Big Ten ADs on 9-game schedule, via Rittenberg
I don't remember a thread specifically on this question, but it's something I feel strongly about, so here goes...
Rittenberg's story is here: Big Ten ADs to Discuss More Games. Seems Barry Alvarez is a definite yes vote. Maybe Osborne too, whose main concern is preserving seven home games per year, which is possible as long as their home-and-aways are scheduled properly. Burke at Purdue seems more on the fence, looking at both sides of the argument.
If Osborne and Alvarez are any indication, I wonder if a nine-game schedule will be the concession made to the West to get them to go for an East-West divisional split.
Resolved: The most effective step toward Delany's "competitive fairness” would be to play a nine-game conference schedule. Balance between divisional alignments will come and go as programs wax and wane, but the most inherently unfair situation is when one team in a division is playing three weaklings from the other division while another team is playing its strength. You can mitigate this somewhat by playing four teams from the other division each year instead of only three.
Resolved: With revenue sharing with the away team, six additional Big Ten games are of more (or at least similar) value than twelve FCS games. This is due to the increased average value of the television broadcasts, which make up for the lost ticket sales, especially when the fees paid to the FCS teams are factored in. In addition, an extra Big Ten home game every other year is as much of a boost to the local economy as a meaningless FCS home game every year, because far more people care about it.
Debate!
1 big ten home game is less than 2 FCS home games. You should have learned that in 1st grade.
With so much value placed on TV, I would think that the profit from an additional conference game is equal to or greater than the profit that you get when those same two teams each play a tomato can. One team loses a home game profit, but there's a lot more revenue from TV, since people would much rather watch Michigan vs. Minnesota than Michigan vs. Delaware State.
not tied to specific games but rather contracts that span many seasons. Perhaps advertising dollars will go up - but that is marginal compared to home ticket prices
The added revenue from an additional conference game will, if at, all only manifest in the fees that the conference can get from its contracts with the carriers
So Michigan vs. Purdue doesn't make more advertising money for the BTN than Michigan vs. Delaware State? I find that rather hard to believe.
If there's anything that's questionable, it's how much money the program makes off of tomato cans. On the surface, it looks like they are getting the revenue from a full game, but in reality, most tickets are sold as season ticket packages. Lots of season ticket holders buy the packages for two or three marquis games, and that's how the university gets $45 for the rest of the crap that rounds out the schedule. The price that football fans are truly willing to pay for a tomato can matchup is reflected in how much you have to pay to get a ticket outside the stadium before kickoff. If you charge $350 for a season ticket package and then suddenly take away a really crappy home game, you aren't going to have to knock the price down to $300. You could probably charge $340 for it.
But does Michigan vs Purdue bring in as much advertising as, say, Michigan vs Miami (NTM) AND Purdue vs Western? Probably not and then, combined with that you have the loss of home revenue for one team (if it's us it's the worst possible scenario losing seat income from 108k). Heck, I'd say Purdue vs Baby Seal U + Michigan vs UMass will bring in more money combined (attendance + TV revenue) than Purdue vs Michigan if for no other reason than the missed home game.
"But does Michigan vs Purdue bring in as much advertising as, say, Michigan vs Miami (NTM) AND Purdue vs Western? "
My answer would be -- yes. For Big Ten vs MAC you just get one program's audience. For Big Ten vs Big Ten you get both programs' audience, plus other Big Ten fans.
Combine that with twice as much TV so you'd have to charge twice as much for the advertising to compensate for that. You may get some other Big Ten fans but you'll also likely get Miami (NTM) fans as well as Western fans. It really comes down to the money made by having a home game - it's much more than just the tickets as they upcharge like crazy for food and everything else.
Also, if we added another Big Ten game we wouldn't be ridding ourselves of the baby seals - we'd be ridding ourselves of these semi-interesting games. So long as the NCAA counts an FCS towards bowl eligibility I can't imagine too many schools are going to skip out on that one.
