Big 10 and SEC conference realignment musings, Independence Day edition

Posted on July 4, 2022 by Sandlapper Spike

One of the discussion points in this latest round of conference realignment is how many schools will eventually wind up in the Big 10 and/or SEC. With the addition of UCLA and Southern California to the Big 10, the current combined total of institutions in the two leagues is 32, counting UCLA/USC and Texas/Oklahoma.

No one really expects 32 to be the final number, but what will be? 40? 50? More?

One key to determining the number is that, at least for the time being, other varsity sports are being included as part of the conference changes, even though football is obviously the driving force behind all the movement.

If this were a football-only situation, then we would probably only be talking about one conference entity. It could be called the College Football Playoff Conference, or CFPC. Some of the current (and prospective) B1G/SEC members would be left out of the mix, either by choice or because of not bringing enough to the table in terms of brand identity.

The way I envision it, the CFPC would be made up of roughly 30 schools, all of them willing to designate players as employees and decouple their respective football programs from the rest of the NCAA (or whatever governing body inevitably succeeds the NCAA).

However, the college sports industrial complex seemingly isn’t at that stage yet. It might be by 2032, when the TV contract for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament expires, but right now in these very uncertain times schools and conferences are continuing to keep football as part of their existing sports portfolios.

That is why I suspect when the dust settles in this round of conference expansion, the Big 10 and SEC could have between 24 and 32 schools each. My guess is the number for both will be closer to 24 than 32, but it is not completely out of the question there will be over 60 schools in the two conferences.

I believe there is a strong possibility of a sizable increase in the total number of schools in the two conferences in the near future.

I anticipate travel logistics will be a major issue. As a practical matter, the Big 10 cannot have only two schools on the Pacific coast if they are all-sports participants. Two (and possibly four or five) more universities on the west coast need to be added.

Another consideration is Fox (and ESPN as well) undoubtedly would prefer a more national product – for promotion, advertising, and additional (and flexible) time slots, among other things. That is one reason some of the current ACC members would be attractive to the Big 10.

Of course, it is unlikely any of those schools would pass the “maintains/increases media rights payout average per institution” test right now, in the way the UCLA/USC addition did. Notre Dame is arguably the only school in the country outside the Big 10/SEC right now which would.

That notwithstanding, it might be worth it for Fox to decimate the ACC (with its ties to ESPN), much as the Big 10 adding UCLA/USC permanently wrecked the Pac-12 and its future contractual opportunities.

The ACC’s Grant of Rights currently stands in the way of the Big 10 and/or SEC poaching teams from that conference, but it isn’t impervious to attack.

I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me the simplest and quickest way to get around the GOR for the ACC would be for more than half the conference schools to bail on the league. At least eight schools would have to do so (this would not include Notre Dame).

The problem is the Big 10 probably would not have interest in more than six of the current ACC schools — North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Miami, Florida State, and Duke (a serious candidate if men’s basketball is part of the equation).

It is hard to imagine the conference taking all of them, and it would still be two short of a GOR-busting majority. Would the Big 10/Fox be willing to add those schools, plus perhaps Pittsburgh and Clemson? I don’t see it.

If the Big 10 grabbed 8 ACC schools, though, and picked up five additional west coast institutions (like Oregon, Washington, Stanford, Colorado, and Utah), along with the dream addition of Notre Dame, it would result in a 30-team league covering the entire country, undoubtedly broken down into four geographically reasonable divisions for travel.

That scenario is almost certainly not going to happen. I do think something like it could happen, though, which is why I believe a 24- to 28-school conference is not an outrageous possibility.

The more realistic way to get an eight-member majority in the ACC, and thus force the ending of the Grant of Rights, would be for the SEC to take three or four of the schools. Would the SEC’s partner, ESPN, really want to short-circuit its own deal with the ACC? Maybe not. It is conceivable, though, that the network decides the conference (and is contract) is permanently damaged, and its priority should be to focus on savable assets within the league – namely, the schools in the ACC with brands which would translate to the new world order of the Big 10/SEC.

