Realignment

Red_N_Black_Attack · 03-30-2021, 03:54 PM

I doubt Iowa St gets a Big ten invite. They are in same boat as UC in that they aren't a land grant school and there is already a Big ten school in the state that is perfectly content to be the only Big Ten school in the state. Other than that, your analysis is as good as any I've seen.

**sedziobs** · 03-30-2021, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red_N_Black_Attack

I doubt Iowa St gets a Big ten invite. They are in same boat as UC in that they aren't a land grant school and there is already a Big ten school in the state that is perfectly content to be the only Big Ten school in the state. Other than that, your analysis is as good as any I've seen.

You're probably right. Missouri is a much better fit if they could pry them from the SEC. Seems like the SEC could go for that since Mizzou is a newcomer and they could be replaced by higher revenue TCU (and bring the Dallas market which doesn't conflict with Texas A&M the way the Longhorns do). But if that's not feasible, I don't know how the Big Ten gets to 16 teams without breaking some of their customs. Iowa St wouldn't be the first program to double up a state (Mich & Mich St, Purdue & IU, Northwestern & Illinois/Wisconsin). They'd be the first newcomer to double up a state since 1950 though.

There's a lot of considerations. It's not as simple as 1) build new stadium 2) win football games 3) get conference invite.

UCats329 · 03-30-2021, 06:47 PM

Alternative take:

The cable model of content delivery is dying--to the extent that "being in a market" so you can plug your conference network ever really mattered, it is going to become largely irrelevant.

Once SHTF with the economy more broadly in the next few years on account of peak energy and inflation from all of this money printing we've undertaken, the money in college sports simply won't be ever it once was as an increasingly squeezed American citizenry reevaluates its priorities, and a lot of these schools aren't going to be able to afford the luxury of massive athletic department travel budgets to move teams 3/4 of the way across the country to play some low-rent conference game with no inherent appeal to the fans (Rutgers-Nebraska and West Virginia-Iowa State come to mind).

Further, expect the heavyweights to insist on fat-trimming to expand their share of the proverbial pie, as said pie shrinks accordingly.

All of this points to conference downsizing to a more regional model, not expansion to a "super conference" model. The SEC and Big Ten might survive in something resembling their present forms, with some tweaking around the margins. The ACC is most likely doomed, as it's not a particularly rational construct as-is. Expect some national brands (Texas comes to mind) to flirt with independence.

**sedziobs** · 03-30-2021, 07:37 PM

Yes, external economic forces could change the entire landscape. Peak energy and inflation predictions have been around for a long time though. Impending rampant inflation was supposed to happen after the 2009 stimulus, but didn't. Japan has been experiencing deflation despite stimulus measures for over a decade. The reason is the deflationary forces of efficiency gains from technological advances and increased energy supply have counteracted the inflationary forces of increased money supply. That could certainly change though, as the current levels of spending are unprecedented.

Anyway, a bit off topic but interesting nonetheless. I don't think conferences will make decisions based on risk management until the gravy train actually stops moving. It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future.

UCats329 · 03-30-2021, 10:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sedziobs

Yes, external economic forces could change the entire landscape. Peak energy and inflation predictions have been around for a long time though. Impending rampant inflation was supposed to happen after the 2009 stimulus, but didn't. Japan has been experiencing deflation despite stimulus measures for over a decade. The reason is the deflationary forces of efficiency gains from technological advances and increased energy supply have counteracted the inflationary forces of increased money supply. That could certainly change though, as the current levels of spending are unprecedented.

Anyway, a bit off topic but interesting nonetheless. I don't think conferences will make decisions based on risk management until the gravy train actually stops moving. It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future.

We reached peak oil sometime in the mid-2000s, in the sense that half of the world's known reserves of oil had already been extracted--the easy half, to boot. Tar sands, fracking, and some of the things we've been doing over the past decade are untenable without the near-zero interest rates ("free money") TPTB have been juicing the economy with since 2008. As the inflation kicks in, interest rates will necessarily have to rise, putting the kibosh on all that. This is all going to become apparent quite shortly as the COVID panic subsides and the true extent of the economic carnage that's been unleashed as the tab comes due for a decade-plus of printing and spending money like drunken sailors--more than in time for the next round of realignment in the mid-2020s.

You heard it here first.