If it means one less clubbed baby seal on the schedule, I'm all for a 9th Big Ten game. I just wish more athletic directors had the balls to draw up more interesting schedules without being mandated to do so by a Big Ten rule. I know it makes financial sense to schedule MAC teams and that it's all about money...but I wish it wasn't.
I'm with you. More interesting D1A matchups do more to prepare you for the bowl season as well.
Rich at one point mentioned "scrimmage" pre-season games. I think that is an idea that deserves some consideration: officially embrace one cupcake a season ... play your FCS pre-season game as a warm up, and then at least one "real" non-conference game before rolling into the conference schedule with one or two others in the mix. The trick is scheduling the "real" non-conference games in such a way that the away years alternate.
I don't agree with your second resolution. $50 x 100k (for round numbers) = $5 million. The last number that I heard that we give to teams to come in is $500k. I don't know if that is for MACs, I-AAs, all opponents, or what, but I am going to use it for this example. If we add another game instead of two teams making $9 million (2 x (5mil - .5mil)), you have two teams making $5 million. That's an extra $2 million per team that needs to be made up.
Then, you say that TV Revenue will make up for it. The ABC TV contract is set. They don't make more money from that. They might make more money from BTN doing more advertising, but then you have to think there are now 6 fewer games throughout the season for the BTN to broadcast. Adding the extra game just about ensures that there is at least one more game between two conference powers each season. That game will be picked up by ABC and there will be either 7 fewer games for BTN to broadcast, or ABC will drop a B10 game back to BTN because it isn't a big enough showdown. That would mean that BTN has lost 6 games and downgraded another from ABC to BTN. I don't see where that extra money from television is coming from to make up the $2 million/team loss in revenue.
Why would we do 9 games? That wouldn't benefit anything. If you do it Big 12 style it's perfectly setup - you play your set of the other division home and away and then you play the other set of 3 for the next two years. You end up with an even number of home and away in conference games and you never go more than 2 years without playing a team from the other division. We ran into this with a 16 team conference people were complaining that you'd play people once every 4 or 5 years, well, this way it's every 2 years no matter what. I just don't see the issue - 9 is stupid because it gives half the conference a home vs away advantage and it makes scheduling way more of a pain than saying 2011 and 12 you play a,b,c and 13 and 14 you play d, e, f then back to a, b, c in 15 and 16.
It just seems so much easier that way...
If you go to 9 games, you can have groups of two teams that you play. Then, every year you rotate two on and two off. You would never go more than 1 year without playing a team.
2011 play teams - a, b, c, d
2012 play teams - c, d, e, f
2013 play teams - e, f, a, b
That still doesn't solve the issue about half the league having 5 home games and other half having 4. The Big Ten has some of the best stadiums in the country, I don't think giving half the conference an advantage over the other half is fair. From a "how often do we play them" view your schedule works out very well but I'm still not a fan of the 5 and 4 home/away issue.
I was 5 and lived in California the last time that the Big10 last had 10 teams, so I don't really remember how they handled the scheduling then, but didn't they have a round robin with some teams playing 5 home games and the rest playing 4?
They've always had 8 conference games. Just one team was rotated off instead of two. I believe they had 3 standard rivalry games (OSU, MSU and Minn for UM), but I might be wrong on that.
Good to know. But still, the Pac10 does a round robin, it hasn't hurt them to do 5-4 or 4-5 schedules.
For years it didn't matter because USC won all the conference titles but given how, recently, USC had a high propensity to choke on the road I'd say they benefit directly from the years they have 5 instead of 4. Or ask some team that lost by 3 on the road or something and ended up 2nd in the conference on their 4 home game schedule - I'm sure they weren't happy with it. But, like I said, they deal with it because there's a reason for it - so every team plays every other team. There is no advantage at all in playing 9 games in a 12 team conference, nothing gets resolved, you create a home/away disadvantage and you cost each team a home game every other year. Not to mention I'm sure Central/Eastern/Western would be pretty disappointed by the fact that UM wouldn't be able to schedule them as much because of that. Give the Michigan kids a chance to play in the big house even if they went to a directional school. If we go 9 the first ones to get kicked to the curb will be the mid-majors not the baby seals.