That list of schools could mirror the group of eight schools mentioned earlier. For the SEC, though, other institutions (notably North Carolina State and Virginia Tech) might be in the running.

One final thought: some of these schools could have issues with state legislatures trying to limit conference movement at the expense of other public universities within their state. There is a history of political interference in league realignment in Texas and Virginia, and in this cycle it has already appeared in Washington and Oregon. Such machinations likely would be a factor in North Carolina as well.

—

Most or all of what I have written may be complete nonsense. I freely admit I have no idea what will happen.

I don’t think anyone else really knows what will happen, either.

—

28-member Big 10 and SEC, 2025 (theoretical)

—

Filed under: Football, Special Topics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The NCAA wants to ruin its own basketball tournament

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

This is a little late…okay, more than a little.  It’s the holiday season, after all.  I was busy.

—

You may have heard that the NCAA is considering expanding the D-1 hoops tourney to 96 teams.  The particulars:

[The NCAA] is gauging the feasibility of moving the tournament from broadcast to cable…as it decides whether to exercise an escape clause in its 11-year, $6 billion deal with CBS, the NCAA’s longtime partner…

…the NCAA has the ability to opt out [of the deal] at the close of the 2010 Final Four. One source said this is just the beginning of a process that will conclude in summer  2010, at the earliest…

…the NCAA is not committed to making any changes. It also is talking with TV networks about whether they are interested in the tournament as is. The NCAA’s current deal with CBS is heavily backloaded. More than a third of the total value — $2.13 billion — is due to the NCAA in the final three years.

But the potential expansion of the NCAA tournament has support in collegiate circles, particularly from college basketball coaches. The idea talked about with TV networks would likely take it from its current field of 65 teams to 96 teams and add another week to the competition, with the top 32 teams receiving byes. The move has been characterized as folding the NIT into the NCAA tournament.

The NCAA clearly expects that the added week of games would significantly increase the tournament’s rights fee.

If you’re wondering why college basketball coaches favor expanding the tournament, it’s about job security, primarily for major college coaches.  Now, you might think that coaches who make six figures per annum (or more) might deserve being under a bit of pressure for that kind of dough (and all the other perks that go with the job).  The coaches, though, have a different idea.

Those poor major college coaches do have it rough.  There are 72 schools in the six BCS conferences.  Of those 72, only 36 made the NCAA tournament last season.  Just 50%.  Why, there wasn’t room for 16-14 Georgetown, or 18-14 Virginia Tech, or 17-15 Washington State!  Expanding the field to 96 would surely correct those injustices.

The writer of this article in The Wall Street Journal favors expansion.  As he puts it:

Expansion would, in no particular order, give more quality teams a chance to prove themselves and fix the shamefully low percentage of bids given to lesser-known “mid-major” teams. It might also create enough of a supply of games to allow a portion of the tournament to be shown on cable (at the moment, fans can’t see every game in its entirety because CBS—the rights holder—doesn’t broadcast every game nationally).

Most important of all, adding an extra round or stage to the tournament would mean an extra helping of what fans love most about the event: the early rounds, the unpredictable festival of games that go on all day and create wild excitement all across the country.

Give more quality teams a chance to prove themselves?  Isn’t that what the regular season is supposed to be about?

The problem with his argument about expansion aiding mid-major teams is in his next sentence.  The object of this exercise is for the NCAA to extract as much money as it can from ESPN and/or CBS (or maybe Fox; after all, Chris Rose needs work).  Let’s get serious here — ESPN isn’t going to give the NCAA a zillion dollars to televise first-round matchups between Illinois State-Niagara, or Duquesne-Tulsa.

His basic idea (which mirrors Coach K’s thoughts in the earlier link) is that a 96-team field would envelop and replace the NIT, which is now owned by the NCAA and doesn’t make nearly enough money to satisfy that organization.  As a practical matter, though, it would not and could not.

