(07-30-2018 09:57 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 04:52 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 04:18 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 12:03 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 11:27 AM)Go College Sports Wrote:  Well, that just isn't true.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/1984.html

You can scroll through the years in either direction up through when Florida State joined the conference and you won't find anything that shows the WAC being even close to as good a conference as the ACC.

What everyone is missing here is my nuance. Prior to the whole comprehensive bowl tie in shenanigans there were no power conferences, only conferences. And outstanding teams were simply outstanding teams. They weren't outstanding G5 schools or P5 schools. Back then a small school might not get invited to a top 4 bowl but if they were passed over it was because of travel crowd, not strength of schedule.

Everybody knew the football power programs like USC, Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Notre Dame etc, but nobody thought of Vanderbilt, Duke, Wake Forest, or Northwestern as power football schools because they shared a conference with one.

And going back and looking at old records doesn't prove anything, and it doesn't disprove anything. Yeah the Rose bowl had a two sided tie in for a couple of decades, but most major bowls had a one sided tie in and the other side was open for selection, but even that was something for the relatively modern era, roughly 50's - 80's.

The whole term Power conference was a BCS creation as much as anything.

Your nuance is partially accurate. Has the BCS and CFP put a greater emphasis on "conference identity" and distinctions in status and prestige among conferences than was previously the case? Absolutely.

But, before the BCS, was college football solely about power schools with no real distinctions among conferences? Absolutely not. Growing up in the 1970s, some conferences clearly were more famous and had more status than others - the Big 10, the Big 8, the Pac 8, the SEC, and the SWC. Those were the major conferences, and those were the conferences that always had their champion in one of the Four New Year's Bowls - the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Cotton Bowls.

Other conferences were clearly regarded as "minor", not among the major conferences, and during football season that included the ACC.

Now, did that conference shine rub off much on the member schools? No. You are correct, circa 1975, schools like Kansas and Vanderbilt weren't regarded as "power" just because they were in major conferences.

But those conference distinctions did exist.

And they apparently went back further. E.g., about 15 years ago I recall reading a book about the 1951 San Franciso Dons, who had an unbeaten team that many think was a great team but that didn't get invited to a bowl game or receive much national recognition. Their peak poll ranking was around #15.

In the book, to a man, the surviving Dons said that a big reason they think that happened was because they weren't a member of the PCC, as today's PAC was then known. They talked about how the PCC got all the media coverage on the west coast and that the PCC snubbed "USF", refusing to schedule them, thus holding them down. That's the same kind of thing G5 schools say about the Power conferences. Same dynamic at work.

Since 1984, when the supreme court upended the NCAA control of football television rights, conferences have grown stronger and conference identity as a part of school identity has as well. But it was there before then too.

The bowls invited the schools with the largest travel crowds and deepest pockets because it was all about the local revenue. In the 80's Clemson had to prove its economic impact to Jacksonville Florida. So when they played in the Gator Bowl their fans carried $2 bills with an Orange Tiger Paw on them so they could show the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce the impact that Clemson fans brought. I used to buy blocks of Gator Bowl tickets for clients back in the day because usually some school within my area would be included and then clients would need tickets. It was a nice gift to give and I bought them prior to knowing who would be playing in the game and could usually get them for between 8 to 15 a piece.

The Dons weren't discriminated against for being from a non prime conference Quo. They were discriminated against for not having a large following. Remember Clemson had won the national championship in '81 and they were still having to prove their drawing power and in part because until '81 they hadn't been on the national radar.

The whole Power talk is from the BCS era and later. But big schools with big draws were the norm before, but not because of the name as much as the following.

All bowls were an infusion of tourist cash to the host cities. There's your difference in a nutshell. Today it's big names in full and raucous venues so that TV can attract ad revenue. The motive is still the same, profit.

But!!!!, what the Power Conference tag has brought is a marked difference in TV revenue that is now growing the divide between the haves and the underdogs to a chasm that is now going to be used to justify the divide. Last year Connecticut was the only G5 school to place within the top 65 in gross revenue totals. I've been following that for about 6 years. Each year there have been fewer and fewer G5's in the top 65 in earnings and this year UConn was the only one and it was because of a 50% subsidy. Schools that were within 5 million of the P5 six years ago are no longer within 10 million of anyone but Wake Forest and Washington State.

The networks changed the language, paid the schools with the larger draws a lot more money, and now can point to the divide in revenue as a justification for the new arrangement.

I'm not sure that we really disagree on much here. To nit-pick, I'd say:

1) About the Dons, I was just recalling what the players on that team said. They said the PCC 'held them down', so I'm not going to argue with them, they lived through it.

2) About the past: Yes, the dollar values have grown tremendously. E.g., twenty years ago, Florida had about a $23 million athletic budget. Not just football, the whole budget. Now, it's about $150 million.

But, I'm not sure the gap is any more, in relative terms. E.g., in 1975, Alabama was a nationally-famous dominant football program, tons of sports media coverage, huge fan base, etc. and Louisiana-Lafayette was nothing. Today, same thing. Heck, if anything, I bet more have heard of ULL today than had in 1975.

Remember, not all the rules back then were equalizing. In 1975, there were no roster size limits and the big schools could hoard armies of players. Bobby Bowden recalls that when he was starting out, he'd hang around the Alabama training camp and because Bear took a liking to him, he'd point out guys who were good players but were never going to see the field at Alabama and let Bowden try and pick them up.

From what I've seen over the years, if anything, the overall profile of G5 teams is higher than it was 40 years ago. 40 years ago, nobody knew schools like South Alabama and San Jose State existed as football programs.

