(04-23-2020 04:25 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Maybe the P5 doesn't see things the same way as forum pontificators? They get the football money as it is, and they know that the public pays for the Big Dance because it includes all those other conferences. Make it P5-only and it loses a ton of its charm, and hence appeal.

Disagree. The TV value in March Madness boils down to:
(1) Gambling, both small-time and big-time
(2) Big-name programs in the Elite Eight, leading to top ratings for the Elite Eight and Final Four
(3) A few "David vs. Goliath" games to motivate first-round interest -- but the definition of "David" is driven by the seeding, not by the obscurity of the team. If there were 12 conferences instead of 32, the casual fans who make up the bulk of the March Madness audience absolutely wouldn't care. Slap a 13-seed on Wyoming or DePaul, watch 'em beat 4-seed Michigan or Florida, and the fans and media will like it exactly as much as they would if that 13-seed was Fairleigh Dickinson or Gardner-Webb.

(04-23-2020 09:44 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(04-23-2020 04:25 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Maybe the P5 doesn't see things the same way as forum pontificators? They get the football money as it is, and they know that the public pays for the Big Dance because it includes all those other conferences. Make it P5-only and it loses a ton of its charm, and hence appeal.

Disagree. The TV value in March Madness boils down to:
(1) Gambling, both small-time and big-time
(2) Big-name programs in the Elite Eight, leading to top ratings for the Elite Eight and Final Four
(3) A few "David vs. Goliath" games to motivate first-round interest -- but the definition of "David" is driven by the seeding, not by the obscurity of the team. If there were 12 conferences instead of 32, the casual fans who make up the bulk of the March Madness audience absolutely wouldn't care. Slap a 13-seed on Wyoming or DePaul, watch 'em beat 4-seed Michigan or Florida, and the fans and media will like it exactly as much as they would if that 13-seed was Fairleigh Dickinson or Gardner-Webb.

Disagree. You're never going to have a North Carolina vs Michigan State game viewed as David vs Goliath even if one of them is a 13th seed and the other a 4th seed. Obscure names are the definition of Davids, and they come from outside the P5.

Again, if all this money is sitting there for the taking, why hasn't it been taken? Colleges are usually pretty good at moving swiftly to grab more money.

(04-23-2020 09:58 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-23-2020 09:44 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(04-23-2020 04:25 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Maybe the P5 doesn't see things the same way as forum pontificators? They get the football money as it is, and they know that the public pays for the Big Dance because it includes all those other conferences. Make it P5-only and it loses a ton of its charm, and hence appeal.

Disagree. The TV value in March Madness boils down to:
(1) Gambling, both small-time and big-time
(2) Big-name programs in the Elite Eight, leading to top ratings for the Elite Eight and Final Four
(3) A few "David vs. Goliath" games to motivate first-round interest -- but the definition of "David" is driven by the seeding, not by the obscurity of the team. If there were 12 conferences instead of 32, the casual fans who make up the bulk of the March Madness audience absolutely wouldn't care. Slap a 13-seed on Wyoming or DePaul, watch 'em beat 4-seed Michigan or Florida, and the fans and media will like it exactly as much as they would if that 13-seed was Fairleigh Dickinson or Gardner-Webb.

Disagree. You're never going to have a North Carolina vs Michigan State game viewed as David vs Goliath even if one of them is a 13th seed and the other a 4th seed. Obscure names are the definition of Davids, and they come from outside the P5.

Again, if all this money is sitting there for the taking, why hasn't it been taken? Colleges are usually pretty good at moving swiftly to grab more money.

Administrators would have to take the initiative. If they did, and they worked with a TV network non-publicly, they could make a deal for a new tournament that would pay the participating teams a helluva lot more than what the NCAA gives back to the teams.

Your North Carolina vs. Michigan State example is just a distortion. No one has ever proposed a 64-team national championship tournament in which all 64 teams are taken from the 65-team P5.

(04-23-2020 09:44 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(04-23-2020 04:25 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Maybe the P5 doesn't see things the same way as forum pontificators? They get the football money as it is, and they know that the public pays for the Big Dance because it includes all those other conferences. Make it P5-only and it loses a ton of its charm, and hence appeal.

