I would tend to agree with Frank in the comment that I would bank on the BT - if they expand with someone other than ND - it would most certainly be SYR or RU. However, in the small possibility that the Big 10 invited Missouri, I would be extremely surprised if they turned it down. I understand they would be leaving their rivals behind but IMO, it would be too tough to turn down the $$ and academic side of things (CIC) to pass up. JMO.

WVu is too small of a state to make expansion with them above 12 not really worthwhile financially. You need teams that are in populuous states that will allow conference networks to be put on basic cable.

Also, I doubt that the ACC would expand to 16. 14 will be tough in itself but based on the # of cable subscribers in the NE and the possibility of geting a conference network in that state, it should make expansion FINANCIALLY worthwhile. Whether or not the conference presidents feel that conference wouldn't really be a conference but a confederation is also important (amongst other issues).

The money has to be there for these things to happen. Without thte money, the discussion doesn't even start.

Frank the Tank Wrote:Besides, much of the St. Louis market gets the Big Ten Network anyway since Illinois is considered a "home team" there, so Mizzou would really only add the Kansas City market.

Is it on basic cable there? Just on the Illinois side?

I think Philly though has about 3/4 of their customers in digital (where the BTN will be)?

If you assume that Comcast has 50% of the Philadelphia DMA(~ 3,000,000) and 75% of that are digital cable subscribers at $0.70 per month per customer = $13.5 MILLION PER YEAR to the Big 10 network and 50% of that to the BIG 10 - just for Philadelphia!

Frank the Tank Wrote:Adding in just the households in New Jersey would definitely make the Big Ten Network the most valuable sports network in the country outside of the ESPN family, while adding in the households in New York would make that notion undisputed. The Big Ten getting bad press for a year for fighting with Comcast seems worth it now, eh? The math is simple - more households (even if they aren't watching) means more dollars, and there are a whole lot more households in New York and New Jersey than Missouri.

Which is why I think that the money will be there for the ACC to expand to 14 (assuming they can get a conference network like the Big 10). I'm not saying they will but if you don't have the money, the conversation doesn't even start.

That was my point re: Boston College and Notre Dame to the Big Ten, sending Penn State to the ACC. Number of households that could be attracted by playing the "religion card" by the BTN could insure huge dollars through out the NE. More TVs and higher ratings than with Rutgers or Syracuse. It's a win-win for the Big Ten and the ACC, and does not disturb the Big East members.

XLance Wrote:That was my point re: Boston College and Notre Dame to the Big Ten, sending Penn State to the ACC. Number of households that could be attracted by playing the "religion card" by the BTN could insure huge dollars through out the NE. More TVs and higher ratings than with Rutgers or Syracuse. It's a win-win for the Big Ten and the ACC, and does not disturb the Big East members.

Hell will freeze over before Penn St leaves the B-10. You have a better chance of ND joining the ACC before State leaves the B-10. As a matter of fact ND tried to dump the BE and join the ACC when Miami, VT, and BC left. They tried to negotiate the same deal that they currently have with the BE. FB independence while putting the rest of the Olympic and basketball teams in the ACC. The golden carrot for that deal was the 3 game deal they are currently offering the BE. The ACC like the B-10 stance is all or nothing and with everything shared equally or no deal.

ND will end up in the B-10 when they join a conference with Penn St. If the B-10 gets tired of waiting and grabs the 12th team, then ND will negotiate with the ACC for membership and get it if they go in under the ACC rules and demands. That will require the ACC to go to 14 which they will do if the expansion deal includes ND.

If this happens look for the BE to loose 2 football teams in the future. One to the B-10 and another one to the ACC. Teams to keep an eye on are Rutgers, Cuse, Pitt, and Conn. All four teams fit an expansion footprint for both conferences with BC and VT now in the ACC and for the B-10 with Penn ST on its eastern perimeter.

Maybe I'm a little slow. I understand that the B10 Network could tell advertisers hey we picked up new york/new jersey thats "x" amount of new households that are now part of our network. We have every major tv market from Minneapolis to New York. Sounds great but if the majority of those HH arent watching is there a real benefit? Would more HH in missouri or nebraska watch the B10 network than in NYC? I like the B10 but i think im in the minority in the NE.

XLance Wrote:That was my point re: Boston College and Notre Dame to the Big Ten, sending Penn State to the ACC. Number of households that could be attracted by playing the "religion card" by the BTN could insure huge dollars through out the NE. More TVs and higher ratings than with Rutgers or Syracuse. It's a win-win for the Big Ten and the ACC, and does not disturb the Big East members.