Quo there are two ends to the G5. Without question those which have jumped from Div II to FCS and from FCS to FBS have seen an increase in their profile. But take the MAC and WAC teams which in the 70's were pretty darned competitive, they've regressed. So on the bottom end of the G5 you have those who have pushed to enhance their profile but it's the upper end of the G5 that have regressed, Connecticut included and that has everything to do with the revenue gap.

As for public perception maybe ULL has picked up some steam, but the top programs are far less threatened because their revenue advantage is not only much much larger, but is more secure as crunched state budgets are beginning to curtail their support unilaterally.

(07-29-2018 07:59 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 06:24 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(07-28-2018 11:00 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(07-28-2018 09:37 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  

(07-28-2018 09:26 PM)Statefan Wrote:  Someone has to lose because no ones a conference where everyone has a 6-6 record. When you pay to see the Harlem Globtrotters, they have the Washington Generals with them as the huckleberry. As far as Cincy having a "beef", Cincy committed to major college football almost a decade after Louisville. Look at the two schools schedules in the 70's and 80's. Then notice that Louisville had real success on the football field a solid decade before Cincy. Cincy can't have a better argument than Houston, SMU, or Rice. They don't have a better time playing big time football argument when compared to ECU. Louisville was just ahead of them when the merry go round stopped.

Cincy doesn't have a better argument than SMU or Rice? How about Cincy being in a BCS conference and winning it twice beating out Louisville and WVU. When the decisions were being made last go around no one was comparing their stats and wh they played in the 70's. Heck Rutgers was playing Colgate and Lehigh for crying out loud.

Nobody in power cares about any of that. Do you know how many people can name the year Cincinnati was in the Orange Bowl or SMU was a top five program without looking it up? Die-hard fans on the internet can, but that’s not what university presidents consider.

So university presidents didn't know cincy was in back to back bcs bowls and back to back big east champs just a few years prior? That wasn't some ancient history, it was very very recent at the time of realignment.

Wake Forest won the ACC, but the SEC didn’t come calling. Also, Cincinnati lost two coaches in a row and fell off the map. Looks more like a flash in the pan to me.

And what does Wake Forest have to do with the price of tea in china? Were they left out of realignment? No, so whats your point? They fell off the map AFTER the music stopped playing. In fact they lost 3 in a row but UofL lost coaches (Pitrino and Strong) and so did WVU (Rich Rod who was an alum) and that didn't stop them from getting in to the big boys club. The point was they were playing at the top level of a BCS conference. Thats something schools like BYU, Houston, ECU and others can't say. THATS THE POINT!

Yes, Wake won the ACC and got crushed by the Big East champs.

The point is Cincinnati had a short, but nice run in their long history of FBS football. They don’t have a legitimate gripe over any other program that had a nice run. You say because they won the Big East a few times? Brian Kelly is now the coach at Notre Dame, so obviously that had something to do with it.

Cincinnati was looked at as less desirable than Louisville and UConn, at least by the ACC.

(07-30-2018 11:19 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 09:57 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 04:52 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 04:18 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 12:03 PM)JRsec Wrote:  What everyone is missing here is my nuance. Prior to the whole comprehensive bowl tie in shenanigans there were no power conferences, only conferences. And outstanding teams were simply outstanding teams. They weren't outstanding G5 schools or P5 schools. Back then a small school might not get invited to a top 4 bowl but if they were passed over it was because of travel crowd, not strength of schedule.

Everybody knew the football power programs like USC, Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Notre Dame etc, but nobody thought of Vanderbilt, Duke, Wake Forest, or Northwestern as power football schools because they shared a conference with one.

And going back and looking at old records doesn't prove anything, and it doesn't disprove anything. Yeah the Rose bowl had a two sided tie in for a couple of decades, but most major bowls had a one sided tie in and the other side was open for selection, but even that was something for the relatively modern era, roughly 50's - 80's.

The whole term Power conference was a BCS creation as much as anything.

Your nuance is partially accurate. Has the BCS and CFP put a greater emphasis on "conference identity" and distinctions in status and prestige among conferences than was previously the case? Absolutely.

But, before the BCS, was college football solely about power schools with no real distinctions among conferences? Absolutely not. Growing up in the 1970s, some conferences clearly were more famous and had more status than others - the Big 10, the Big 8, the Pac 8, the SEC, and the SWC. Those were the major conferences, and those were the conferences that always had their champion in one of the Four New Year's Bowls - the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Cotton Bowls.

Other conferences were clearly regarded as "minor", not among the major conferences, and during football season that included the ACC.

Now, did that conference shine rub off much on the member schools? No. You are correct, circa 1975, schools like Kansas and Vanderbilt weren't regarded as "power" just because they were in major conferences.

But those conference distinctions did exist.

And they apparently went back further. E.g., about 15 years ago I recall reading a book about the 1951 San Franciso Dons, who had an unbeaten team that many think was a great team but that didn't get invited to a bowl game or receive much national recognition. Their peak poll ranking was around #15.

In the book, to a man, the surviving Dons said that a big reason they think that happened was because they weren't a member of the PCC, as today's PAC was then known. They talked about how the PCC got all the media coverage on the west coast and that the PCC snubbed "USF", refusing to schedule them, thus holding them down. That's the same kind of thing G5 schools say about the Power conferences. Same dynamic at work.

Since 1984, when the supreme court upended the NCAA control of football television rights, conferences have grown stronger and conference identity as a part of school identity has as well. But it was there before then too.