UCats329 · 03-31-2021, 12:25 AM

Since this is ultimately a cute parlor game and not a forum for discourse on our coming economic crackup, here's how I (somewhat satirically, since most of this makes way too much sense for the honchos running major college athletics) envision things playing out within the framework of my greater societal predictions, assuming we're not all farming weeds and chucking spears at each other within the next decade. While somewhat cognizant of the various grant-of-rights provisions at play, I couldn't be bothered to parse them too closely, so take this as a rough approximation:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Brief synopsis:

ACC: Finally realizes that aside from Clemson it completely sucks at football (Virginia Tech is only a football powerhouse if you're a Virginia Tech fan) and reverts to the basketball-centric and Mid-Atlantic-concentrated conference of academic heavyweights that it was always meant to be. I waffled between putting Clemson and South Carolina in here, but ultimately concluded the package deal made more sense in a still robust cash-cow, football-focused SEC, along with Florida State and Miami which are actually football brands that people care about.

Big 12: An unhappy but acceptable marriage of most of the old Big 8 and the Texas portion of the old Southwest that's not actually called "The University of Texas", which has been flirting with independence for nigh-two decades and ultimately decides that that is the better course. Arkansas, which is in the Ozarks and makes no sense in the deep-south SEC, flip flops along with neighboring Missouri and once again gets to play its old rivals Baylor and Houston every year, which while somewhat dissatisfying to Hogs fans, is no less interesting the its annual bouts with LSU, where the outcome was really never in question.

Big East: Another instance of getting the band back together, the northeastern ACC schools who jumped ship in the mid-to-late-aughts and the Catholic 5 schools finally realize that they are better off together than they ever were apart, in the sense that everybody but their respective fanbases find them completely uninteresting when they're not playing each other. Cincinnati, Louisville, and Temple are allowed to join the party on the relative cachet of their athletic programs and geographic proximity.

Big Ten: Actually ten teams, finally, with apologies to Northwestern, who is finally kicked out of the conference (and major college athletics generally) for being the dead-weight money-suck on the conference coffers that it is and more or less always has been.

Independents: The University of Texas finally jumps in with both feet and joins Notre Dame (Catholics) and BYU (Mormons) as the third-largest denominational football program in the country (Texas Football)--assuming Texas doesn't just become its own country by this point.

Pac 12: The only conference that doesn't change, as it is the only conference that currently makes relative geographic sense. Alternatively, Tesla might not have devised fully-electric charter buses that can get you from Boulder to Seattle by this point, so it might be more of a traditional Pac 8 thing, with the Arizona schools, Colorado, and Utah joining some kind of weird Mountain West type thing. Who knows--nobody watches any of those teams anyway.

Southeastern: It only makes sense that a bunch of Sun Belters who have no concern about anthropogenic climate change (if you believe such a thing even exists) and spending ungodly amounts of money on college athletics maintains an absurdly unwieldy conference map stretching from College Station, Texas to South Florida to Lexington, Kentucky. The SEC wins the next 100 college football playoffs and like half of the next 100 NCAA tournaments. Vanderbilt gets the Northwestern treatment because nobody gives a shit about Vanderbilt sports--including people who go to Vanderbilt.

Memphis and UCF: Whatever. **** 'em.

***BONUS*** "The Great Midwest": All of those college basketball-only schools from the Midwest that people other than college basketball diehards don't even remember exist between the second week of April and the third week of March the following year band together to form a college basketball-only conference that they hope people will remember the other 49 weeks of the year. They ultimately fail in this regard, but the college basketball diehards get a kick out of it.

UCats329 · 03-31-2021, 12:36 AM

Since this is ultimately a cute parlor game and not a forum for discourse on our coming economic crackup, here's how I (somewhat satirically, since most of this makes way too much sense for the honchos running major college athletics) envision things playing out within the framework of my greater societal predictions, assuming we're not all farming weeds and chucking spears at each other within the next decade. While somewhat cognizant of the various grant-of-rights provisions at play, I couldn't be bothered to parse them too closely, so take this as a rough approximation:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Brief synopsis:

ACC: Finally realizes that aside from Clemson it completely sucks at football (Virginia Tech is only a football powerhouse if you're a Virginia Tech fan) and reverts to the basketball-centric and Mid-Atlantic-concentrated conference of academic heavyweights that it was always meant to be. Alternatively, the same point gets driven home when the SEC wises up, ditches deadweights Missouri and Vanderbilt, and simply poaches those teams from the ACC.

Big 12: An unhappy but acceptable marriage of most of the old Big 8 and the Texas portion of the old Southwest that's not actually called "The University of Texas", which has been flirting with independence for nigh-two decades and ultimately decides that that is the better course. Arkansas, which is in the Ozarks and makes no sense in the deep-south SEC, flip flops along with neighboring Missouri and once again gets to play its old rivals Baylor and Houston twice a year, which is only slightly less interesting to the casual observer than watching the Hogs get routed 52-3 by LSU every year.