Michigan has only filled the schedule I-AAs the last few years because of the increasing difficulty to get a team to play here without asking us to return the favor (see UConn). I think Michigan would be glad to fill the schedule with ND and two directionals.
You keep saying there is no advantage to adding a 9th game. How about strength of schedule? While that doesn't play a direct role in deciding the teams in the BCS Championship Game, it certainly affects voters (see LSU 2007). How about playing teams in the other division 4 out of every six years instead of 3? If this makes an East/West divisional alignment possible, it will save teams money and time because the average distance they need to travel goes down significantly (see PSU being in a division with Iowa and Nebraska).
Your argument about teams coming in 2nd because of 4 home games instead of 5 goes away when you add a championship game. Win your division or don't complain. If the 1st and 2nd best teams are in the same division, you are going to have the same issues regardless of 8 or 9 game conference schedules (see Big12 2008).
I think it has much more to do with the fact that until 2006 games against FCS schools didn't count for bowl eligibility and by that point we were already done with the 2006 schedule and in 2007 we tried it and, yeah, so we took a year off and then went back to it and got an easy win and so we scheduled another one.
There is no problem in finding a non-return game - Boise State flat out told anyone and everyone in a BCS conference they'll play them without a return game but got denied with a "no interest" reply - if we wanted a solid opponent without a return game we could have played them but we didn't. We've got an FCS opponent on there because it counts towards Bowl Eligibility and until that changes the longest we'll ever go without playing 1 is 1 year. Ultimately we want to be bowl eligible, it's what's good for us, the conference, our fans, etc etc and beyond that it's nice to have a week when our players can have a down week and still win easily - it's good for the psyche.
Also, I don't understand your argument about traveling. Playing an away game vs a home game will always increase traveling costs so adding a big ten game will increase traveling costs by 20% every other year (on again off again assuming 5 away games).
Texas has a unique situation because they play OU on a neutral site every year so some years they end up with 3 in division home games and other years they only get 1. If the OU game had been at OU and UT would have won UT probably would have got the nod but because of how they set it up it made things a little more nebulous.
has not placed a team in the BCS Championship game, nor have they sent two teams to BCS Bowls in the same season since the Pac-10 went to a 9 conference game schedule, following the 2005 season. Granted, four years may be too brief to say conclusively, but it appears to be hurting them.
All teams played nine conference games in 1983 and 1984, and everybody but Ohio State and Iowa did in 1981 and 1982.
We actually went to the Rose Bowl in 1982 despite a loss to Ohio State. Ohio State wound up with one conference loss, just like Michigan, but we had one more conference win and a better winning percentage.
In 1985 the schedule went back to 8 conference games, presumably so everybody could fit in another home game.
Actually, the Big Ten played a 9 game conference schedule during the '82, '83, and '84 seasons. You can see the conference record of the Big Ten champions for those years in the link below.
http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/bigten/champions.php
Edit: Didn't see befuggled's reply above.
But that's the way now 10 team Big 12 is going to do it but that makes sense - there's a reason for it, so every team plays every other team. If we did it it wouldn't resolve anything just take another mid-major off the slate and cost us a home game every other year.
was an interesting year when Big Ten teams played a nine game conference schedule. Michigan went 8-1 in conference, the loss came at Illinois. The Illini won the conference 9-0, but lost in the Rose Bowl to UCLA, (they had also lost their opener, at Missouri).
BTW, the Wolverines played 5 home conference games. While the Illini had only 4 home conference games; their five road opponents had a combined record of 17-36-2, with only Wisconsin having a winning record.
the eight-game schedule killed the Big XII and it is still killing the ACC. It's about "competitive fairness," which is Delany's stated first priority. I think one more game would make a crucial difference here -- it's a tipping point toward a sense of conference unity and rivalry. The SEC can get away with it because they have more depth in their divisions, and nobody gets away with an easy schedule.