The bowls invited the schools with the largest travel crowds and deepest pockets because it was all about the local revenue. In the 80's Clemson had to prove its economic impact to Jacksonville Florida. So when they played in the Gator Bowl their fans carried $2 bills with an Orange Tiger Paw on them so they could show the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce the impact that Clemson fans brought. I used to buy blocks of Gator Bowl tickets for clients back in the day because usually some school within my area would be included and then clients would need tickets. It was a nice gift to give and I bought them prior to knowing who would be playing in the game and could usually get them for between 8 to 15 a piece.

The Dons weren't discriminated against for being from a non prime conference Quo. They were discriminated against for not having a large following. Remember Clemson had won the national championship in '81 and they were still having to prove their drawing power and in part because until '81 they hadn't been on the national radar.

The whole Power talk is from the BCS era and later. But big schools with big draws were the norm before, but not because of the name as much as the following.

All bowls were an infusion of tourist cash to the host cities. There's your difference in a nutshell. Today it's big names in full and raucous venues so that TV can attract ad revenue. The motive is still the same, profit.

But!!!!, what the Power Conference tag has brought is a marked difference in TV revenue that is now growing the divide between the haves and the underdogs to a chasm that is now going to be used to justify the divide. Last year Connecticut was the only G5 school to place within the top 65 in gross revenue totals. I've been following that for about 6 years. Each year there have been fewer and fewer G5's in the top 65 in earnings and this year UConn was the only one and it was because of a 50% subsidy. Schools that were within 5 million of the P5 six years ago are no longer within 10 million of anyone but Wake Forest and Washington State.

The networks changed the language, paid the schools with the larger draws a lot more money, and now can point to the divide in revenue as a justification for the new arrangement.

I'm not sure that we really disagree on much here. To nit-pick, I'd say:

1) About the Dons, I was just recalling what the players on that team said. They said the PCC 'held them down', so I'm not going to argue with them, they lived through it.

2) About the past: Yes, the dollar values have grown tremendously. E.g., twenty years ago, Florida had about a $23 million athletic budget. Not just football, the whole budget. Now, it's about $150 million.

But, I'm not sure the gap is any more, in relative terms. E.g., in 1975, Alabama was a nationally-famous dominant football program, tons of sports media coverage, huge fan base, etc. and Louisiana-Lafayette was nothing. Today, same thing. Heck, if anything, I bet more have heard of ULL today than had in 1975.

Remember, not all the rules back then were equalizing. In 1975, there were no roster size limits and the big schools could hoard armies of players. Bobby Bowden recalls that when he was starting out, he'd hang around the Alabama training camp and because Bear took a liking to him, he'd point out guys who were good players but were never going to see the field at Alabama and let Bowden try and pick them up.

From what I've seen over the years, if anything, the overall profile of G5 teams is higher than it was 40 years ago. 40 years ago, nobody knew schools like South Alabama and San Jose State existed as football programs.

Quo there are two ends to the G5. Without question those which have jumped from Div II to FCS and from FCS to FBS have seen an increase in their profile. But take the MAC and WAC teams which in the 70's were pretty darned competitive, they've regressed. So on the bottom end of the G5 you have those who have pushed to enhance their profile but it's the upper end of the G5 that have regressed, Connecticut included and that has everything to do with the revenue gap.

As for public perception maybe ULL has picked up some steam, but the top programs are far less threatened because their revenue advantage is not only much much larger, but is more secure as crunched state budgets are beginning to curtail their support unilaterally.

Keep in mind too that several of the East Coast teams in the pre-Big East era were considered power teams (Penn State, Syracuse, Pitt, Miami, FSU, WVU, etc). With the exception of Penn State, they may not have been powers every year, but if they had a good season, they would get an invite into a NYD Bowl or consideration for a national title.

(07-30-2018 12:02 PM)esayem Wrote:  The point is Cincinnati had a short, but nice run in their long history of FBS football. They don’t have a legitimate gripe over any other program that had a nice run. You say because they won the Big East a few times? Brian Kelly is now the coach at Notre Dame, so obviously that had something to do with it.

Cincinnati was looked at as less desirable than Louisville and UConn, at least by the ACC.

I wouldn't necessarily say less desirable so much as less... ready.

(07-30-2018 10:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Back to BTN.

I would suspect what is really being demanded is to pull BTN off base packages to keep costs down for those and then charging more to get BTN.

If Joe Fan is willing to pay $5 a month more to get BTN, the providers will be happy to send $2.50 to BTN.

AGREED - cable wants to move these off the basic tier to keep costs down.

However, as PSUHockey points out, if it's only going to hard-core fans it wouldn't be $5/month -- more like $10 to $20/month. As number of subscribers drops, price must go up proportionately. 1/4th as many subscribers --> 4X the price.

(07-30-2018 12:38 PM)whittx Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 11:19 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 09:57 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 04:52 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 04:18 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Your nuance is partially accurate. Has the BCS and CFP put a greater emphasis on "conference identity" and distinctions in status and prestige among conferences than was previously the case? Absolutely.

But, before the BCS, was college football solely about power schools with no real distinctions among conferences? Absolutely not. Growing up in the 1970s, some conferences clearly were more famous and had more status than others - the Big 10, the Big 8, the Pac 8, the SEC, and the SWC. Those were the major conferences, and those were the conferences that always had their champion in one of the Four New Year's Bowls - the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Cotton Bowls.

Other conferences were clearly regarded as "minor", not among the major conferences, and during football season that included the ACC.

Now, did that conference shine rub off much on the member schools? No. You are correct, circa 1975, schools like Kansas and Vanderbilt weren't regarded as "power" just because they were in major conferences.