That would only be interesting for one game a year - ND-BC. BC does not have a large following. PSU does. In addition, there are a lot more TVs in PA then there are in MA for the purposes of a conference network. The Big 10 would never trade PSU for BC to get ND.

gosports1 Wrote:Maybe I'm a little slow. I understand that the B10 Network could tell advertisers hey we picked up new york/new jersey thats "x" amount of new households that are now part of our network. We have every major tv market from Minneapolis to New York. Sounds great but if the majority of those HH arent watching is there a real benefit? Would more HH in missouri or nebraska watch the B10 network than in NYC? I like the B10 but i think im in the minority in the NE.

ESPN makes money by charging adversting and having cable companies pay like $3 per customer to get the channel. Right now, the BTN is only charging an average of $0.70 per customer. The BTN operating costs are very low. They don't need to cover all of the other sports (MLB, NBA, NHL, etc), they essentially only need to cover the Big 10.

Once you have a network, you can essentially do what you want in terms of programming. You need distribution to continue to increase - especially outside the Big 10 footprint. There's no other option if you want to watch the games.

The weight behind the Big 10 is the sheer number of fans and alumni that want to watch them. If there wasn't, then all of these cable companies would have never given into the demands of the Big 10.

The question about how many are actually watching - well that depends - would you want 90% of 1 million or 5% of 20 million (to use an extreme)?

Maybe Frank the Tank can add to this or correct my comments?

I think any conference would sell their souls to get Notre Dame. The ACC disgarded a plan that had been developed over several years when they thought they (the ACC) had a chance that Notre Dame might join. In fact expansion (to 12) was delayed for an extra year just on that hope that Notre Dame might say yes.
Would the Big 10 trade for Notre Dame.....in a heartbeat.
It would actually be a great move for Penn State too.

Hoquista Wrote:

gosports1 Wrote:Maybe I'm a little slow. I understand that the B10 Network could tell advertisers hey we picked up new york/new jersey thats "x" amount of new households that are now part of our network. We have every major tv market from Minneapolis to New York. Sounds great but if the majority of those HH arent watching is there a real benefit? Would more HH in missouri or nebraska watch the B10 network than in NYC? I like the B10 but i think im in the minority in the NE.

ESPN makes money by charging adversting and having cable companies pay like $3 per customer to get the channel. Right now, the BTN is only charging an average of $0.70 per customer. The BTN operating costs are very low. They don't need to cover all of the other sports (MLB, NBA, NHL, etc), they essentially only need to cover the Big 10.

Once you have a network, you can essentially do what you want in terms of programming. You need distribution to continue to increase - especially outside the Big 10 footprint. There's no other option if you want to watch the games.

The weight behind the Big 10 is the sheer number of fans and alumni that want to watch them. If there wasn't, then all of these cable companies would have never given into the demands of the Big 10.

The question about how many are actually watching - well that depends - would you want 90% of 1 million or 5% of 20 million (to use an extreme)?

Maybe Frank the Tank can add to this or correct my comments?

Yup - Hoquista is correct here. It's all about getting into the households in the first place - that's where the big dollars are for any cable network. That's why I keep emphasizing that the Big Ten isn't going to be interested at all in any team that's already inside of its footprint (unless it's Notre Dame, which is a national brand name) and such team can reasonably assured of being leveraged to add the maximum number of households possible. Whether those households actually watch is secondary - the BTN gets its 70 cents per household regardless of the ratings (so it doesn't matter that 90% of Omaha households watch a Nebraska game versus 5% of NYC households watch a Rutgers or Syracuse game). (That's not to say ratings aren't important - if the Big Ten picks anyone, that team will need to have a long history of showing that it can actually deliver its market as opposed to just merely being located in it.)

XLance Wrote:It would actually be a great move for Penn State too.

Yes, it would be a great move to leave a conference that provides the largest amount of revenues of any conference in both TV rights and ticket sales (for football and basketball), along with giving up games against the likes of Ohio State and Michigan every year. It would also be a great move for Penn State to invest all of its endowment in Lehman Brothers stock.