For one thing, three of the teams in last season’s NIT (Jacksonville, UT-Martin, and Weber State) were regular season champions of smaller conferences that would not be given at-large bids to an expanded tournament.  Several other schools invited to the NIT would also be questionable candidates for NCAA at-large bids, including several of the C-USA squads and Duquesne, which was only 9-7 in Atlantic 10 play.

If you expanded the field to 96, last season at least 51 of the 72 BCS schools would have made the field, and as a practical matter probably five or six more would have also (Vanderbilt for UT-Martin, Seton Hall for Jacksonville, etc.).  That would mean that over 75% of all major conference schools would have received bids last season.

Do we really need that many of those power league teams in the tournament?  Georgetown (to name just one example) lost 12 league games in the Big East (counting its first-round conference tourney loss to St. John’s).  I would suggest that the Hoyas conclusively proved that they had no business playing in the NCAAs.

Another thing is that the near-monopolization by the major conference outfits would only get worse, as once the tournament expands, you can expect a different approach to scheduling in the power leagues.  Schools would know that just approaching .500 in league play would be enough to get a bid as long as the overall record was a winning one.

It wouldn’t be a total wipeout of interesting non-conference games (ESPN has to televise something in November and December, after all).  It would, however, resemble what we’re starting to see in FBS football, which is a paucity of quality non-conference games.

Once that scheduling strategy came to the fore, you would start to see even more of the major conference schools grab at-large bids, to the point where the percentage of at-large bids in a 96-team field would be the same as it is now for the 65-team field.  Last season that number was 88%.

If that percentage held for a 96-team event, then 63 of the 72 BCS teams would get in the NCAAs.  Basically, just the one or two worst teams in each of the six BCS leagues would be left out.  Every BCS school would fully expect to make the tournament every season (well, maybe not DePaul).

Another thing that would happen is that the major conference tournaments would be completely devalued.  I suppose they might affect seeding, but that’s about it.  Even a game on opening day in the ACC or Big XII, for instance, between an 8 and 9 seed wouldn’t matter much.

I am surprised that people like Doug Elgin (MVC commissioner and now a proponent of expansion) are not concerned about how this thing might ultimately evolve.  If the idea is that maybe the mid-major leagues might get a few extra at-large bids, sure they might — but they will find that eventually their place in the tournament as a whole will be further marginalized.

Of course, the mid-majors will still be in better shape than the low-majors, who will be even less of a factor in an expanded field.  For example, 90% of the time the Southern Conference will only have one team in the tournament, the automatic qualifier.  The league has never had more than one team in the field in its history, and hasn’t had a school receive an at-large bid since 1950 (North Carolina State).

There have only been a tiny handful of SoCon schools over the years left out of the 64-team bracket that might have snagged an at-large bid in a 96-team tourney.  Davidson may have received one last season, and the Wildcats might have had a chance in 1996, too.  From a small-school perspective, does that justify the diluting of the tournament?  No.

Besides, the event is already open to nearly every school in Division I.  As pointed out in this article from last season, only 47 of the 344 schools competing in Division I did not have a chance to advance to the NCAAs from conference tournaments (and several of those were schools like Presbyterian, ineligible for the big tourney because they were transitioning to Division I).

Everyone has a shot — The Citadel, William & Mary, St. Francis of New York, Army, Northwestern — everybody.

—

I think an expansion to the tournament would ruin the event, which is almost perfect as it now stands.  The only true flaw in the current bracket is the dreadful play-in game; the tourney would be better served to have 64 teams instead of 65, and do so by eliminating one at-large berth.

If you expanded to 96 (and then 128, which I suspect would become inevitable), just making the tourney would lose a great deal of its value.  I would like very much someday to see people filling out a bracket with The Citadel on it, even if those people weren’t picking the Bulldogs (which would be a mistake — if The Citadel ever makes the field, I guarantee we’re taking out a high seed in the first round).