But those conference distinctions did exist.

And they apparently went back further. E.g., about 15 years ago I recall reading a book about the 1951 San Franciso Dons, who had an unbeaten team that many think was a great team but that didn't get invited to a bowl game or receive much national recognition. Their peak poll ranking was around #15.

In the book, to a man, the surviving Dons said that a big reason they think that happened was because they weren't a member of the PCC, as today's PAC was then known. They talked about how the PCC got all the media coverage on the west coast and that the PCC snubbed "USF", refusing to schedule them, thus holding them down. That's the same kind of thing G5 schools say about the Power conferences. Same dynamic at work.

Since 1984, when the supreme court upended the NCAA control of football television rights, conferences have grown stronger and conference identity as a part of school identity has as well. But it was there before then too.

The bowls invited the schools with the largest travel crowds and deepest pockets because it was all about the local revenue. In the 80's Clemson had to prove its economic impact to Jacksonville Florida. So when they played in the Gator Bowl their fans carried $2 bills with an Orange Tiger Paw on them so they could show the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce the impact that Clemson fans brought. I used to buy blocks of Gator Bowl tickets for clients back in the day because usually some school within my area would be included and then clients would need tickets. It was a nice gift to give and I bought them prior to knowing who would be playing in the game and could usually get them for between 8 to 15 a piece.

The Dons weren't discriminated against for being from a non prime conference Quo. They were discriminated against for not having a large following. Remember Clemson had won the national championship in '81 and they were still having to prove their drawing power and in part because until '81 they hadn't been on the national radar.

The whole Power talk is from the BCS era and later. But big schools with big draws were the norm before, but not because of the name as much as the following.

All bowls were an infusion of tourist cash to the host cities. There's your difference in a nutshell. Today it's big names in full and raucous venues so that TV can attract ad revenue. The motive is still the same, profit.

But!!!!, what the Power Conference tag has brought is a marked difference in TV revenue that is now growing the divide between the haves and the underdogs to a chasm that is now going to be used to justify the divide. Last year Connecticut was the only G5 school to place within the top 65 in gross revenue totals. I've been following that for about 6 years. Each year there have been fewer and fewer G5's in the top 65 in earnings and this year UConn was the only one and it was because of a 50% subsidy. Schools that were within 5 million of the P5 six years ago are no longer within 10 million of anyone but Wake Forest and Washington State.

The networks changed the language, paid the schools with the larger draws a lot more money, and now can point to the divide in revenue as a justification for the new arrangement.

I'm not sure that we really disagree on much here. To nit-pick, I'd say:

1) About the Dons, I was just recalling what the players on that team said. They said the PCC 'held them down', so I'm not going to argue with them, they lived through it.

2) About the past: Yes, the dollar values have grown tremendously. E.g., twenty years ago, Florida had about a $23 million athletic budget. Not just football, the whole budget. Now, it's about $150 million.

But, I'm not sure the gap is any more, in relative terms. E.g., in 1975, Alabama was a nationally-famous dominant football program, tons of sports media coverage, huge fan base, etc. and Louisiana-Lafayette was nothing. Today, same thing. Heck, if anything, I bet more have heard of ULL today than had in 1975.

Remember, not all the rules back then were equalizing. In 1975, there were no roster size limits and the big schools could hoard armies of players. Bobby Bowden recalls that when he was starting out, he'd hang around the Alabama training camp and because Bear took a liking to him, he'd point out guys who were good players but were never going to see the field at Alabama and let Bowden try and pick them up.

From what I've seen over the years, if anything, the overall profile of G5 teams is higher than it was 40 years ago. 40 years ago, nobody knew schools like South Alabama and San Jose State existed as football programs.

Quo there are two ends to the G5. Without question those which have jumped from Div II to FCS and from FCS to FBS have seen an increase in their profile. But take the MAC and WAC teams which in the 70's were pretty darned competitive, they've regressed. So on the bottom end of the G5 you have those who have pushed to enhance their profile but it's the upper end of the G5 that have regressed, Connecticut included and that has everything to do with the revenue gap.

As for public perception maybe ULL has picked up some steam, but the top programs are far less threatened because their revenue advantage is not only much much larger, but is more secure as crunched state budgets are beginning to curtail their support unilaterally.

Keep in mind too that several of the East Coast teams in the pre-Big East era were considered power teams (Penn State, Syracuse, Pitt, Miami, FSU, WVU, etc). With the exception of Penn State, they may not have been powers every year, but if they had a good season, they would get an invite into a NYD Bowl or consideration for a national title.

Yes. And it was no accident that in order to build their profile the ACC took 4 of those. But again it was TV money that was the lure. The networks built the product collections they wanted by dangling cash.

In a business product placement sells less popular merchandise by where the most popular is placed. College football was no different. Where would the value of the ACC really be today without F.S.U.? Would Clemson have stepped it up like they did without the presence of an F.S.U.? Virginia Tech, Miami, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse (all of which were arguably better in the Old Big East) were intended to provide the antagonists around which to build branding.

Some additions were made for just markets and some for both a good support for content and for markets.

But the shift has been away from the branding of a school and towards the branding of the conference and with that the lesser football schools have received arguably the bigger boost in prestige because now the Duke's, Wake's, and Vandy's get the benefit of the label on their jersey in fulfilling bowl quotas and their games have more meaning as they enhance or detract from the conference's overall record and S.o.S..

And you may have noticed but the individual stats of schools are no longer as hyped as the overall stats of conferences. Selling the collective reaches more fans than selling just a school.