(2) Big-name programs in the Elite Eight, leading to top ratings for the Elite Eight and Final Four

Yeah, that’s exactly why the highest rated game in college basketball history includes blueblood Indiana St.

Oh wait.

(04-23-2020 09:44 PM)Wedge Wrote:  (3) A few "David vs. Goliath" games to motivate first-round interest -- but the definition of "David" is driven by the seeding, not by the obscurity of the team. If there were 12 conferences instead of 32, the casual fans who make up the bulk of the March Madness audience absolutely wouldn't care. Slap a 13-seed on Wyoming or DePaul, watch 'em beat 4-seed Michigan or Florida, and the fans and media will like it exactly as much as they would if that 13-seed was Fairleigh Dickinson or Gardner-Webb.

Ha, no. Shock value is what sells. A name like DePaul, who’s in a power conference rife with money and has been to a Final Four, beating another power conference program rife with money and history to its name, doesn’t provide the shock that a no-name school stunning a big name does.

If it did, we’d be hearing about 40-point underdog Stanford beating 2-national-titles-in-4-years USC as much as we hear about Appalachian St beating Michigan.

(04-23-2020 10:21 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  Ha, no. Shock value is what sells. A name like DePaul, who’s in a power conference rife with money and has been to a Final Four

You are thinking like a fanatic and not like a casual fan.

Casual fans under 50 have no idea that DePaul was ever in a Final Four, and if you told them they were, they might assume that happened before Naismith knocked the bottom out of the peach baskets.

We should look at around 80 schools for football.
The 65 schools of the present P5 plus the best of the AAC and MWC plus the 3 service academies if they are interested and B.Y.U.

For Hoops you can add the 2 best basketball only conferences and the same schools that make up the 80 football schools.

We could probably accommodate 100-120 basketball schools (including the football schools).

That's about all you would want in an upper tier. Pair the current 65 schools of the P5 into 3 twenty school conferences of 4 divisions each and form a 4th twenty school conference of the 5 left from the P5 reformation and add the 15 best G5's to it along with the service academies if they want in.

Now you have your 16 team playoff. Each conference has 4 schools who play it off for the conference championships and the 4 champions play it off for the national championship. Divisions would be deliberately grouped for geographical proximity.

Baseball could be by application.

All revenue is divided after overhead and fully distributed annually.

There should be 1 officials training center for the entire group to handle the needs and the officials should be paid by experience and tenure and expected to serve in at least 2 sports. Their positions should be salaried with benefits and the salary should be based on the number of qualified sports they are proficient to call. And they should all be trained to make calls the same way so that whether they are calling a Big 10 or SEC or any other conferences games the same criteria for holding, targeting, pass interference, etc is established. Uniformity and competence should be the goal throughout.

All schools would share the expense for officiating based on the number of sports for which they require services.

I'm sure there would be other thoughts but at this point there is no purpose in putting lipstick on the pig that is the NCAA. It's organizing principle was amateurism. We need a new structure if pay for players is permitted. It's time for the NCAA to simply handle those schools who refuse to pay players. After all that is their mission. Their mission shouldn't be to filch from those who do pay players so they can assist those who do not. And they have become a quasi governmental bureaucracy. It's time to put that to rest as well.

(04-23-2020 01:46 PM)Renandpat Wrote:  It would need billions of dollars from FAANG* to have a move from enough schools

*-FAANG= Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google (or parent Alphabet)

Under their own names, FAANG couldn't pull that off. Too much red tape with contracts and college presidents and ADs doubting FAANG's long term viability. But, FAANG could approach this from another angle: buy out ESPN, Fox, CBS, NBC, and Turner Network Sports (TBS & TNT).
Now with these established, reliable networks FAANG could then pull a move. But very unlikely until then.

(04-23-2020 09:44 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(04-23-2020 04:25 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Maybe the P5 doesn't see things the same way as forum pontificators? They get the football money as it is, and they know that the public pays for the Big Dance because it includes all those other conferences. Make it P5-only and it loses a ton of its charm, and hence appeal.

