(02-21-2019 01:49 PM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote: (02-20-2019 11:07 PM)JRsec Wrote: Oh and one other thing. Do you know why the SEC and Big 10 schools have no problems scheduling G5's at home? Because the visiting G5 schools usually earn more playing in our venues than they could make at home. Playing more home games is a sign of the economic strength of a conference, not its weakness. There's a reason ACC schools schedule G5's at their home stadiums.
I am sure that every G5 school and FCS school thanks the SEC for their generosity. Everyone knows that the SEC is a great football conference, particularly at the top with Alabama, Georgia, Auburn and LSU.
That said, it would not hurt if some of the SEC schools mixed a non-conference road game into their schedule. For example, Arkansas in 2019 has four OOC home games. They play Portland State, Colorado State, San Jose State and Western Kentucky. Not the most challenging schedule, although Arkansas did lose to Colorado State on the road last season. Playing eight home games is not a sign of strength.
Or take Tennessee. They are playing four games at home as well against Georgia State, BYU, Chattanooga and UAB. Again, not the most challenging non-conference schedule and like Arkansas, no P5 schools.
Everybody knows how good the top of the SEC is, it is just that the rest of the conference does not look as scary. In 2017, Ole Miss lost at Cal 27-16. Missouri lost at home to Purdue 35-3. UCLA beat Texas A&M 45-44 in the Rose Bowl. Arkansas lost at home to TCU 28-7. South Carolina lost to Clemson at home 34-10, although Clemson is obviously a top five team. Auburn also lost to Clemson 14-6 at Clemson. Florida lost to Michigan on a neutral field 33-17 and to Florida State at home 38-22. Kentucky lost to Louisville on the road 44-17.
The SEC ended up 7-9 against Power Conference Schools in non-conference regular season games in 2017. Alabama beat Florida State, Georgia beat Notre Dame and Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt beat Kansas State at home, Tennessee beat Georgia Tech in Atlanta, South Carolina beat North Carolina State and LSU beat Syracuse, although they lost to Troy the following week.
The point is, there are some great teams at the top of the SEC and the rest of the conference is okay. The Big Ten, the Pac-12 and the Big 12 play nine game conference schedules, which means every other season they play five conference games on the road. In 2017, Oklahoma goes on the road and beats Ohio State. Then they play four conference road games plus a "neutral site" game at Dallas against Texas. That schedule is much more challenging.
I would like to see Alabama play at least one game in non-conference that might be considered challenging. The 2019 OOC schedule with Duke at Atlanta, New Mexico State, Southern Mississippi and Western Carolina is really light. As a football fan, it would be nice to see Alabama on the road or at home playing a top 25 team in non-conference play. It would be interesting to see SEC teams schedule more P5 schools in non-conference football games.
FWIW the conference office has stressed its displeasure with the few conference teams that wind up with 4 OOC games against G5 or less. Do you know the reasons that still happens? It's called a cancellation. When a P5 cancels a home and home with you a year or two out that means the A.D. has to fill that slot with whomever he can find on short notice and that is usually going to be a school that needs a payday.
As far as the rest of the conference goes their winning % against OOC teams still remains pretty high. And I see you used 2017 instead of 2018. Why was that? A little cherrypicking to make a point never hurts huh?
The Big 12 chose to play 9 conference games and the round robin accomplished what they wanted. It increased their content value. And the top product of the Big 12 does play 10 P games in an effort to boost their SOS and increase their national exposure. And it has worked. They've had a CFP representative since doing it.
The Big 10 is kicking around moving back to 8 conference games. Nine is baked into their contract for now but we'll see what they get when their contract is up for renewal in 2023. And we'll see if they make any changes then.
As for the PAC well you are what you are and that's not been much at the top for some time now. So playing 9 conference games hasn't really helped your SOS has it?
The SEC will likely be looking at going to 9 conference games when a network pays us to do so. Our T1 is up 2023-4. With it just being T1 I doubt the 9th conference game comes up because moving to it would impact T2 and T3 rights the most.
