SBNation just posted their latest installment in their College Football Relegation series. They imagine a world where college football works like soccer. Each conference is made up of multiple tiers of quality. At the end of the year, the worst team in each tier gets demoted to the next tier down while the best teams in the lower tiers move up. They've carried this thought experiment through 10 years now, and it's a fascinating read. There are so many installments that it gets difficult to follow, so I have compiled the results for the ACC below:
They started in 2005, so this was the membership at the time.
Starting Membership
Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, N.C. State, North Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Tier 2 for the ACC is the Big East (now AAC)
2005
Drop: Duke
Add: WVU
2006
Drop: N.C. State
Add: Louisville
Sidenote: Duke gets demoted again down to Tier 3 (The Atlantic 10/Colonial). They used to be atrocious.
2007
Drop: Miami
Add: UConn
2008
Drop: Louisville
Add: Cincinnati
2009
Drop: Maryland
Add: Pitt
2010
Drop: Wake Forest
Add: N.C. State (First returning original member)
2011
Drop: Boston College
Add: Miami (Da U is Back!)
2012
Drop: UConn
Add: Lousiville
Sidenote: Duke finally makes it back to Tier 2
2013
Drop: N.C. State
Add: Duke
Add through realignment: Notre Dame & UCF
2014
Drop: UCF
Add: Boston College
Interesting to see some recent additions to the ACC pop up on this list. Amazingly, UVA never got dropped. They were always a hair less bad than someone else.
Comments
I feel like we'd be the tier 2 to the SEC
SEC>>ACC>>Big East/AAC
PAC12>>WAC>>MWC
Big 12>>CUSA>>SBC
Big10>>MAC>>IND+MVFC
Since '05 REALLY!?!?! I hope that is in jest.
If you forget about this year's OSU team (whom we all know took an embarrassing L on the home opener), I would say the ACC has been stronger than the B1G as a whole. In other words, the ACC deserves to be a Tier 1 conference IMO. And seriously, that national title win was more about how good OSU was and not about how underrated the B1G/Big 10 or whatever they want to call themselves. As a whole, that conference blows. Every year, the ACC has at least 4 teams ranked in the top 25. Nowadays the B1G is lucky to have 2. And especially if you are considering this going back to 2005. Let's not forget about our own glory days here folks.
I still say "ew." But that's, like, just my opinion, man.
despite what Horse says relegation is the worst concept to use for College Football. It's a system dedicated to keeping those with power and money IN power and money. Not for helping the little guy get his chance as many believe.
It would breed better competition but increase the divide between the haves and the have nots.
I obviously disagree. I think a relegation structure would be great for most sports - let's not forget too quickly the other thread about the girls basketball teams who got kicked out of their tournament for trying to tank. Would we have seen Indy try to suck for Luck had they been in danger of being relegated?
Our current leagues are built on mutual financial benefit for the members of the leagues without regard to whether they're trying to build successful franchises or not. So why not take a team that isn't holding up their end of the bargain (like the Clippers of a decade ago or the Florida baseball team that seems to be continually selling their players) and give another franchise the opportunity to build something a fan base can be proud of?
If teams can just be content to rake in television money without any risk of losing their cash flow, there's little incentive for some owners to take seriously the sporting goal of being competitive.
Except minor league baseball teams don't have the facilities to accommodate major-league-level play, crowds, use, etc. for a long-enough period of time. And, given the fact that minor league teams are full of players who aren't good enough or experienced enough to be major leaguers, it would be a setup to fail for the New Orleans Zephyrs to all of a sudden have to face the Nationals (grrrr) 19 times a year.
And the Clippers don't have a definite D-League affiliate, so who would you have promoted in their place?
And there's no minor league football, so that's a non-starter.
Basically, if we were to introduce relegation here, we would have to reinvent the ENTIRE system. But IMO as much as it costs to keep the status quo, it would cost WAY too much to redo it all.
A few things:
Minor league teams don't have the facilities, I agree. But is that because they've always been in the minor league? If a minor league team were promoted to major league status, I would imagine they'd make more money than they currently do, whether it comes from TV deals they're cut into when they're promoted, or what have you. Up here we have the State College Spikes and the Altoona Curve. I think those stadiums, small as they are, would sell out all the time if the major league clubs came to town, meaning more money for the minor league teams.
