Conference Expansion

Oregon State and WAZZU want to keep the PAC12 "alive" because it has access to the football playoffs. And by NCAA bylaws, the "PAC" has a two-year grace period to get back up to a minimum of 8 schools before losing its NCAA standings. The PAC could add Mountain West teams, but the price to leave the MWC is now $27 million. But that drops next summer in half.

The PAC and MWC could merge under the PAC label, but there are legal issues yet unresolved. For example, the PAC owes Comcast $72 million for overpayment over the last few years. Who is liable for this? Then there's also TV deals. The MWC has one for about $5 million per school every year. The PAC? Has nothing after this year.

I think all parties in the 2-PAC and MWC would like to merge under the PAC banner and keep the playoff spot. But right now, that's all being sorted out by the lawyers. Not to mention, the playoff committee, which doesn't have to keep a spot open.

 

Court rules in favor of Oregon State, Washington State, grants temporary restraining order against Pac-12

 

I think the college football world is going to get a lot more crazy…

Private equity eyes college sports as next big potential opportunity

 

Keeping a spot open without legit teams in the conference makes no sense to me.

 

Saw an article recently about the NFL getting involved. Making it officially the unofficial minor leagues or developmental league. Get the NCAA completely out. Seems like a giant headache but also a tremendous opportunity to a) make a ton of money and b) have more of a hand in how its future players are developed, compensated, etc.

CFB as many of us knew it is dead. I am not sure I like this 'in the middle, transitionary' product but I am also not convinced that it cannot come out better than ever on the other side. The NCAA is just so antiquated and toothless most of the time but whenever they get a chance to show some bite they do and it's usually on an innocent party (see UNC WR situation and FSU Darrell Jackson to a lesser extent). I am a Nole but I have a hard time feeling bad for him after running his mouth about transferring again on social media like a jackass after he transferred to FSU to be closer to his ailing mother, which if that is true I still think they should give it to him but he needlessly made it a very easy decision for them to say no.

 

In other useless news…

Many people don’t know that UC Berkeley and Cal are the same university, and that's probably true for a lot of folks who follow the Atlantic Coast Conference, which will be Cal's conference next year. It’s a branding and marketing problem, and Cal decided to address it.

https://www.si.com/college/cal/news/name-change-cal-berkeley-recommended

 

So... now they want those PAC-12 teams at a bargain basement price? LMFAO!

 

Lots of wrong in this.

CFB has tachycardia - heart racing. Fun games.

Heck who watch Memphis v. Navy? Down to the last play. Exciting.

The rumors of CFB's demise have been greatly exagerrated

BTW nole you are all wrong.

Don't come on her talking nole BS. Don't care, TL DC

Viva College Football

 

I seriously can't believe the Pac-12 having an automatic playoff spot is part of the equation. I don't believe ANY conference has an automatic bid starting in 2024. From what I see, starting in 2024 with the 12 team playoff, there are 6 guaranteed spots to the top six ranked conference champions (CFP rankings), regardless of conference, plus 6 at large. No conference will have an automatic bid.

Retaining the Pac-12 name doesn't offer any tangible benefit that I'm aware of. But there's definitely some prestige to it.

My guess is that if Wazzu and OSU pitch the idea of a "merger" with the entire MWC, the buyouts wouldn't be an issue ... unless they tried to leave some schools out. If Comcast is owed money, it would probably be on them to try to collect from the individual schools. That process is probably already underway. I can't see Wazzu and OSU, or the new conference being legally liable for that money. As for TV deal, I would guess the current MWC deal would be expanded or renegotiated. I have no idea who their TV deal is with. Maybe other smaller networks would get involved too.

 

SMU raises $100 million in seven-day stretch from key donors to support upcoming ACC move

 

I wonder if they'd be better off taking it straight to Vegas.

 

Oregon State AD is pushing the idea of a promotion/relegation for college football, like they use in most soccer leagues. Link.

I like that they're thinking outside the box, but I certainly don't think the SEC or Big-10 would ever have ANY interest. But maybe it's something for the second and third tiers of college football to consider. Obviously, this would benefit upper third tier schools ... like Wazzu and OSU, which is probably why they'd push the idea. Not sure I see much support for the idea from the ACC or Big-12.

I still don't see it being feasible because the soccer teams in Europe are a lot closer. For example the entire Premier League plays in Great Britain, about 1/40th the size of the United States. That means the Premier League has 20 teams in an area about the size of Colorado. For college football, logistically, this idea could be very tricky.

But can you imagine the screaming and yelling if Clemson or FSU had a bad season and got relegated to the AAC?!?!

 

What a dumb idea. I'm sure they got a collective yawn or perhaps a guffaw from the Big 10 and SEC. Those with power and money never give up either willingly.

 

Reduced settlements for Texas, Oklahoma joining SEC early leave Big 12 ADs 'kind of dumbfounded'

 

Further disruption coming as College Football Playoff investigates realignment, NIL, third-party involvement

 

As CFB becomes more commercialized/semi-professional, teams, players and conferences will become more beholden to the cold hard bottom line of profit/loss more than anything else. It used to be that having an inferior media deal meant maybe you had to forgo a planned facility or renovation another team in another league might be able to afford. Now it means a decisive competitive disadvantage in the NIL era.

Thus if you get the opportunity to bolt for a conference with a better media deal you are almost obligated in this era to take it with no room to consider anything else like tradition. Inversely, if a team like USC/UCLA wants that can bring a massive media market like LA to the table as leverage, as a conference you're almost obligated to take them. These conditions made total and complete conference realignment inevitable.

 

I'm not disagreeing with anything you said, but I think it's a little more complex than that.

A lot of what has happened in recent years is more about inequality within the conferences, media marketability, and reaction to what some conferences were unable do over the last 20 years. 20-30 years ago, there was a lot more equality between the top conferences.

There were relatively few games broadcast and I don't believe there were conference TV deals. Schools basically controlled their rights and made money by winning, selling tickets, merchandise and getting on TV. They gained national interest by winning and getting games on TV. Miami is a perfect example of a school that took great advantage of this environment.

As more networks started showing games and conferences started getting TV deals, things changed. It became more about the conference. The SEC set up a conference championship game, which became hugely popular. The Big-10 and SEC set up TV networks and were able to get national carriage largely due to having and expanding strong footprints.

At the same time the SEC and Big-10 put themselves on a new level of college football, the Big-12, ACC and Pac-12 did little to nothing. They tried, but none of them had any path to effectively expand or attract a strong TV deal. As the Big-10 and SEC expanded by picking off the cream of those other 3 conferences, they got stronger and the other 3 conferences got weaker.

My point is simply that while money is certainly a big part of it, for schools like Texas, OU, USC and UCLA, I think it was just as much about abandoning a sinking ship and getting back to the elite level as it was the money. It's the same reason UNC, FSU and Clemson want out so badly. Yes they want the money but their bigger concern right now is getting left behind.

 

Too many Vandy’s and not enough Bamas is impossible to float. Even the top two conferences have some dead weight but there is a big enough pie to drag them along and pad those records. I expect the schedules to continue to get better as that’s why the sec and big get more money, they have better quality schedules.

 

What if spring football practice concluded with 2 official conference games that count in the following fall season, but you still play a 12 game fall schedule? That would make it easier to keep these evolving 18-20 team superconferences meaningful. We've long since passed the point where incoming freshmen and transfers have to be on campus in the spring if they are going to play the next year, so you already have the same team you'll have in the fall.