(08-11-2023 11:21 AM)OdinFrigg Wrote: (08-06-2023 07:29 AM)JRsec Wrote: To Discuss this we have to ponder several potential scenarios:
The Big 10 only moves to 20:
If it is with California and Stanford, or Stanford and Notre Dame, the SEC also stops at 20. Why? Anything beyond 20 is not an offensive move, but likely a defensive move.
The common wisdom is that we would take Florida State, Clemson, Miami, and North Carolina. Now that there is no market footprint pay model having 3 Florida schools would triple dip a state of 22 million and the ratings would be terrific. But what's better for us, a major brand like Clemson, or a new state and a mid-tier brand with a decent stadium capacity like Virginia Tech? And of course, you take North Carolina.
Either way on Clemson vs Virginia Tech it is a solid 4 with which to stop.
The Big 10 wants to get into the Southeast and will expand to 24:
Here's where you go defensive if you are the SEC and ESPN has promised pro rata for additions:
Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Kansas, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia
These 8 basically lock them out of our region. If they take South Florida, they take South Florida. That's 8 schools, 3 new states, 6 AAU schools, and three national brands in football, and 3 national brands in Basketball which when added to Kentucky would be the 4 winningest programs of all time in the sport.
The Big 10 is at 18 now. If they picked up Notre Dame then Cal and Stanford, they would have to go back and pick up Colorado, Arizona State, and Utah from the Big 12 to finish out at 24 with all AAU schools.
Clemson and FSU give the SEC 14 of the top 25 revenue producers in the nation.
It gives the SEC the top-notch lineup for Basketball in the Winter months.
It only consolidates tremendous baseball talent in the Southeast & Southwest.
It leaves the SEC essentially untouchable in the big 3 sports.
I like this kind of power conference set up.
Thoughts?
Several comments:
24 members? Adding 8 new members at once, or within a few years of one another, would certainly have a monumental impact. That's a heck of a lot of schools to schedule and manage.
What is the SEC's and BIG's goal? Lift all the valued schools, 8 to 10 from the ACC, and do a PAC number on the ACC? Have the ACC to continue to exist, though revamped, may actually be beneficial to the SEC.
Due to football priorities, football successes, facilities, fan bases, etc., Florida State and Clemson, are no-brainer SEC choices for the SEC.
North Carolina and Virginia certainly need pursued by the SEC. One or both, may attempt to accept SEC offers IF in-state rival/sister school(s) are brought along, i.e. NCSU or Duke, and VPI. Miamiwould be a good backup.
I would not dismiss Georgia Tech for serious consideration. While in recent years, Tech has not been investing heavy in athletics, they do have rich history behind them, and that includes periods of basketball. Tech is a school, due to name and location, that could do well with NIL.
A play for Notre Dame, by the SEC shouldn't be out of the question. They try to recruit extensively in the south, and would want to continue to separated themselves from their geographic, Midwest brethren. I'd certainly not want them to enter the SEC as a football partial, but maybe allow them to count 2 to 4 ooc pre-determined and approved games count toward a SEC divisional standing, plus a minimum of five or six SEC football opponents. That's as far as I would suggest in terms of any special accommodation.
To the west, I see only Kansasas a viable prospect in broad expansion. Oklahoma Stateis more worthy than given credit. They have a solid, well-rounded athletic program that would be competitive in the SEC in multiple sports.
I don't think the BIG and the SEC need to be playing tit for tat. The BIG can claim the Midwest, west coast, upper plains, and northeast as their turf. Fine, let that be. The SEC protects its footprint across the south and a couple of boarder regions. I'd say add the mid-Atlantic prime choices below Maryland. That means dominate in North Carolina and Virginia. Both the BIG and the SEC will continue to have some overlap with ACC and Big12 territories. That's OK. Neither can take everyone, nor should they.
Lastly, I'd like to see the BIG and the SEC agree on consistent, maximum members. That should apply to the Big12 as well. Personally, I'd like to see expansion stop at 20 schools per conference, at least for a while. Overdoing it can lead to some troubling consequences. The SEC hasn't even operated with the 16 yet. Same with the BIG who already now, committed to 18.