The networks in order to protect against the down years of individual schools have hyped the conference angle so that if an Alabama or Florida State gets tripped up early in a season they have a story line left to sell.

(07-30-2018 12:54 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 10:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Back to BTN.

I would suspect what is really being demanded is to pull BTN off base packages to keep costs down for those and then charging more to get BTN.

If Joe Fan is willing to pay $5 a month more to get BTN, the providers will be happy to send $2.50 to BTN.

AGREED - cable wants to move these off the basic tier to keep costs down.

However, as PSUHockey points out, if it's only going to hard-core fans it wouldn't be $5/month -- more like $10 to $20/month. As number of subscribers drops, price must go up proportionately. 1/4th as many subscribers --> 4X the price.

$240 dollars for a year of sports coverage? It's a question of perspective. That's about the cost of 3 tickets to an SEC football game with no donation required to purchase the tickets.

People may not like it, but that's a deal! It's probably cheaper than going to 5 movies a year with your wife or a date if you are a single guy. Two movie tickets are $30 now and popcorn and drinks makes it $50. You might get out for $40 if you don't get the more comfortable seats.

So it's really a question of your personal entertainment choices. 4 nice meals out for two, 5 movies for 2, or sports in your home for a year? If your significant other is a sports fan too (and thank God mine is) it's not so tough to figure out.

(07-30-2018 12:54 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 10:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Back to BTN.

I would suspect what is really being demanded is to pull BTN off base packages to keep costs down for those and then charging more to get BTN.

If Joe Fan is willing to pay $5 a month more to get BTN, the providers will be happy to send $2.50 to BTN.

AGREED - cable wants to move these off the basic tier to keep costs down.

However, as PSUHockey points out, if it's only going to hard-core fans it wouldn't be $5/month -- more like $10 to $20/month. As number of subscribers drops, price must go up proportionately. 1/4th as many subscribers --> 4X the price.

Well I'd like my odds selling BTN online or via cable subscription to Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and Nebraska fans. The dispersed fan in Phoenix, Miami or Dallas becomes vastly more valuable because he is going to pay full freight rather than a reduced out-of-market rate (along with other out-of-market viewers who don't care).

Nebraska becomes more valuable in that situation. Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue, Indiana do not.

BTN gets something like a dollar a month in B1G states and 40 cents out-of-market. A straight $10 across the board might actually be close if the deal for going subscription is to permit BTN to direct sell. Then the cord cutters can hop in.

(07-30-2018 01:05 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 12:54 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 10:37 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  Back to BTN.

I would suspect what is really being demanded is to pull BTN off base packages to keep costs down for those and then charging more to get BTN.

If Joe Fan is willing to pay $5 a month more to get BTN, the providers will be happy to send $2.50 to BTN.

AGREED - cable wants to move these off the basic tier to keep costs down.

However, as PSUHockey points out, if it's only going to hard-core fans it wouldn't be $5/month -- more like $10 to $20/month. As number of subscribers drops, price must go up proportionately. 1/4th as many subscribers --> 4X the price.

Well I'd like my odds selling BTN online or via cable subscription to Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and Nebraska fans. The dispersed fan in Phoenix, Miami or Dallas becomes vastly more valuable because he is going to pay full freight rather than a reduced out-of-market rate (along with other out-of-market viewers who don't care).

Nebraska becomes more valuable in that situation. Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue, Indiana do not.

BTN gets something like a dollar a month in B1G states and 40 cents out-of-market. A straight $10 across the board might actually be close if the deal for going subscription is to permit BTN to direct sell. Then the cord cutters can hop in.

That why all future consolidation will be brand dependent. Fan bases will have to be large and feverishly willing to pay the high costs of programming. Maryland and Rutgers, though bringing others things to the table like rich prospective out of state students and higher tier 1 costs for the Big Ten, got in at the perfect time. I doubt they would have under today’s climate.

(07-30-2018 12:51 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 12:02 PM)esayem Wrote:  The point is Cincinnati had a short, but nice run in their long history of FBS football. They don’t have a legitimate gripe over any other program that had a nice run. You say because they won the Big East a few times? Brian Kelly is now the coach at Notre Dame, so obviously that had something to do with it.

Cincinnati was looked at as less desirable than Louisville and UConn, at least by the ACC.

I wouldn't necessarily say less desirable so much as less... ready.

As a Louisville fan I agree with this assertion. Bill Olsen was enough of a visionary to keep our football program at Louisville alive while there was talk of actually eliminating football like Xavier or at the minimum moving down to what was Division II at the time.

Instead Olsen and a few boosters had this crazy idea to hire Howard Schnellenberger in December 1984 and as they say the rest is history.

For all our struggles Louisville has never had a president that was anti-athletics. I believe, if I remember correctly, Cincinnati had Nancy Zimpher who was less than cordial to UC athletics during a critical period of conference realignment.

A UC fan may correct me but I believe Cincinnati has done an amazing job considering the leadership it had. I believe UC is well positioned to move to The Big 12 as soon as that conference collectively removes its head from its rectum.
CJ

(07-30-2018 01:37 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 12:51 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 12:02 PM)esayem Wrote:  The point is Cincinnati had a short, but nice run in their long history of FBS football. They don’t have a legitimate gripe over any other program that had a nice run. You say because they won the Big East a few times? Brian Kelly is now the coach at Notre Dame, so obviously that had something to do with it.

Cincinnati was looked at as less desirable than Louisville and UConn, at least by the ACC.

I wouldn't necessarily say less desirable so much as less... ready.

As a Louisville fan I agree with this assertion. Bill Olsen was enough of a visionary to keep our football program at Louisville alive while there was talk of actually eliminating football like Xavier or at the minimum moving down to what was Division II at the time.