While I agree with your overall point, the SEC does not have more depth in their divisions. Florida, Tennessee, Georgia in one and Alabama, LSU in the other. That's not more depth than OSU, Michigan, PSU in one division and Nebraska, Wisconsin, Iowa in the other.
We'd probably end up dropping ND because the AD would want to keep at least 7 home games but I'm fine with that - the bi-annual watching of NBC makes me want to ditch the ND game altogether.
You can just keep the other division on a rotation, one team on, one team off and just roll through the schedule that way.
The 8 team schedule only killed Nebraska and OU - the other rivalries didn't really exist anyway. There are ways we can keep virtually all the rivalries with an 8 game schedule (MSU-PSU and UM-Minn would have to be sacrificed but whatever, we already take a 2 year break from them every so often as is).
We would have done it when the conference had 11 teams so everyone would play everyone else. It precludes any meaningful nonconference game, because most schools want 7 home and 5 away games, so every nonconference game would be at home. You'd never get a big-time school to agree to play at your place without a return game at theirs. We'd end up with games against Eastern and Western, then the Big Ten schedule, with no opportunity for the conference to get the prestige of a big nonconference win.
I say we just round it off to 15 games.
will come from the schools that feel they need the tomato cans to try to reach bowl eligibility.
The middle to the bottom teams need those creamy cupcakes to help with their bowl eligibility. The conference stands to lost a lot of money if fewer teams make it to bowl games.
However, I would also attempt scheduling reforms including:
1. For every scheduled FCS game, you must schedule a home and home with a BCS opponent (or a team that has made a BCS bowl game within five years*), with at least one of the games played the year of the FCS game and the other game scheduled within three years of the first game.
2. Schedule something similar to the ACC-Big Ten challenge with either the ACC, SEC, or Pac 10. The Pac 10 would be my personal preference and I would also prefer the ACC to the SEC because we have a ton of bowl tie-ins with the SEC now.
These reforms wouldn't ensure that teams couldn't load up with cupcakes occasionally, but they would help to raise the number of interesting games we see during the season.
*I have no strong opinion on the number. I just think that playing Boise State, TCU, or Utah is more legitimate than playing Washington State.
Also, for fun, here is a (non-ideal) potential set of games for a Big Ten-Pac 10 Challenge:
Michigan - Cal
Ohio State - USC
Penn State - Oregon
Nebraska - Colorado
Wisconsin - Utah
Iowa - Washington
Minnesota - Arizona
Illinois - UCLA
Northwestern - Stanford
Michigan State - Oregon State
Indiana - Washington State
Purdue - Arizona State
Until there is a playoff and conference champions are automatically seeded, all a "competitive" home-and-home game accomplishes is to give the teams that play in it one more "opportunity" to play their way out of the grossly unfair system that we currently have. Until there is a playoff of major conference champions and a couple of at-large slots so that teams like Boise State don't have a reason to litigate, playing one difficult OOC game is more than enough.
Michigan is now in a position where, if the schedule works out just "right," could play resurgent ND, Nebraska, OSU, PSU, Iowa, Wiscy, and MSU in the same season. That schedule is fraught with potential losses and Michigan doesn't really need to add another tough home-and-home.
College football is enough of a grind without playing a top-25 team every week. Those who want to see Michigan do this aren't taking into consideration that effects on the players. You can't expect players to play a big game every week and not wear down. Michigan's current schedule is as tough as can be expected under the current system.
Besides, I see nothing wrong with scheduling a few "cupcake" games. Players from smaller schools get to tell their kids that they played in the Big House. Players like Jack Kennedy or David Cone get to play a series or two in front of their family and friends as a reward for all of the hard work they have put in. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.