Big East: Another instance of getting the band back together, the Northeastern ACC schools who jumped ship in the mid-to-late-aughts and the Catholic 5 finally realize that they are better off together than they ever were apart, in the sense that everybody but their respective fanbases find them completely uninteresting when they're not playing each other. Cincinnati, Louisville, and Temple are allowed to join the party on the relative cachet of their athletic programs and geographic proximity.

Big Ten: Actually ten teams, finally, with apologies to Northwestern, who is finally kicked out of the conference (and major college athletics generally) for being the deadweight money-suck on the conference coffers that it is and more or less always has been.

Independents: The University of Texas finally jumps in with both feet and joins Notre Dame (Catholics) and BYU (Mormons) as the third (and largest) independent religious denominational football program in the country (Texas Football)--assuming that Texas doesn't simply become its own country by this point.

Pac 12: The only conference that doesn't change, as it is the only conference that currently makes relative geographic sense. Alternatively, Tesla might not have devised fully-electric charter buses that can get you from Boulder to Seattle on a single charge by this point, so it might be more of a traditional Pac 8 thing, with the Arizona schools, Colorado, and Utah joining some kind of weird Mountain West type thing. Who knows--does anybody actually stay up late enough to watch these schools' games?

Southeastern: It only makes sense that a bunch of Sunbelters who have no concern about anthropogenic climate change (if you believe such a thing even exists) and spending ungodly amounts of money that they don't necessarily have on college athletics maintains an absurdly unwieldy conference map stretching from College Station, Texas to South Florida to Lexington, Kentucky. The SEC wins the next 100 college football playoffs and like half of the next 100 NCAA tournaments.

Memphis and UCF: Whatever. F*ck 'em.

***BONUS*** "The Great Midwest": All of those college basketball-only schools from the Midwest that people other than college basketball die-hards don't even remember exist between the second week of April and the third week of the following March band together to form a college basketball-only conference that they hope people will remember the other 49 weeks of the year. They ultimately fail in this regard, but the college basketball die-hards still get a kick out of it.

**sedziobs** · 03-31-2021, 01:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UCats329

Vanderbilt gets the Northwestern treatment because nobody gives a shit about Vanderbilt sports--including people who go to Vanderbilt.

Have you met any baseball fans who went to Vanderbilt? It's all they talk about. "Yes, you've already told me four times today that Sonny Gray, Curt Casali, and Derek Johnson went to Vanderbilt." "What about David Price?"

UCats329 · 03-31-2021, 01:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sedziobs

Have you met any baseball fans who went to Vanderbilt? It's all they talk about. "Yes, you've already told me four times today that Sonny Gray, Curt Casali, and Derek Johnson went to Vanderbilt." "What about David Price?"

I hear Northwestern alums get equally hyped about their women's volleyball team, but... you know...

Red_N_Black_Attack · 03-31-2021, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bcatfollower

Maybe you should evaluate what you’re reading. If uc were to get in a better conference that would be a great day. As it stands we add nothing, the big 12 came to this conclusion. The acc picked Louisville. The big 10 will never let us in. Sec... maybe, but ky is pretty close.

Do you really believe conferences will kick out members?

When the ACC picked Loserville, our facilities sucked. Since then we have overhauled nearly everything, 5/3, Nip, added bubble, finished the new Athletic building, weight rooms, practice fields, etc...

As a result of that, we were close for Big 12 expansion and the info available points to the fact that they wanted two teams, UC and BYU. When BYU stayed independent, no other AAC qualified at the time. Doesn't mean much, but we do add value. I agree, I don't think that any conference will kick someone out, either purposely shrink, or to add other teams. Since we add value and both media contracts are expiring for the Big 12 and SEC, expect some realignment. It is purely fan speculation what happens, but if they add teams, UC is one of the top choices. Hopefully, our academic standing is seen as high enough, but our athletic performances are definitely P5 material.

