Mike Farrell's speculation on a 3 24-team Super Conference CFB layout.
Realignment-a-world-with-three-super-conferences
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Mike Farrell's speculation on a 3 24-team Super Conference CFB layout.
Realignment-a-world-with-three-super-conferences
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I wouldn't hate it - gets VT into the SEC. I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense, though. I don't like this:
I also wouldn't be a huge fan of our "division" that is Tennessee, Kentucky, and then ACC scraps (us included :(...)
Being able to add VT and give Tennessee a legitimate regional rival is a very underrated and underappreciated aspect of why VT would be a good fit in the SEC. The Battle of Bristol was great for the sport, and it would be awesome to see it return as an annual trophy rivalry in the SEC, even if its not actually being played in Bristol anymore.
yeah, that's the only part I liked, besides VT getting into the SEC.
I also don't like that every team only gets one non-conference game. I do understand the scheduling challenges when each league has 20+ teams but part of the magic of college football is the rare and novel noncon games. I think I would prefer a pod style conference set up for all 3 of the P3 leagues and rotating through pods on a biannual basis instead of trying to play a team from each pod every year - that way you still play all the teams in your league over a 4 year span but each team also gets more noncon games to play against other interesting and novel opponents.
Bristol is about to lose one of their NASCAR races, so there might be a push to do more Battle at Bristol games. However, they are keeping their August race, which obviously coincides closely with football season. Very fall heavy schedule events for the venue. They need something to keep the local economy going year round.
It might get VT into the SEC.
The more likely scenario I think is the B1G and SEC cherrypicking the schools they want and then the Big12 as the Leftover League.
Doesn't really change the dynamics much from what it is now, other than power becomes even more consolidated and interesting rivalries get replaced by watered down matchups with teams in prime TV markets.
Whether VT has what the seemingly inevitable Power 2 will want remains to be seen. There will almost certainly be alot of politics involved as well.
Make it stop.
Can't. Sadly we are at a point where if it stopped right this second, the P2 runs away.
I believe we are better off letting it consolidate and then break back down into regional divisions of these super conferences. It will still ruin some of what college football was, but that ship has sailed already.
This feels like how military units would get combined after suffering heavy losses in WWII. B1G and SEC are no longer conferences, they become leagues. What used to be divisions are now conferences, and cascading down etc. etc. Both League offices (in a legal, technically non-coercive manner) lay an ultimatum to their member schools to vote to dissolve the NCAA so we're right back to where we were 10 years ago, but now the NCAA isn't the League office, it's B1G or SEC HQ who then do all contact negotiations for their conference and they start divvying up League money in different amounts to the conferences after taking their grift, I mean, dues off the top.
Thanks, I hate it.
BC and Wake are NEVER getting picked up by a major conference. They are money black holes right now and add nothing to the conference.
If we redistributed the bottom 5 schools revenue to the top 8 we would all be getting close to SEC money right now, that's the way out of this imo. BC and Wake are lower mid level G5 programs, you can argue they barely deserve any of their share
I stopped reading at this:
Big Ten:
Additions:
Boston College
Immediately disqualified. This person clearly does not understand the actual factors driving conference realignment and is just fantasy casting on their copy of NCAA 14.
I got a good chuckle out of this one.
So clearly, the B1G prioritizes academics at roughly 100 on a scale of 1 - 10.
I mean they're all better than Nebraska
The sunbelt is better than Nebraska
So Arizona is headed to Big 12. Utah and Arizona state are weighing options. Washington and Oregon looking at reduced payout to join BIG. (In what world is Rutgers and Maryland getting full BIG payouts but not Oregon and Washington wow).
It's smart to take the partial payout. You're short upfront but you're securing your long term stability. I may be wrong on this, but I think Maryland and Rutgers also came in with partial payouts and worked their way up. Either way, a seat at the table is far more important right now than the amount of food on your plate. If VT were to ever get the same offer from BIG (or SEC), they'd be fools to pass it up.
Fuck it.
Promotion and Relegation Football
Top 15 teams form the top of the football pyramid, all playing a 14 game, 7 home, 7 away season.
Bottom 4 teams get relegated to 1 of 4 x 15 team regional rundles, 14 game season 7/7, champions get promoted, Bottom 2 get relegated to 4 x 15 team secondary regional rundles, 14 game season, 7/7, top 2 get promoted, if there isn't enough teams to fill out the rundle, an FCS opponent may be scheduled in for that rundle.
Bowl games still happen as all teams with winning records become eligible, with regional rundle tie-ins.
Rundle tiers change as FCS teams decide to go FBS
I'm here for it. It would be interesting to see how a relegation format would work with collegiate sports. At this point, just about anything will be better than where we are headed
Basketball pyramid would work better than football. 32 team NBA, next 5 tiers would be 68 team leagues. NBA would have traditional playoffs, but each of the lower leagues would have 64 team single elimination tournaments with the Final Four getting promoted.
So, here's the big question to me...where is the money coming from for all this expansion?