Seriously, penn state is never gonna leave the big 10 + the big 10 sure doesn't want penn state to leave...too many $'s at stake and similarities between penn state/big 10 school's to ever think it could happen. I do see 2 moves on the horizon:

1) the big 10 expands to 12
2) the big east changes its format, splits or expands

bluesox Wrote:Seriously, penn state is never gonna leave the big 10 + the big 10 sure doesn't want penn state to leave...too many $'s at stake and similarities between penn state/big 10 school's to ever think it could happen. I do see 2 moves on the horizon:

1) the big 10 expands to 12
2) the big east changes its format, splits or expands

I think from a FB perspective the BE may have blown it 2003. During that short time window after VTECH and Miami announced they were going to the ACC and before BC finally got the invite, the FB schools had the chance to break away and from a new conference. If they did that, BC might have stuck around. The BE FB 6 could have then invited 6 other schools, lets say, Memphis,L'ville,Cinci,USF,ECU AND UCF. This would have given them enough teams to have a championship game, would have ensured they kept their BCS status and perhaps most importantly been a real F.U. to the ACC. Not only would the BE have kept SU and BC from becoming the ACC's 12th member they would also be in the heart of ACC territory thanks to ECU.
It would have been hard to part ways with the BB schools and some of the historical rivalries and may have caused some hurt feelings, but the BB would have survived (if handled correctly) The question is would giving up the marketing value of the BE name have been worth it?

I think I remember hearing that BC didn't really want to be aligned with the new C-USA imports, so I don't think they were very interested in staying even if a break away conference with more imports started up.

esayem Wrote:I think I remember hearing that BC didn't really want to be aligned with the new C-USA imports, so I don't think they were very interested in staying even if a break away conference with more imports started up.

I agree because (1) the move was really all about staying with Miami and (2) a split conference would also probably been even less attractive for BC since its stronger connection to the BE was more with the Catholic basketball schools as opposed to any of the remaining BE football schools.

If BC was so 'attached' to the BB schools, why were they also pushing for a split? As a matter of fact, BCs president Leahy or AD Defillipo and SU's Jake Croumathel went on record and saying that they would not support an expansion of both the FB and BB side (the 16 team conglomeration). Croumathel even went further and said he would resign.

ALL 6 BE FB schools (Pitt, BC, SU, RU, UConn, WVu) voted to split.

Come on....If you're an chancellor or president, and a 'stable' conference like the ACC, Big 10, or SEC came calling, do you think you would have turned down the invite?

Nothing was going to prevent BC or any other school from leaving if they were offered an invite in the fall of 2003 other than ND AND PSU joining the 'Break away' BE for all sports.

Frank the Tank keeps denying it, but Missouri to the Big Ten is a strong possibility. The Big Ten really doesn't have much interest in Big East schools for a variety of reasons. Doesn't matter though, we're doing just fine on our own.

CatsClaw Wrote:Frank the Tank keeps denying it, but Missouri to the Big Ten is a strong possibility. The Big Ten really doesn't have much interest in Big East schools for a variety of reasons. Doesn't matter though, we're doing just fine on our own.

I believe Frank the Tank's point has consistently been that the Big Ten is waiting on ND, but that if they ever decided not to wait on the Gold Domers (a between 5-10% chance, according to him), the pick will be between Syracuse and Rutgers.

As a result, the Big Ten doesn't have much interest in any school other than ND and that includes Missouri.

But if one understands why the Big Ten's last two targets have been ND (midwestern in geography, national in name recognition, northeastern in extreme popularity) and Penn State (midwestern in culture if not geography, national in name recognition, northeastern in extreme popularity) then Frank's point about the Big Ten looking beyond being branded simply a midwestern conference makes his stance regarding Rutgers or SU vs. Mizzou quite compelling.

Cheers,
Neil

THe funny thing is i'm not even sure Missouri would want to join the big 10...i would guess at the very least Missouri would want to see what the big 10 had in mind regarding divisions...i'm thinking Missouri would want a east/west split:

W ------E
NW -----UM
ILL ----- MSU
WIS ------IU
MIN ------PUR
IO -------OSU
MO -------PSU

but that is kinda one sided to the east, which is why Missouri might want it but maybe not. In any case, i think the big ten expansion options for team #12 are:

1)ND
2) waiting on ND
3-4) Syracuse or Rutgers...hard to pick but i do think they lean to go east if no nd
5) Missouri
6) uconn - only chance i could see the big 10 picking uconn would be if syracuse and rutgers joined the acc first... not likely, as for the travel, CT to Minnesota pretty much = tampa bay to new york city.

I would be pretty stunned if the big 10 added somebody not on that list for team #12...the big ? is how long they wait for ND?