03-30-2021, 06:47 PM	#83
UCats329 Member Join Date: May 2019 Posts: 94	Alternative take: The cable model of content delivery is dying--to the extent that "being in a market" so you can plug your conference network ever really mattered, it is going to become largely irrelevant. Once SHTF with the economy more broadly in the next few years on account of peak energy and inflation from all of this money printing we've undertaken, the money in college sports simply won't be ever it once was as an increasingly squeezed American citizenry reevaluates its priorities, and a lot of these schools aren't going to be able to afford the luxury of massive athletic department travel budgets to move teams 3/4 of the way across the country to play some low-rent conference game with no inherent appeal to the fans (Rutgers-Nebraska and West Virginia-Iowa State come to mind). Further, expect the heavyweights to insist on fat-trimming to expand their share of the proverbial pie, as said pie shrinks accordingly. All of this points to conference downsizing to a more regional model, not expansion to a "super conference" model. The SEC and Big Ten might survive in something resembling their present forms, with some tweaking around the margins. The ACC is most likely doomed, as it's not a particularly rational construct as-is. Expect some national brands (Texas comes to mind) to flirt with independence. Last edited by UCats329; 03-30-2021 at 07:07 PM.

03-31-2021, 12:25 AM	#86
UCats329 Member Join Date: May 2019 Posts: 94	Since this is ultimately a cute parlor game and not a forum for discourse on our coming economic crackup, here's how I (somewhat satirically, since most of this makes way too much sense for the honchos running major college athletics) envision things playing out within the framework of my greater societal predictions, assuming we're not all farming weeds and chucking spears at each other within the next decade. While somewhat cognizant of the various grant-of-rights provisions at play, I couldn't be bothered to parse them too closely, so take this as a rough approximation: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing Brief synopsis: ACC: Finally realizes that aside from Clemson it completely sucks at football (Virginia Tech is only a football powerhouse if you're a Virginia Tech fan) and reverts to the basketball-centric and Mid-Atlantic-concentrated conference of academic heavyweights that it was always meant to be. I waffled between putting Clemson and South Carolina in here, but ultimately concluded the package deal made more sense in a still robust cash-cow, football-focused SEC, along with Florida State and Miami which are actually football brands that people care about. Big 12: An unhappy but acceptable marriage of most of the old Big 8 and the Texas portion of the old Southwest that's not actually called "The University of Texas", which has been flirting with independence for nigh-two decades and ultimately decides that that is the better course. Arkansas, which is in the Ozarks and makes no sense in the deep-south SEC, flip flops along with neighboring Missouri and once again gets to play its old rivals Baylor and Houston every year, which while somewhat dissatisfying to Hogs fans, is no less interesting the its annual bouts with LSU, where the outcome was really never in question. Big East: Another instance of getting the band back together, the northeastern ACC schools who jumped ship in the mid-to-late-aughts and the Catholic 5 schools finally realize that they are better off together than they ever were apart, in the sense that everybody but their respective fanbases find them completely uninteresting when they're not playing each other. Cincinnati, Louisville, and Temple are allowed to join the party on the relative cachet of their athletic programs and geographic proximity. Big Ten: Actually ten teams, finally, with apologies to Northwestern, who is finally kicked out of the conference (and major college athletics generally) for being the dead-weight money-suck on the conference coffers that it is and more or less always has been. Independents: The University of Texas finally jumps in with both feet and joins Notre Dame (Catholics) and BYU (Mormons) as the third-largest denominational football program in the country (Texas Football)--assuming Texas doesn't just become its own country by this point. Pac 12: The only conference that doesn't change, as it is the only conference that currently makes relative geographic sense. Alternatively, Tesla might not have devised fully-electric charter buses that can get you from Boulder to Seattle by this point, so it might be more of a traditional Pac 8 thing, with the Arizona schools, Colorado, and Utah joining some kind of weird Mountain West type thing. Who knows--nobody watches any of those teams anyway. Southeastern: It only makes sense that a bunch of Sun Belters who have no concern about anthropogenic climate change (if you believe such a thing even exists) and spending ungodly amounts of money on college athletics maintains an absurdly unwieldy conference map stretching from College Station, Texas to South Florida to Lexington, Kentucky. The SEC wins the next 100 college football playoffs and like half of the next 100 NCAA tournaments. Vanderbilt gets the Northwestern treatment because nobody gives a shit about Vanderbilt sports--including people who go to Vanderbilt. Memphis and UCF: Whatever. ** 'em. BONUS** "The Great Midwest": All of those college basketball-only schools from the Midwest that people other than college basketball diehards don't even remember exist between the second week of April and the third week of March the following year band together to form a college basketball-only conference that they hope people will remember the other 49 weeks of the year. They ultimately fail in this regard, but the college basketball diehards get a kick out of it. Last edited by UCats329; 03-31-2021 at 12:34 AM.