ESPN has had several rounds of very public layoffs and are actively searching for direct-to-consumer options. The parent Disney has been losing tons of $$ with Disney+.
Fox has been less public but FS1 has ratings that are in the toilet and seemingly has more and more "fringe sports" programming.
Now reports are that UW and Ore are getting offered meh $$ to go to the B1G. (Essentially the same as the ACC allotment if reports are true) Seems like this panacea of TV cash may be inflated quite a bit. Schools are just so afraid of getting left behind at this point
I have a very strong feeling that 15 years from now we are going to look back on this phase as doing absolutely nothing positive for CFB and everyone except the TV execs who are padding their pockets are going to be full of regret.
But now we'll get to watch the scintillating UCLA-Rutgers and UCF-Arizona matchups that we have all been begging for for years...so there's that.
There is no way that CFB TV media rights continue to increase in value over the next 20-30 years. We're about to hit an enrollment cliff in 2025 that will accelerate every subsequent year into the forseeable future. Less kids and young adults are getting into college sports and sports in general. Less and less people are watching TV in general.
If we somehow signed a 10 year extension at current Big Ten/SEC rates we could potentially reverse screw ESPN as the media rights drop in value. But this will never happen because ESPN likely knows this, while the schools assume linear growth
Agree...and that's where this doesn't make sense.
Attendance is down broadly in CFB...the SEZ at Lane is typically sparsely populated, FSU is downsizing Doak by something like 20k seats, and Alabama created a tracking app to try to keep people in the stands.
TV viewership is down massively and the current teen-young 20's generation (the ones that will be in the prime demographics about the time these current contracts expire) consume almost zero traditional TV programming.
Yet, Networks have billions to throw out to bloated conferences that have trampled over regional rivalries so that teams with no history and little to nothing in common as institutions can fill primetime TV slots?
Seems like a classic bubble scenario and when it bursts the people who are going to get screwed over are the fans.
Correct and they will do the NFL thing. Simply grab the consumer by the balls. You want to watch your team on Thursday night football? pay per view- amazon prime. That's what ESPN will do with Bama and OSU. Want to watch Bama/Auburn? Peacock stream only.
This can apply far beyond college sports too. Very few decisions are made with a long term view in mind. Short term gains are king right now
He lost me with this one.
Jokes aside, I would be fine with this. It has a chance to restore the regional aspect of the sport. I wouldn't mind playing the west coast teams sometimes but I would much prefer playing Tennessee, PSU, or USCe regularly over Utah or Washington.
Play your 3 games in your POD each year, 6 other in conference games, 3 OOC.
At the end of the day, I don't care what they have to do to explain it, as long as it ends up with us in the SEC or Big Ten with an equal revenue share as the rest of the conference
SEC's Wikipedia updated
Wow
Admittedly, the columns are all fucky
lol - fucking rando. FSU Clemson and UVA... SEC baby- roll tide... fucking fake news
I like how Texas isn't slated to join until the year 51,991
Here's the kicker...for VT this is like watching a slow-moving train wreck.
If what has been reported re: compensation for Ore and Wash going to the B1G is true, the writing is pretty much on the wall for VT.
Either:
-Get invited to one of the super-conferences at a reduced share
-Get left out in the cold like Wash St.
In either scenario, we get screwed and VT football is pretty much at an all-time low from a negotiating perspective...so playing hardball isn't really an option.
I loathe what college football has become.
One of the crazy things is that Oregon and Washington are now part of the "haves" but their payout will still only be $30M a year(less than ACC teams), and max out at $40M for the next 7 years.
So they're in a better position for a decade from now, but they've set themselves up to be punching bags with the haves in the meantime.
Yeah, for Oregon they can rely on Nike $$ to keep them afloat but I'm not sure how Washington is going to fare. FB will probably be least affected but the non-rev sports are gonna take a beating.
And the assumption that in the next media negotiations the Networks are just gonna pony up even more money is a flawed one IMHO.
So I've seen folks on r/CFB swear that we are still a big name, just down on our luck currently and have nothing to worry about. The ACC is in the same place as the PAC-X, its just that everyone outside of the dumbass drunk cousin from Tallahassee is keeping it close to the chest.
The dumbest, and most likely, outcome is we join the big 12. At least the students get yearly street fights with the kissing cousin faithful. To be fair: I'd rather have that game than the uva@c losers.
If we join the Big XII, it's time to de-emphasize athletic spending as a university
All of this is ruining college football.
So as of today, the B1G has 18, Big 12 has 16 and SEC has 16. That is 10 spots for ACC teams to make 3 20 team leagues. 10 ACC teams and ND vote to dissolve ACC and cancel the GOR.
ND stays independent and moves other sports back to Big East.
UVA and UNC to B1G (TV markets, Olympic sports and academics).
SEC takes Clemson and FSU for football prowess and VT and NCSt for TV markets (don't want the B1G to own VA and NC).
Big 12 takes Miami (state and reputation), GT (Atlanta), Louisville (reputation) and Pitt? (Pennsylvania).
It seems to make sense which is probably why it won't happen.