You miss the main issue with your attribution of the motive to add more schools, when you assign that to the SEC and Big 10. It's a network game now, not a conference one. The Big 10 and SEC are the two solid cores around which the rival networks are assimilating properties to form two leagues. You cannot assess anything properly until you drop the academician mindset.
What has changed? NIL, Transfer Portal, and soon enough Pay for Play and some conferences are discussing revenue sharing. This isn't about amateur college athletics Odin Frigg. This is about a professionalized athletic for-profit endeavor which will be ever more loosely attached to the universities. Is that what I wanted ever? Hell no! It is what corporate America has brought to you by taking over through media networks what was once a valuable but disorganized product which had tremendous upside. And understand I am addressing my remarks only a bit at you and at the hive mind of the board more comprehensively. The only thing I essentially disagree with in your post, as I accept it from your perspective, is the notion that the Big 10 is content in the regions you assigned to them. They are not! Warren stated otherwise, and activity I am aware of indicates that they very much want to be in Florida and North Carolina. And that erodes our profit from advertising. Now as to what is happening:
It was my first post on this board, and it will likely be the last reference I make prior to leaving it. I've said it all before and countless times. and it has not sunken in upon Frank the Tank, nor a hundred or so other posters because they see the schools' colors and logos and think it is what it was in 1970. It all has been a hostile corporate takeover to restructure the disorganized product and profit from it for themselves. The schools missed their shot after 1983 as academicians everywhere washed their hands of managing athletics. Into that void the former contract lawyers for the networks stepped. Delaney and Slive were two of the best. But what were they accustomed to doing? Signing contracts for....the networks, not the schools. And that is where it all went astray.
ESPN has 100% of two products now. The SEC and ACC. They added Big 12 schools from the Southwest because they wanted to dominate and monopolize the largest two regions where football is still widely played by kids in high school and adored by the fans as part of their culture. It was where the future of college football was the most sheltered and would last the longest. By having all of the SEC and ACC and the top brands of the Big 12 ESPN not only locks the rest of their competitors out of the region, but the proxies of FOX as well. And in doing so they garner the top ad rates for the entire 2 and half regions.
It's not about what the SEC wants and hasn't been since 2011.
Consolidation is going on. Networks want more brand-on-brand games, and they are culling SKUs from the inventory if they aren't in high demand. They want iconic brands, hot teams, and large alumni bases with large stadia. They want spectacle and pageantry and passion. And they want that in a preset number of SKUs which they can market, and which will provide some balance in wins and losses with a few apex predator teams and a few well known and large cellar dwellers.
They don't care if adding 8 more schools to the SEC gives Sankey and team a headache trying to schedule it all, besides computers set that up quite nicely and quickly and the real trick are the personalities, not the schedules. But throw money at it and they go along.
Try some math on for size. If the ACC loses 7 schools to the SEC and 2 to the Big 10 and sends 5 to the Big 12 here is what ESPN sees:
Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami sews up and keeps their monopoly in what we call the Deep South (everything below Tennessee and North Carolina). UNC and N.C. State make 6. Virginia Tech for markets in another southern state makes 7. Here we deviate from the Magnificent 7 by subbing Georgia Tech in a major metropolis for Virginia which culturally is no longer Southern. But the motive is placement of schools to cull overhead and maximize profit, not fit.
The Big 10 would likely take Virginia and Duke and hope to land Notre Dame. If they take Stanford and Cal, they are at 20 schools. Virginia and Duke make 22, and they wait on Notre Dame before moving to 24. Why 24? 24 is 12 games a week. Between FOX and FS1 they have 6 games. NBC has a 7th, CBS has an 8th, and the BTN generally has 2 for 10. They are looking to add another late-night game on the West Coast so that's 11. The 12 can be fit in anywhere or played on Friday or Sunday and basically is insurance against a weather disrupted game somewhere.