Instead Olsen and a few boosters had this crazy idea to hire Howard Schnellenberger in December 1984 and as they say the rest is history.

For all our struggles Louisville has never had a president that was anti-athletics. I believe, if I remember correctly, Cincinnati had Nancy Zimpher who was less than cordial to UC athletics during a critical period of conference realignment.

A UC fan may correct me but I believe Cincinnati has done an amazing job considering the leadership it had. I believe UC is well positioned to move to The Big 12 as soon as that conference collectively removes its head from its rectum.
CJ

I'll go one further... if the ACC ever needs a 16th I think UC would get a long hard look. My primary concern would be the size of their football stadium (and whether they could fill a bigger one).

(07-30-2018 02:30 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 01:37 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 12:51 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 12:02 PM)esayem Wrote:  The point is Cincinnati had a short, but nice run in their long history of FBS football. They don’t have a legitimate gripe over any other program that had a nice run. You say because they won the Big East a few times? Brian Kelly is now the coach at Notre Dame, so obviously that had something to do with it.

Cincinnati was looked at as less desirable than Louisville and UConn, at least by the ACC.

I wouldn't necessarily say less desirable so much as less... ready.

As a Louisville fan I agree with this assertion. Bill Olsen was enough of a visionary to keep our football program at Louisville alive while there was talk of actually eliminating football like Xavier or at the minimum moving down to what was Division II at the time.

Instead Olsen and a few boosters had this crazy idea to hire Howard Schnellenberger in December 1984 and as they say the rest is history.

For all our struggles Louisville has never had a president that was anti-athletics. I believe, if I remember correctly, Cincinnati had Nancy Zimpher who was less than cordial to UC athletics during a critical period of conference realignment.

A UC fan may correct me but I believe Cincinnati has done an amazing job considering the leadership it had. I believe UC is well positioned to move to The Big 12 as soon as that conference collectively removes its head from its rectum.
CJ

I'll go one further... if the ACC ever needs a 16th I think UC would get a long hard look. My primary concern would be the size of their football stadium (and whether they could fill a bigger one).

They have Paul Brown Stadium to use if/when needed. Capacity at Nippert is identical to Duke and larger than Wake, and comparable to BC.

(07-30-2018 02:34 PM)megadrone Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 02:30 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 01:37 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 12:51 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 12:02 PM)esayem Wrote:  The point is Cincinnati had a short, but nice run in their long history of FBS football. They don’t have a legitimate gripe over any other program that had a nice run. You say because they won the Big East a few times? Brian Kelly is now the coach at Notre Dame, so obviously that had something to do with it.

Cincinnati was looked at as less desirable than Louisville and UConn, at least by the ACC.

I wouldn't necessarily say less desirable so much as less... ready.

As a Louisville fan I agree with this assertion. Bill Olsen was enough of a visionary to keep our football program at Louisville alive while there was talk of actually eliminating football like Xavier or at the minimum moving down to what was Division II at the time.

Instead Olsen and a few boosters had this crazy idea to hire Howard Schnellenberger in December 1984 and as they say the rest is history.

For all our struggles Louisville has never had a president that was anti-athletics. I believe, if I remember correctly, Cincinnati had Nancy Zimpher who was less than cordial to UC athletics during a critical period of conference realignment.

A UC fan may correct me but I believe Cincinnati has done an amazing job considering the leadership it had. I believe UC is well positioned to move to The Big 12 as soon as that conference collectively removes its head from its rectum.
CJ

I'll go one further... if the ACC ever needs a 16th I think UC would get a long hard look. My primary concern would be the size of their football stadium (and whether they could fill a bigger one).

They have Paul Brown Stadium to use if/when needed. Capacity at Nippert is identical to Duke and larger than Wake, and comparable to BC.

The ACC already has Duke, Wake, and BC football. They need something more like NC State or UNC if they can't get a VPI, FSU or Clemson.

(07-30-2018 12:02 PM)esayem Wrote:  The point is Cincinnati had a short, but nice run in their long history of FBS football. They don’t have a legitimate gripe over any other program that had a nice run. You say because they won the Big East a few times? Brian Kelly is now the coach at Notre Dame, so obviously that had something to do with it.

Cincinnati was looked at as less desirable than Louisville and UConn, at least by the ACC.

Bobby Petrino, Charlie Strong, Rich Rod, Greg Schiano all had success in the BE and moved on and those schools all got a call up to the P5.

(07-30-2018 02:38 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 02:34 PM)megadrone Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 02:30 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 01:37 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 12:51 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote:  I wouldn't necessarily say less desirable so much as less... ready.

As a Louisville fan I agree with this assertion. Bill Olsen was enough of a visionary to keep our football program at Louisville alive while there was talk of actually eliminating football like Xavier or at the minimum moving down to what was Division II at the time.

Instead Olsen and a few boosters had this crazy idea to hire Howard Schnellenberger in December 1984 and as they say the rest is history.

For all our struggles Louisville has never had a president that was anti-athletics. I believe, if I remember correctly, Cincinnati had Nancy Zimpher who was less than cordial to UC athletics during a critical period of conference realignment.

A UC fan may correct me but I believe Cincinnati has done an amazing job considering the leadership it had. I believe UC is well positioned to move to The Big 12 as soon as that conference collectively removes its head from its rectum.
CJ

I'll go one further... if the ACC ever needs a 16th I think UC would get a long hard look. My primary concern would be the size of their football stadium (and whether they could fill a bigger one).