Your statement about the Clippers brings up an interesting point, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong (because I genuinely don't know), but aren't minor league/d-league teams affiliated with major league/pro teams? That makes it a little more difficult - CFB isn't exactly in this boat because teams like VT/OSU/Bama/etc don't have a developmental team playing in a developmental league. This is good as far as a relegation structure is concerned, because teams with minor league affiliates probably wouldn't want to see their B-Team promoted in such a way that they'd compete with the A-Team. One requirement would be that the teams in lower 'divisions' (aka lower 'conferences' for CFB) can't be a branch of a team in a major division/conference. CFB already has this, so no worries.
As far as lower teams being set up to fail, I think that lower division teams would likely get beat pretty thoroughly most of the time, but you never know. I wouldn't rule out the idea that a team that gets promoted could be successful.
I think MLB stadiums are required to have a minimum capacity, somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000. Not just to accommodate home teams but also visitors. And, of course, they charge more for tickets due to the varying tiers they have in the stadium (all MiLB stadiums are cheap dates, and that's a good thing for the minor league).
I can't picture a world where, for example, the Yankees (blech) played 10 games a year in Pawtucket versus in Fenway Park.
In the MLB and NHL, minor league teams are either affiliated with their parent clubs or owned by them outright. The relationship between NBA and D-League is a little more fluid; some teams are owned, some are affiliated/hybrid (meaning that they're owned by a private entity, but their basketball relations are coordinated by the parent club), and one team independent and thus affiliated with every other NBA team that doesn't have its own D-League "child."
That pretty much disqualifies the three leagues mentioned in the earlier part of my comment. In CFB, though, the part that no one wants to discuss is the scholarship issue and the limits/requirements in place for every competitive level. I posted a (snarky) comment about it earlier.
Herein lies the difference between the major/minor league structure in America and the promotion/relegation structure in Europe. In the US/Canada the player is the most vertically mobile entity, while in Europe it's the team.
This, this this, great point. But simply because the team is mobile doesn't mean the player isn't. Players also move around a lot.
Yeah, that whole system about players being *officially* on loan between teams is something I'll never understand. lol
Similar to baseball trades that end up in "cash considerations." Yep, you just sold a human being to another organization.
True, but I'm talking specifically about the loan part. If you're traded for cash in MLB, you're just gone.
you're talking about the idealism of a relegation system, not it's practice though. I fully support the idea of it, but show me one sport in which the purpose of the relegation system has actually been realized and the lowly club team managed to win, move up win more, move up and eventually become the champion? Or even a lowly club team that managed to move up successfully and stay up there competitively.
Relegation is the ultimate f*ck you to the little guy because it promises hope without actually having any.
At least in the current system you could possibly build a program and get added into a more powerful conference and stay there.
Blackburn Rovers F.C. was promoted to the top league for the first time in 26 years in 1992, and won the league title in 1995.
Sure, it is an unusual occurrence but it HAS happened.
Sure, not unprecedented. I'll give you that. Where is Blackburn now? The point is that relegation is thought of as this great altruistic system that is going to give the little guy a chance. But in actuality it is designed to keep the big clubs big and the small clubs small. It is the antithesis of what people want it to be.
I do think it gives the little guy a chance, and I think Blackburn is a great example. Altruistic? No, I wouldn't go there. When money is involved, club teams will never be classified as altruistic, but Blackburn was the little guy, they had a chance, and they won. In all likelihood, scenarios like that wouldn't happen often. But it does open the door. A small program would need a few years in a row to make it happen, but it would be possible.
As far as where Blackburn is now, they've been relegated from the Premiere League. Getting to the top league doesn't guarantee that you stay there, no way. Some teams will be terrible in some years, and they'll get relegated. If they have a sustainable program, or if they want to increase their investment in a particular sport to increase the chance they have to get back to the big leagues, that's up to the schools to decide (shifted here to talking about the NCAA).
I'm certainly not arguing that the P5 would go for this, but I don't agree at all with the statement that the little guy still doesn't have a chance in a sport where a relegation structure exists.
I think your point about being added to a bigger conference is ultimately unsustainable in the long run. At the moment, how would programs get built into a better conference without needing to remove a team from a conference at some point? Do the major conferences, as currently constituted, just keep adding teams once the little guys get big/rich/impactful enough?
I'm sure we could look around the country and find schools that were good fits for their conference at one point, *cough* Wake Forest *cough* but is there a line where the big conferences get too big? If ODU got big enough, would they get into the ACC? If that were to happen, would the ACC just keep growing bigger and bigger?
Let's not forget that even schools that excelled in the top-dollar sports like football *cough* Boise State *cough* couldn't get into a major conference, even after building a perennial winner, because their TV market wasn't lucrative enough. How does a program like Boise ever have a chance?
there are a lot of factors at play in professional sports that aren't in college sports (as they exist today, at least).