The SEC is expected to knock down 300 million for their T1 when they renew with CBS and according to the Chairman of CBS sports they are pushing for the renewal early. To put that into perspective the SEC's last contract with CBS was for 55 million a year. So the increase is going to be a whopper, but that's what happens when your existing contract is almost 18 years old in an industry that has seen massive change.
So we should know within a couple of years if baked into that figure is any additional conference games for the SEC.
Every contract negotiating period gives incremental increases for what the networks want. Nobody is giving any concessions away for free. These glacially paced changes will occur over a protracted period of time. Adding schools to a conference, increasing the number of P games, increasing the number of conference games, and moving games to fill network needs during a historically slow week in the schedule are all part of the conference game to squeeze out more revenue and no commissioner is going to simply give those concessions away.
The simple truth is for games televised nationally from a traditional over the air channel (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX) the SEC games on CBS drew an average 3.1 ratings share for 2018, the B1G drew a 2.8 and ND. drew a 1.7. The ACC, B12 and PAC fell in between the Irish and the Big 10. The SEC will again be the attendance leader. The SEC, even with the Big 10's 51.1 million in TV revenue will still be the total revenue leader and by an average over the Big 10 of somewhere between 9 to 11 million per school.
Shifts in demographics, cultural commitment to football in the Southeast and Southwest, and the lack of other competing entertainment industries all play into that. But it is what it is. And SEC fatigue by the rest of the nation is understandable. There's a great deal of envy and schadenfreude that goes along with that. But the simple truth is that outside of the Southeast Ohio State is the only school to win a national championship in the last 15 years since USC had their title stripped. Clemson and Florida State account for the rest.
I'd say that's more than a trend and I make that point to say when the SOS for SEC schools is impaired by their current business model, or when somebody tosses more cash our way, then we might change. But, I don't foresee any changes. Why change what's working?
The issue I see where your PAC is concerned is that you haven't had a school step up. I think the PAC has the broadest and most competitive middle of any conference, but you do not have that "next level" team at this time. Your leaders have been getting knocked out early in OOC games, particularly in the first two weeks of the season. That alone is enough to kill your chances.
The ACC has managed to consistently produce a national challenger over the past 15 years even if that has been limited to a pool of two schools.
The Big 10 has 7 schools that can make a run but only 1 truly dominant program.
The Big 12 is shaping up a bit with Texas and Oklahoma both trending up. The SEC has been quietly getting deeper in the middle. Alabama has camouflaged that with their run of truly dominant teams. Florida is on an uptick, Georgia is truly competitive, Tennessee is showing improvement, and L.S.U. and A&M's futures both look to challenge the Tide.
Now why do I point all of that out? Because as long as we are the leader in ratings on a non cable tiered channel, as long as we continue to win championships regularly, as long as we are the overall revenue leader, and as long as we lead the nation in average attendance at our venues, we will continue to conduct business like we have. And it is a business. Nobody abandons a successful business model because of a minority of negativity from the general public. So nobody at the SEC home office cares what you think, or what I think.
When those statistics change negatively then they will make changes.
But back to the main point. Nothing that you have said changes the fact that the SEC had 6 of the top 7 positions in Strength of Schedule last year, or 10 of the top 20 for that matter. Those are the facts. Nobody in the SEC thinks that our teams top to bottom are the best. But even before Alabama went on its run Florida, Tennessee, L.S.U. and Auburn had won National Championships. Is there another conference that has that kind of record over basically a 25 year run? Love us or hate us it is what it is.
Side note: Alabama (a school Auburn folks despise) has opened with Ohio State, Florida State, Louisville (when they were supposed to be good but right after the unforeseen implosion of Petrino) Washington and I'm thinking a Big 12 school and you say you wished they would play just 1 strong P school OOC? What else should they do?
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FBS OOC schedules for 2019