They have Paul Brown Stadium to use if/when needed. Capacity at Nippert is identical to Duke and larger than Wake, and comparable to BC.

The ACC already has Duke, Wake, and BC football. They need something more like NC State or UNC if they can't get a VPI, FSU or Clemson.

Cincy is a much better FB program than UNC and anyone complaining about their stadium never had to go to Nippert at night. That place rocks! It is hard to win there. Ask your Louisville friends about their days going there in the Big East days when the BE invented Big Thursday games.

(07-30-2018 11:19 AM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 09:57 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 04:52 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 04:18 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-29-2018 12:03 PM)JRsec Wrote:  What everyone is missing here is my nuance. Prior to the whole comprehensive bowl tie in shenanigans there were no power conferences, only conferences. And outstanding teams were simply outstanding teams. They weren't outstanding G5 schools or P5 schools. Back then a small school might not get invited to a top 4 bowl but if they were passed over it was because of travel crowd, not strength of schedule.

Everybody knew the football power programs like USC, Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Notre Dame etc, but nobody thought of Vanderbilt, Duke, Wake Forest, or Northwestern as power football schools because they shared a conference with one.

And going back and looking at old records doesn't prove anything, and it doesn't disprove anything. Yeah the Rose bowl had a two sided tie in for a couple of decades, but most major bowls had a one sided tie in and the other side was open for selection, but even that was something for the relatively modern era, roughly 50's - 80's.

The whole term Power conference was a BCS creation as much as anything.

Your nuance is partially accurate. Has the BCS and CFP put a greater emphasis on "conference identity" and distinctions in status and prestige among conferences than was previously the case? Absolutely.

But, before the BCS, was college football solely about power schools with no real distinctions among conferences? Absolutely not. Growing up in the 1970s, some conferences clearly were more famous and had more status than others - the Big 10, the Big 8, the Pac 8, the SEC, and the SWC. Those were the major conferences, and those were the conferences that always had their champion in one of the Four New Year's Bowls - the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Cotton Bowls.

Other conferences were clearly regarded as "minor", not among the major conferences, and during football season that included the ACC.

Now, did that conference shine rub off much on the member schools? No. You are correct, circa 1975, schools like Kansas and Vanderbilt weren't regarded as "power" just because they were in major conferences.

But those conference distinctions did exist.

And they apparently went back further. E.g., about 15 years ago I recall reading a book about the 1951 San Franciso Dons, who had an unbeaten team that many think was a great team but that didn't get invited to a bowl game or receive much national recognition. Their peak poll ranking was around #15.

In the book, to a man, the surviving Dons said that a big reason they think that happened was because they weren't a member of the PCC, as today's PAC was then known. They talked about how the PCC got all the media coverage on the west coast and that the PCC snubbed "USF", refusing to schedule them, thus holding them down. That's the same kind of thing G5 schools say about the Power conferences. Same dynamic at work.

Since 1984, when the supreme court upended the NCAA control of football television rights, conferences have grown stronger and conference identity as a part of school identity has as well. But it was there before then too.

The bowls invited the schools with the largest travel crowds and deepest pockets because it was all about the local revenue. In the 80's Clemson had to prove its economic impact to Jacksonville Florida. So when they played in the Gator Bowl their fans carried $2 bills with an Orange Tiger Paw on them so they could show the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce the impact that Clemson fans brought. I used to buy blocks of Gator Bowl tickets for clients back in the day because usually some school within my area would be included and then clients would need tickets. It was a nice gift to give and I bought them prior to knowing who would be playing in the game and could usually get them for between 8 to 15 a piece.

The Dons weren't discriminated against for being from a non prime conference Quo. They were discriminated against for not having a large following. Remember Clemson had won the national championship in '81 and they were still having to prove their drawing power and in part because until '81 they hadn't been on the national radar.

The whole Power talk is from the BCS era and later. But big schools with big draws were the norm before, but not because of the name as much as the following.

All bowls were an infusion of tourist cash to the host cities. There's your difference in a nutshell. Today it's big names in full and raucous venues so that TV can attract ad revenue. The motive is still the same, profit.

But!!!!, what the Power Conference tag has brought is a marked difference in TV revenue that is now growing the divide between the haves and the underdogs to a chasm that is now going to be used to justify the divide. Last year Connecticut was the only G5 school to place within the top 65 in gross revenue totals. I've been following that for about 6 years. Each year there have been fewer and fewer G5's in the top 65 in earnings and this year UConn was the only one and it was because of a 50% subsidy. Schools that were within 5 million of the P5 six years ago are no longer within 10 million of anyone but Wake Forest and Washington State.

The networks changed the language, paid the schools with the larger draws a lot more money, and now can point to the divide in revenue as a justification for the new arrangement.

I'm not sure that we really disagree on much here. To nit-pick, I'd say:

1) About the Dons, I was just recalling what the players on that team said. They said the PCC 'held them down', so I'm not going to argue with them, they lived through it.

2) About the past: Yes, the dollar values have grown tremendously. E.g., twenty years ago, Florida had about a $23 million athletic budget. Not just football, the whole budget. Now, it's about $150 million.

But, I'm not sure the gap is any more, in relative terms. E.g., in 1975, Alabama was a nationally-famous dominant football program, tons of sports media coverage, huge fan base, etc. and Louisiana-Lafayette was nothing. Today, same thing. Heck, if anything, I bet more have heard of ULL today than had in 1975.

Remember, not all the rules back then were equalizing. In 1975, there were no roster size limits and the big schools could hoard armies of players. Bobby Bowden recalls that when he was starting out, he'd hang around the Alabama training camp and because Bear took a liking to him, he'd point out guys who were good players but were never going to see the field at Alabama and let Bowden try and pick them up.