1. College players are a lot more limited in how they can abandon their team to a better funded team. the vast majority play out their eligibility at their first school. Even super stars rarely transfer to a better team, instead you see them jumping to the NFL early. Point being, in English soccer, the well funded teams can poach quality players from the 2nd tier teams, thus kneecapping any chance said team has of climbing up the ranks.
2. There are requirements for promotion that create a catch-22 for 2nd tier teams. Say you convince your quality players and coach to stay even with limited funds. You still have to make enough money to upgrade your facilities before you'd even be eligible for promotion. You don't make that kind of money without playing the premier teams. We see this to some extent between FCS and FBS schools (# of scholarships, for example), but within the FBS, there would be fewer barriers to moving up or down.
3. When recruiting college players, money talks, but only so far. this may change when we start paying players, but what's on the table for recruits is limited enough that you can appeal to non-financial benefits to going to a lesser school. Take the "you can be the one to help lift our program out of the dumpster" pitch that Coach FML probably gives every recruit. In the EPL, that would be weighed against a massive stack of cash. In college ball, it only has to beat out quality of facilities/coaches (the things money can buy in college sports).
I'm not saying relegation would be perfect or easy (I mean, can you imagine having to re-do your budget when moving from the SEC to the AAC?), just that using professional sports as examples to shoot it down isn't particularly accurate.
I love relegation!!!! The fights are so intense and I know multiple friends who watch their teams fight vigorously to stay in the top flight. This also adds more competitive nature later in the season and fans will continue to show up in force in "lost seasons". You also typically see more upsets later in the season which keeps you focused.
I would like this idea better if it went with FBS as tier 1 and FCS as tier 2. Not very realistic though, under current rules and conditions. Brilliant idea though. Recruiting would be vastly affected.
I have only read the title so far but my reaction is "F*cking finally"
I don't mind relegation in professional leagues where the guys who got you into the mess of being relegated are going to be the ones tasked with getting you out of it because of the long contracts they sign. In college, with only scholarships of 4 years... I dunno... Take Duke as an example... Relegation in 2005 and dropped to Tier 3 in 2006. By 2010 all the players who got them into the mess are gone, and they're still wallowing in the lowest of divisions. At that point, they're done. No way they get the momentum needed to get them playing as well as they are now, and the problem is, everyone who got them there is gone.
I agree that this would never actually work in real life. For one, the bottom feeders in the current conferences would never agree to it. If it did go through, any team that got relegated would see all its players transfer.
All the same, an interesting thought experiment.
It is an interesting concept and could only really be applied to college sports but as Alum pointed out, they guys who sank the ship are gone when the ship has too much water to float again. Duke doesn't bounce back if they had dropped to tier 3. There would be the pain of being a fan of a team who could very easily be going up and down every year.
I would love to have relegation, but only in our current conferences. The ACC has gotten so big that we could make it two tiers. Once we add two more teams to get to 16, why not make the top 8 teams in one level and the bottom 8 in another? Only the top eight are eligible for the playoffs, and there is relegation at the end of the year.
This way we get to see the quality teams play each other more often, and you still keep the conferences intact. Win/win.
Welcome to TKP! Have a leg!
I love the idea but with schedules being made almost a decade in advance now and all the money tied up I do not see this happening. Not to mention scholarship numbers and conference championship affiliation. It would be awesome though...
Just imagine this doomsday scenario, taking other people's suggestions:
"Hey, Virginia Tech, we're sorry, but after four consecutive bowl-ineligible seasons, you've been relegated to FCS. Under FCS regulations, you can only give 50 scholarships to your football team. Good luck cutting off 35 of your players!"
And, conversely:
"Congratulations, Georgetown, for winning the FCS Championship four years in a row. You've been promoted to FBS! Per their regulations, you must offer athletic scholarships to 85 players now. Good luck finding that extra money that you aren't used to budgeting!"
The whole idea makes me wonder, though. Conferences already have no problem adding teams that have been consistently playing well. Shoot, the ACC added Pitt and Louisville, same as the relegation scenario. So why don't conferences cut the dead weight? Something like if you underperform for 10 years you get the boot. Has a conference ever kicked out a member? I can't think of any off the top of my head.
*thinking*
Oh, I know why they don't get rid of the lousy teams. Free in-conference win!
Temple in the Big East. It's not unprecedented
Read up on Tech's exit from the Metro Conference....
Also, it's a good thing this would only apply to football because if this were basketball, we'd probably be in the ODAC by now. Just sayin...
You can tell it's the offseason...