03-31-2021, 12:36 AM	#87
UCats329 Member Join Date: May 2019 Posts: 94	Since this is ultimately a cute parlor game and not a forum for discourse on our coming economic crackup, here's how I (somewhat satirically, since most of this makes way too much sense for the honchos running major college athletics) envision things playing out within the framework of my greater societal predictions, assuming we're not all farming weeds and chucking spears at each other within the next decade. While somewhat cognizant of the various grant-of-rights provisions at play, I couldn't be bothered to parse them too closely, so take this as a rough approximation: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing Brief synopsis: ACC: Finally realizes that aside from Clemson it completely sucks at football (Virginia Tech is only a football powerhouse if you're a Virginia Tech fan) and reverts to the basketball-centric and Mid-Atlantic-concentrated conference of academic heavyweights that it was always meant to be. Alternatively, the same point gets driven home when the SEC wises up, ditches deadweights Missouri and Vanderbilt, and simply poaches those teams from the ACC. Big 12: An unhappy but acceptable marriage of most of the old Big 8 and the Texas portion of the old Southwest that's not actually called "The University of Texas", which has been flirting with independence for nigh-two decades and ultimately decides that that is the better course. Arkansas, which is in the Ozarks and makes no sense in the deep-south SEC, flip flops along with neighboring Missouri and once again gets to play its old rivals Baylor and Houston twice a year, which is only slightly less interesting to the casual observer than watching the Hogs get routed 52-3 by LSU every year. Big East: Another instance of getting the band back together, the Northeastern ACC schools who jumped ship in the mid-to-late-aughts and the Catholic 5 finally realize that they are better off together than they ever were apart, in the sense that everybody but their respective fanbases find them completely uninteresting when they're not playing each other. Cincinnati, Louisville, and Temple are allowed to join the party on the relative cachet of their athletic programs and geographic proximity. Big Ten: Actually ten teams, finally, with apologies to Northwestern, who is finally kicked out of the conference (and major college athletics generally) for being the deadweight money-suck on the conference coffers that it is and more or less always has been. Independents: The University of Texas finally jumps in with both feet and joins Notre Dame (Catholics) and BYU (Mormons) as the third (and largest) independent religious denominational football program in the country (Texas Football)--assuming that Texas doesn't simply become its own country by this point. Pac 12: The only conference that doesn't change, as it is the only conference that currently makes relative geographic sense. Alternatively, Tesla might not have devised fully-electric charter buses that can get you from Boulder to Seattle on a single charge by this point, so it might be more of a traditional Pac 8 thing, with the Arizona schools, Colorado, and Utah joining some kind of weird Mountain West type thing. Who knows--does anybody actually stay up late enough to watch these schools' games? Southeastern: It only makes sense that a bunch of Sunbelters who have no concern about anthropogenic climate change (if you believe such a thing even exists) and spending ungodly amounts of money that they don't necessarily have on college athletics maintains an absurdly unwieldy conference map stretching from College Station, Texas to South Florida to Lexington, Kentucky. The SEC wins the next 100 college football playoffs and like half of the next 100 NCAA tournaments. Memphis and UCF: Whatever. Fck 'em. BONUS* "The Great Midwest": All of those college basketball-only schools from the Midwest that people other than college basketball die-hards don't even remember exist between the second week of April and the third week of the following March band together to form a college basketball-only conference that they hope people will remember the other 49 weeks of the year. They ultimately fail in this regard, but the college basketball die-hards still get a kick out of it. Last edited by UCats329; 03-31-2021 at 12:52 AM.

03-30-2021, 03:54 PM	#81
Red_N_Black_Attack Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Hamilton, Ohio Posts: 180	I doubt Iowa St gets a Big ten invite. They are in same boat as UC in that they aren't a land grant school and there is already a Big ten school in the state that is perfectly content to be the only Big Ten school in the state. Other than that, your analysis is as good as any I've seen.

03-30-2021, 07:37 PM	#84
sedziobs Senior Moderator Join Date: Jan 2018 Posts: 2,395	Yes, external economic forces could change the entire landscape. Peak energy and inflation predictions have been around for a long time though. Impending rampant inflation was supposed to happen after the 2009 stimulus, but didn't. Japan has been experiencing deflation despite stimulus measures for over a decade. The reason is the deflationary forces of efficiency gains from technological advances and increased energy supply have counteracted the inflationary forces of increased money supply. That could certainly change though, as the current levels of spending are unprecedented. Anyway, a bit off topic but interesting nonetheless. I don't think conferences will make decisions based on risk management until the gravy train actually stops moving. It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future.