From what I've seen over the years, if anything, the overall profile of G5 teams is higher than it was 40 years ago. 40 years ago, nobody knew schools like South Alabama and San Jose State existed as football programs.

Quo there are two ends to the G5. Without question those which have jumped from Div II to FCS and from FCS to FBS have seen an increase in their profile. But take the MAC and WAC teams which in the 70's were pretty darned competitive, they've regressed. So on the bottom end of the G5 you have those who have pushed to enhance their profile but it's the upper end of the G5 that have regressed, Connecticut included and that has everything to do with the revenue gap.

Good points.

(07-30-2018 02:49 PM)RutgersGuy Wrote:  Cincy is a much better FB program than UNC and anyone complaining about their stadium never had to go to Nippert at night. That place rocks! It is hard to win there. Ask your Louisville friends about their days going there in the Big East days when the BE invented Big Thursday games.

Really? By the numbers...

UNC: 5 players in the college hall, 14 consensus All-Americans, 31 bowl appearances; .568 all-time winning %; 245 all-time AP poll appearances with 76 all-time appearances in the top 5 which includes 16 total seasons ranked in the final poll with 7 final top ten finishes, highest-ever final rank #3; last finished ranked in 2015 (#15); average home attendance 2017 was 50,071.

Cincy: 0 players in the college hall, 3 consensus All-Americans, 17 bowl appearances; .507 all-time winning %; 41 all-time AP poll appearances with 8 all-time appearances in the top 5 which includes 4 total seasons ranked in the final poll with 1 final top ten finish, highest-ever final rank #8; last finished ranked 2011 (#25); average home attendance 2017 was 28,434.

(07-30-2018 11:19 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Quo there are two ends to the G5. Without question those which have jumped from Div II to FCS and from FCS to FBS have seen an increase in their profile. But take the MAC and WAC teams which in the 70's were pretty darned competitive, they've regressed. So on the bottom end of the G5 you have those who have pushed to enhance their profile but it's the upper end of the G5 that have regressed, Connecticut included and that has everything to do with the revenue gap.

As for public perception maybe ULL has picked up some steam, but the top programs are far less threatened because their revenue advantage is not only much much larger, but is more secure as crunched state budgets are beginning to curtail their support unilaterally.

I'm going to disagree just slightly.

The gap started from exposure. The end of the NCAA contract meant that a game like Arkansas State at Kansas would no longer be on ABC regional to tick off a required Southland appearance and keep the Big 8 happy by spreading the love around. Louisiana-Lafayette at Arkansas State wouldn't be an ABC regional to satisfy the Southland's contracted appearances two years earlier.

Instead of Texas appearing every year for OU and then some mix of three games involving Arkansas and TAMU every two years (ie. one of the two had to be skipped every other year nationally), Texas could be on a national telecast every week.

It changed how voters cast their votes in the polls. Where before much of the Top 20 (25) and those in range to be considered would not be on TV. Many votes were cast based on box scores and conference standings.

Now the team not in contention in a top conference could be seen on your TV screen and hey they looked pretty good even though they can't catch Michigan in the standings and maybe are worth a vote while the G5 equivalent of the era wasn't on TV so it seemed harder to cast a vote for Northern Illinois over Iowa if you have seen Iowa who looked pretty good vs an NIU who you've only seen the scores and maybe a box score.

The notable money gap didn't develop until more than a decade after OU v. NCAA but the performance gap started earlier.

The money gap makes a HUGE difference but the trend pre-dates the money.

(07-30-2018 04:44 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(07-30-2018 11:19 AM)JRsec Wrote:  Quo there are two ends to the G5. Without question those which have jumped from Div II to FCS and from FCS to FBS have seen an increase in their profile. But take the MAC and WAC teams which in the 70's were pretty darned competitive, they've regressed. So on the bottom end of the G5 you have those who have pushed to enhance their profile but it's the upper end of the G5 that have regressed, Connecticut included and that has everything to do with the revenue gap.

As for public perception maybe ULL has picked up some steam, but the top programs are far less threatened because their revenue advantage is not only much much larger, but is more secure as crunched state budgets are beginning to curtail their support unilaterally.

I'm going to disagree just slightly.

The gap started from exposure. The end of the NCAA contract meant that a game like Arkansas State at Kansas would no longer be on ABC regional to tick off a required Southland appearance and keep the Big 8 happy by spreading the love around. Louisiana-Lafayette at Arkansas State wouldn't be an ABC regional to satisfy the Southland's contracted appearances two years earlier.

Instead of Texas appearing every year for OU and then some mix of three games involving Arkansas and TAMU every two years (ie. one of the two had to be skipped every other year nationally), Texas could be on a national telecast every week.

It changed how voters cast their votes in the polls. Where before much of the Top 20 (25) and those in range to be considered would not be on TV. Many votes were cast based on box scores and conference standings.

Now the team not in contention in a top conference could be seen on your TV screen and hey they looked pretty good even though they can't catch Michigan in the standings and maybe are worth a vote while the G5 equivalent of the era wasn't on TV so it seemed harder to cast a vote for Northern Illinois over Iowa if you have seen Iowa who looked pretty good vs an NIU who you've only seen the scores and maybe a box score.

The notable money gap didn't develop until more than a decade after OU v. NCAA but the performance gap started earlier.

The money gap makes a HUGE difference but the trend pre-dates the money.

I can see that having been a precursor for what would later be a justification to increase the revenue gap.