ESPN has 3 cable channels with ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU and add the SECN and ABC which wants 2 games a week eventually and has 1 now.
TV time slots dictate the size of the conference The conferences do not.
Now back to the math. 7 ACC schools to the SEC at pro rata is 35 million a school more x 7 = 245 million more to ESPN. So, all the lame brains on the main board chime the same mantra of hive mindedness, "ESPN is in a money tight they would never spend money for this when they hold rights more cheaply in the ACC." And herein resides the extent of their willingness to think about the situation. What's worse is you have dolts in the media, I've worked with them trust me they aren't bright bulbs. They just repeat the same nonsense because it's easy to write, accepted because it affirms the public's beliefs rather than challenging them to think, and so creates a self-supportive, but wrong, feedback loop.
In this scenario 2 schools move to the Big 10 and ESPN loses having to pay those 2 x the 40 million each they get now. That equals a -80 million. The remaining 5 schools head to the Big 12 where they cost ESPN in their odd share with FOX 20 million each. That's 20 million less than in the ACC. So, 5 x -20 million = -100 million. Notre Dame is out of the deal so lose another 17 million. 245 million - 197 million = 47 million dollars more. But we aren't done. Roll the ACCN expenses into the SECN expenses and you lose about 100 million more a year in duplicated overhead and talking heads, plus ESPN now can sell some production facility sites. ESPN is 53 million to the good and we aren't done. Each game that the 7 ACC schools which have moved to the SEC will play is now worth about 10 million more for a conference game (T1 in the SEC is 28 million a game and in the ACC 17). Let's assume there are 9 conference games each minimally that will be created by the move. That's 630 million more off of the added inventory that ESPN will make with the logo changes on those jerseys.
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Now are you beginning to see why so many voices out there screaming, "This will never happen. ESPN is cash strapped. They can't afford to pay these schools more in the SEC!" are just mindless repeaters of uninformed positions and our nation is now rife with them. It disgusts me!
ESPN by those moves will keep its monopoly on the Deep South, share some territory in the Mid Atlantic latitude, keep its major brands in Texas and Oklahoma, perhaps add Kansas which would cost them 35 million rounding their total profit in the moves to around 670 million.
Sankey is told how much more the SEC will be worth in tournament credits for hoops tourney, and playoff money. How the ad revenue will expand with consolidation and the SECN will be getting a large boost. He is told he Big 10 will be going to 24 and that the inventory difference will give the Big 10 a monetary advantage, something which in the age of transfer portals and NIL cannot be accepted.
They'll make room for the 7 ACC schools. A computer will handle the scheduling, and money and exposure will salve any minor abrasions the members may feel.
Now, in your list above you talk about adding 8 being a lot to swallow, it is, but then you justify 6 in your argumentation. Truly at that point what's 2 more? They are just being added and paid pro rata because the network needs 12 games a week which means on a few weeks they only get 11 due to byes. For that reason alone, I've heard the number 28 tossed out there. I think it will be 24 and adjustments will be made and if ND remains independent, they might just sign on to play so many against the SEC, so many against the Big 10 and so many against the Big 12. Those should help cover the byes and I think 2 dozen divided into 4 divisions of 6 is where we are headed. Make the divisions regional and it cuts down on travel.
The key here is that the Big 10 has to have two palatable and desirable schools to offset the added cost to the ESPN for those moving from the ACC to the SEC.
Maybe you understand my viewpoint from a different perspective now. I'm not looking at it from the SEC standpoint. I'm looking at it from the network standpoint because that's all that has mattered since 2011.
It is a lot to swallow at once, but I would rather see us do that and get it all over for an extended period of time, than to continue to harass the public and viewing audience with constant change that only pisses them off. We need stasis to heal. Sankey is correct however in that all he can control are preferences and his stated two preferences are to remain regional in the larger sense of the word, and to restore as many rivalries as possible which is one reason I keep looking at Kansas.
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If FSU Departs the End of Realignment Will Be Upon US. How Does the SEC Finish?
