejoin the Big East (I don't think they will), their fans will always complain about "taking a step back" and joining an inferior league that isn't the Old Big East. Today, we have 10 members that love the conference and respect one another. We don't need an outsider to destroy what we have created from within.

I just read their entire realignment thread and they don;t want to come here and barely mention us. They think we're going to be left behind during some sort of P5 break off. I guess they don't realize we're a power conference when it comes to BBall.