Disagree. The TV value in March Madness boils down to:
(1) Gambling, both small-time and big-time
(2) Big-name programs in the Elite Eight, leading to top ratings for the Elite Eight and Final Four
(3) A few "David vs. Goliath" games to motivate first-round interest -- but the definition of "David" is driven by the seeding, not by the obscurity of the team. If there were 12 conferences instead of 32, the casual fans who make up the bulk of the March Madness audience absolutely wouldn't care. Slap a 13-seed on Wyoming or DePaul, watch 'em beat 4-seed Michigan or Florida, and the fans and media will like it exactly as much as they would if that 13-seed was Fairleigh Dickinson or Gardner-Webb.

Agree with you. First round routs are not what people want to see. And that's what 2 vs. 15 and 1 vs. 16 usually end up being. 12s and 13s do reasonably well. Losing 10 conferences would make absolutely zero difference in value and might actually increase the value. Losing 20 wouldn't make much difference.

(04-23-2020 10:21 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(04-23-2020 09:44 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(04-23-2020 04:25 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Maybe the P5 doesn't see things the same way as forum pontificators? They get the football money as it is, and they know that the public pays for the Big Dance because it includes all those other conferences. Make it P5-only and it loses a ton of its charm, and hence appeal.

(2) Big-name programs in the Elite Eight, leading to top ratings for the Elite Eight and Final Four

Yeah, that’s exactly why the highest rated game in college basketball history includes blueblood Indiana St.

Oh wait.

(04-23-2020 09:44 PM)Wedge Wrote:  (3) A few "David vs. Goliath" games to motivate first-round interest -- but the definition of "David" is driven by the seeding, not by the obscurity of the team. If there were 12 conferences instead of 32, the casual fans who make up the bulk of the March Madness audience absolutely wouldn't care. Slap a 13-seed on Wyoming or DePaul, watch 'em beat 4-seed Michigan or Florida, and the fans and media will like it exactly as much as they would if that 13-seed was Fairleigh Dickinson or Gardner-Webb.

Ha, no. Shock value is what sells. A name like DePaul, who’s in a power conference rife with money and has been to a Final Four, beating another power conference program rife with money and history to its name, doesn’t provide the shock that a no-name school stunning a big name does.

If it did, we’d be hearing about 40-point underdog Stanford beating 2-national-titles-in-4-years USC as much as we hear about Appalachian St beating Michigan.

How about the interest in NC St. the year they beat Houston?

Or how about Miami or Central Michigan or actual cases-Indiana St. or Loyola?

My split has 2 options. I played around with a 122 school setup and a 154 school setup.

Power 3

PAC
West: Arizona, Arizona St, California, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington
East: Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, Texas, Texas Tech, Utah

B1G
West: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio St, Wisconsin
East: Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami (FL), Michigan St, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Penn St, Virginia

SEC
West: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi St, Tennessee, Texas A&M
East: Clemson, Florida, Florida St, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina St, South Carolina, Virginia Tech

Major 3

ACC
North: Army, Boston College, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, West Virginia
South: Duke, Iowa St, Kansas St, Navy, Northwestern, Purdue, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest

METRO
West: Baylor, Houston, Memphis, Rice, SMU, TCU, Tulane, Tulsa
East: Central Florida, Cincinnati, East Carolina, Louisville, Marshall, South Florida, Southern Miss, UAB
Non-Football: VCU, Wichita St

MT WEST
West: Fresno St, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon St, San Diego St, San Jose St, UNLV, Washington St
East: Air Force, Boise St, BYU, Colorado St, New Mexico, Utah St, UTEP, Wyoming
Non-Football: Gonzaga, St. Mary's

Mid-Major 2
*Unsure whether a split would include these but I have them in*

SUN BELT
West: Arkansas St, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee St, New Mexico St, North Texas, UL Lafayette, UTSA, Western Kentucky
East: Appalachian St, Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Georgia Southern, Georgia St, Troy

MAC
West: Ball St, Bowling Green St, Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Miami (OH), Northern Illinois, Toledo, Western Michigan
East: Akron, Delaware, James Madison, Kent St, Ohio, Old Dominion, Richmond, Towson

Non-Football Conferences
*Schools with football can either play at a lower level or drop the sport*

BIG EAST
Butler, Connecticut, Creighton, DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John's, Villanova, Xavier

ATLANTIC-11
Davidson, Dayton, Duquesne, George Mason, George Washington, La Salle, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Saint Louis, St. Bonaventure, St. Joseph's