Birth of the super conference

[rlh]

Coloradio announced it is leaving the Big 12 and joining the Pac 10....Nebraska is supposed to announce tomorrow it is leaving the Big 12 and joining the Big 10 and there are many more to come. The Big 12 is for all practical purposes dead, and there will be four or five SUPER Conferences before this is over. I'm not sure that's a good thing, but money talks and the rest of us just come along for the ride.....

[vu72]

Some of the "lesser" teams, like Baylor, or Kansas State (from a tv market standpoint) will be left scrambling to find a conference. Should be interesting. I hope Notre Dame's arrogence will be a big mistake.

[valpo04]

A Navy blogger's perspective:

In the short-term, the biggest potential impact to Navy is if Notre Dame decides to join the Big Ten. The Notre Dame series is an important revenue generator for NAAA; they get a large guarantee when the game is in South Bend, and get to sell the television rights (and 70,000 tickets) when they host the game. The Army and Notre Dame games are the long poles in the NAAA budget tent. Right now, Notre Dame has the same scheduling flexibility that Navy does as an independent; but if they joined the Big Ten, they’d have at least 8 conference games to fit into their schedule. They could still play Navy every year, but would they want to at that point? The Mids certainly aren’t Notre Dame’s only annual rival. While many of their regular games are already against Big Ten teams, the Irish also play USC and Stanford every year, and have an on again, off again relationship with Boston College. I doubt that Notre Dame would want to play more or less the same schedule every year, so some of these games would have to go– and USC won’t be one of them. On top of that, what about Notre Dame’s goal of a 7-4-1 scheduling philosophy? That’s 7 home games, 4 games at someone else’s place, and one neutral site game. They’d get 4 road games just from the conference schedule… So would they scrap the 7-4-1, or would they look to schedule some creampuffs at home each year like every other major-conference team? I’ve waxed poetic about the Notre Dame series in the past, but sometimes business is business. I’m sure Navy and Notre Dame would still play, but I doubt it would be an annual contest.

...

To me, the most interesting part about this whole process is that it isn’t an expansion as much as it is a consolidation. We aren’t talking about anyone new like BYU or Utah being added to the BCS mix; instead, BCS conferences are feeding on each other. It demonstrates where the real power lies in college sports. How irrelevant does all of the Mountain West’s kicking and screaming about BCS inclusion seem now? What we’re seeing is the difference between a BCS-caliber team and a BCS-caliber program. Utah, TCU, and Boise State are examples of the former, but they aren’t even a flicked booger on the radar scope of the latter. Now, very little has been confirmed, and I suppose it’s still possible that the Pac 10 might hold their nose and take Utah as a Plan D if their Big 12 raid fails. Even then, they would be little more than the all-too-necessary filler to ensure that the conference has two-division symmetry. Strangely enough, the demise of the Big 12 might actually open the door for the Mountain West to replace them in the BCS. Unfortunately for them, it would be a Pyrrhic victory.

This consolidation is what should be tingling the spidey sense of not only Navy fans, but anyone else left on the outside looking in– including the Mountain West. In the short-term, the enormous television revenue that will be generated by these new superconferences will be virtually impossible for everyone else to compete with. That’s just the beginning. Mountain West fans might think they’ll be able to keep up thanks to their newfound BCS wealth, but that will only be temporary. The MWC sees the BCS as the ultimate prize, but in reality it is only a stepping stone on the way to the true endgame– the superconferences leaving the NCAA and creating their own organization.

Don’t think it can’t happen. Once upon a time, the NCAA controlled the broadcast rights of its members’ football games. In 1977, the College Football Association was formed. The CFA was a group of 62 major football schools whose initial purpose was to give a unified voice when campaigning for their interests within the NCAA. While the NCAA would split television revenue evenly between its member schools, the CFA wanted its members– the ones actually being shown on TV– to get a greater share. The conflict came to a head in 1981, when NBC offered the CFA a separate $180 million contract for its members’ television rights. At the time, CFA members decided not to cut themselves off from NCAA basketball tournament revenue and remained within the organization. But what if they chose to take NBC’s offer instead? The NCAA knows that BCS schools could leave, which is why they cater to them. Do you think NCAA tournament expansion is about letting in more of the Centenaries and Pepperdines of the world, or squeezing in a few 17-13 Michigans and Georgias? Still, there’s only so much the NCAA can do. If the superconferences split from the NCAA to form their own elite league, they would be free to create a football playoff– worth as much as $900 million per year– and not have to split it with the Mountain West and Conference USA-types that would clamor for automatic bids under the NCAA umbrella. That’s $15 million per school in a 60-team league. Compare that to the $15 million or so per conference that the current BCS generates. That’s plenty of incentive to leave the NCAA.


When that day comes, it will probably mean the end of major college athletics at the Naval Academy. The income just won’t be there to support it. There is interest in programs like Navy and Boise State as long as they are part of college football’s highest level, but as soon as that changes, the interest would disappear. There is a finite amout of money that people will spend on college football, and the additional revenue that the new superleague would generate has to come from somewhere. That somewhere will be from TV networks who will drop their lower-profile broadcast contracts in order to ensure that they can offer enough to avoid being left out of the ratings bonanza that the new league would be sure to generate. There is only so much one can do to be proactive in this situation; if you aren’t part of the club, then you aren’t part of the club.

thebirddog.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/the-navy-fans-guide-to-conference-expansion/

[ValpoHoops]

Something in that article caught my attention...if this all does go down the way it seems, there would be FIVE leagues with BCS ties...and if K-State, Kansas, Iowa State, etc jump to the Mountain West (as has been discussed) that would put that conference into the BCS mix most likely...which, in fact, WOULD bring Utah, BYU and others to the party.

[vuweathernerd]

what i wonder is if the pac-10 ultimately grows to 16 teams and the big east already has 16 teams and if the sec raids the acc and the big 12 implodes, wouldn't it be in the best interest of the big 10 to grab a couple of those freestanding teams? i haven't heard any discussion of this scenario, and i'm curious as to what other sports fans think.

[valpo04]

Boise State has given the Mountain West Conference a 10th program.

Boise State is leaving the Western Athletic Conference, a league the Broncos have dominated for a decade in football, the MWC confirmed with a statement Friday.

"We are pleased and excited to welcome Boise State University to the Mountain West Conference," commissioner Craig Thompson said in the news release. "Since our inception just 11 short years ago, the Mountain West has experienced tremendous success, and the addition of Boise State will further enhance that strength. The MWC continues to strategize regarding potential membership scenarios and bringing Boise State into the Conference is an important part of that evolution."

sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5276064

[jj]

Hats off to Nebraska,now a member of the BIG 10. If and when Rutgers accepts,we can follow the Big 10 from Lincoln to New Brunswick. How about that?

[vu75]

Hard to believe Kansas, one of the top five programs in the history of college basketball, is at best an afterthought in all this, and may end up being kicked to the curb.

[fwalum]

College athletics is no longer about the student athlete and perhaps hasn't been for some time. All this equates to is more travel, less class time, fewer local rivalries and of course MORE MONEY. They should all be ashamed of themselves.

[agibson]

So, how did this end up? The PAC10 added Colorado and Utah, for a total of 12 teams?

The Big Ten added Nebraska?

Anything else?

[vuweathernerd]

boise state moved into the mountain west.

there are rumblings that the big 12 may extend an invite to tcu. not sure how that's gonna shake out with the division setup. but it could be an interesting move.