However, with 96 teams what would probably happen is that all the major bracket contests you see would start after the first weekend cull from 96 to 64.  It’s like having 32 play-in games instead of one.

I’m not arguing against expanding the field just because of bracket pools.  I’m arguing against it because it is (almost) perfect the way it is now, and expanding it would signicantly lessen its charm, particularly with regards to the schools that don’t see their name in lights all that often.

I have no doubt the NCAA will decide to expand…

Filed under: Basketball | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Big XII really needs a better TV deal

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Sandlapper Spike

A few observations as I look over my TV listings chart for the upcoming college football weekend:

— The Ivy League will have one conference game not televised this week (Princeton-Cornell).  The Big XII will have two games not televised this week.  One of those games, MIssouri-Baylor, features the 14th-ranked team in the BCS facing a team led by an outstanding young quarterback (Robert Griffin).  It’s sure to be a wild shootout, like almost every other Big XII game this season, but it won’t be on TV.  The other game, Colorado-Texas A&M, isn’t much of a game, but in this day and age a major conference should have every one of its conference games on TV.  The Big XII’s current contract with Fox runs through 2011 and its ABC deal lasts through 2015, so I’m not sure things are going to change much for the next couple of years.

— I just realized the Southern Conference will also have two games not televised this week.  Clearly, the SoCon needs a better TV deal.  Having a deal comparable to the Big XII’s won’t cut it…

— The Pac-10 doesn’t have the greatest TV deal in the world either, but this week, it’s just as well.  Stanford-Washington State is not on TV, to the relief of Cougar fans everywhere.  Winless and soon to be Willingham-less Washington isn’t so lucky, having to travel to L.A. to play Southern Cal in FSN’s game of the week.  ABC snagged the solid Oregon-Cal matchup, so the only other game Fox had available was Arizona State-Oregon State, which will be its late-night game, so as not to offend east coast viewers.

— ESPN made Andre Ware’s travel plans much easier by assigning him Northwestern-Minnesota (with Dave Pasch).  Ware is also the radio analyst for the NFL’s Houston Texans, which are playing the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.  If he wanted, he could sleep in the MetroDome, since both games will be played there.

I can’t remember exactly what he said, but during last week’s Texas Tech demolition of Kansas, Ware said something to the effect that his coaches at Houston, Jack Pardee and John Jenkins, didn’t try to run up the score when he was in the game.  I remember Houston beating SMU 95-21 the year Ware won the Heisman (admittedly, he didn’t play in the second half).  Jenkins, of course, was the coach when David Klingler threw 11 TDs in a game (against I-AA Eastern Washington).  Maybe they didn’t let Andre run up the score, but to be honest, that’s probably a subject he should avoid.

— I am assuming we are in for another fabulous “Interactive Tuesday” broadcast for South Florida-Cincinnati on Tuesday night.  Rece Davis and Lou Holtz (but not Mark May for some reason) call that one, with the current king of blowout fodder, Rob Stone, roaming the sidelines.  Personally, I don’t think Interactive Tuesday is the same without having Todd Harris doing play-by-play.  It’s much better when it’s a complete train wreck, as opposed to just a minor derailment.

— The best pre-Saturday game is without question an FCS game, the matchup between #2 Appalachian State and #3 Wofford, on ESPN2 Friday night.

— Florida vs. Georgia.  Florida State vs. Georgia Tech.  Big games in their respective conferences, a state of Florida vs. state of Georgia matchup in both cases, and naturally taking place at the same time.

— Pam Ward will be calling a Michigan State game for the fourth time this season.  Ray Bentley has actually called five Michigan State games, as Pam had WNBA duty for one game (Clay Matvick filled in for that one).  My sympathies to fans of the Spartans.  Hey, at least you’re on national TV every week.

— The most intriguing thing about Michigan-Purdue this week is what hair color Charissa “Not the porn actress” Thompson will be sporting.

Filed under: Football | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »