MGoBlog Roundtable 8/10/23
Haven't seen it posted yet so here is yesterday's MGoBlog Roundtable on WTKA. No Sam or Seth (obviously) this week. Things discussed:
- realignment
- Brian doesn't wish Jim Delaney were dead this week...at least he doesn't say anything on the show about it
- Craig rambles on about something blah blah blah history blah blah blah
- hockey talk at the end
Still praying for your little guy and the family, Seth!
August 11th, 2023 at 9:39 AM ^
Not a happy gang here. I'm not either.
August 11th, 2023 at 12:00 PM ^
I have a bit of a different take - albeit tangential to the standard take that most people have that realignment sucks and is caused by greed.
Here goes:
1. The cause of this realignment is down to really just one thing - not enough people in the PAC12 footprint care about college football.
- High school football in Cali is huge - I think you can make a strong argument it is a top 5 state. The rest of the region seems like it is doing ok relative to the population size.
- The NFL is thriving in this same area (Seahawks, 49ers, Rams, Chargers, Raiders, Broncos and Cardinals) have all been generally competitive (or better) at various points in the last 10 years.
- For whatever reason, folks there just don't care about college football as much as the South and Midwest. Outside of Oregon, Utah and maybe USC, the stadiums are half-empty and clearly tv viewership sucks.
- This same dynamic happened on the East Coast (where basketball is king) and the Big East disappeared as a football conference. People didn't seem to care much because only a few Big East schools cared about football and they are all pretty much in the ACC now.
- The fact that the ACC is teetering is due to the same effect. The Atlantic coast, with pockets of rabid college football fans, is in a better position than the PAC but again - you just can't compare the Northeast and mid-Atlantic region to the South or Midwest. Basketball is more popular than football and even within football, the NFL is way more popular than college.
- Addendum - not enough people in the country care about the non-revenue sports. If people cared about them - attendance would be higher and they would be on tv more prominently. Again, it sucks, but it is what it is.
2. Greed and self-interest are driving this process. Yes, true and it sucks; however, this is true about just about everything (including politics, religion, education, media, small business, big business, etc...) as it is fundamental building block of human nature and I don't see that changing in the next million years or so.
3. Nobody benefits except the folks at the top. Well, this is only half true. The folks at the top will continue to benefit handsomely (they always do); however, I would argue that the players in the revenue sports (mainly football and basketball of course) will be the biggest beneficiaries as some combo of tv revenue sharing / employee salary will almost be in place within 5 years. Compensation will have gone from scholarship / COL stipend to today's sporadic NIL to six figure salaries (for major conference football players) in a very short time period.
Anyway, as much as I lament the current status / changes - the driving factor is fan interest. Always has been and always will be in the future.
August 11th, 2023 at 1:00 PM ^
I have a slightly different take on your first point. It's not that not enough people in the PAC12 footprint care about college football, it's that not enough people in the PAC12 footprint care about PAC12 football.
I've lived in the Bay Area for more than 20 years, and there are plenty of college football fans in the area. They're just mostly transplants from outside the PAC12 footprint, and their loyalties generally lie with their alma maters.
August 11th, 2023 at 1:46 PM ^
Fair point - I can see that.
August 12th, 2023 at 4:23 PM ^
I can most certainly assure you people in WA care about college football. It’s UW vs WSU fans all over the state. Pretty broad statement there …but sure, it’s not at same level as SEC or Big Ten, obviously
https://247sports.com/college/washington-state/article/this-is-big-wsu-football-among-most-viewed-teams-outside-of-sec-big-10-and-notre-dame-189887289/amp/
August 11th, 2023 at 12:31 PM ^
I have not caught the last two episodes because I am beholden to their appearance on Spotify. However, I can imagine why the roundtable has been especially aggro for the last two weeks. The team has descended in its submarine, so there is nothing new to discuss about the season. The only topics of discussion revolve around the evolution of college football and how its decentralized decisionmakers seem hellbent on slaughtering their golden egg-laying goose. Mix that with some inchoate anxiety tied to the sky high expectations for Michigan's season and you have yourself a real spicy stew.
August 11th, 2023 at 9:39 AM ^
Brian has been feisty lately.
August 11th, 2023 at 9:50 AM ^
I have very little insight into his life but it seems like he's consistently unhappy - Seth's situation certainly can't be helping.
I always hope for Brian to feel more joy and less tired/sullen. He's genuinely so funny and pleasant when he's cheerful.
August 11th, 2023 at 10:08 AM ^
IMO, angry Brian is funny as hell too. But for his sake, I hope he experiences more joy than it appears outwardly from these round tables and podcasts.
August 11th, 2023 at 11:26 AM ^
Alex did mention that Brian on podcasts/video is very different than Brian in real life whereas Seth is mostly the same in either setting. So I wouldn’t glean too far into it.
August 11th, 2023 at 12:22 PM ^
I actually knew Brian fairly well during undergrad. He was writer at ComCo, and I was a performer. Brian was a very circumspect person (mostly). He let his creativity, anger, happiness etc. flow through his writing.
August 11th, 2023 at 9:41 AM ^
So to sum up, without Sam and Seth, it isn't worth a listen?
August 11th, 2023 at 9:54 AM ^
It is ALWAYS worth a listen .
August 11th, 2023 at 11:23 AM ^
I'd say not one bit. IMO, this was the worst Roundtable I've heard. It was boring. They just rehash all the stuff about NIL from last week for Ira's benefit and even one week into fall camp there's nothing about the team.
August 11th, 2023 at 1:55 PM ^
Probably not. They spend much of the time just bemoaning the expansion of the Big Ten, the demise of the Pac12, and how awful the money grab is.
August 11th, 2023 at 9:54 AM ^
The last two round tables have been on point with my line of thinking. Greed is driving these conference changes and it sucks...
August 11th, 2023 at 10:30 AM ^
Furthermore, I have to believe we're not far away from a reduction of post-season bowl games and/or a reclassification of CFP-eligible FBS schools competing in some type of post-season tournament play. Although large corporations and businesses will always offer to slap their names on post-season bowl games, I would think most teams want to play in a tournament style format regardless of who they play against.
Right now, only ~9% (12/131) of teams will make it to the CFP and everyone else is relegated to some weird ass bowl game in a city you're likely to never visit. Where before it was an honor to make it to a post-season bowl game, teams and players are now purposefully declining invitations.
I think Chip Kelly was on to something when he said to split the FBS up in two divisions. 64 teams per division competing at the end of the year in a 12 team tournament gives most everybody close to a 20% chance of some type of meaningful post-season play. Or keep everyone in the same FBS division as we do now and make another tournament for teams 13-24 so we can eliminate these stupid ass bowl games or reclassify them so the bowl games are host sites for tournament play.
August 11th, 2023 at 11:51 AM ^
I don't know if you listened to the Roundtable but Craig specifically brought up Kelly's suggestion. He immediately panned it because Kelly highlighted ND's football independence and affiliation with the ACC for most/all other sports. I know from Craig's other comments that he, like many of us, is extremely put off by conference realignment. So I think his reaction to Kelly's idea that we should all be independent in football--which obviously obliterates football conferences once and for all--is an extension of how he feels about relaignment.
IMHO if you take away the ND example and focus on the gist of Kelly's idea that the top 64 Power 5 football schools form a super league of some sort--which is of course not a new idea--then it makes more sense than what we have coming after this season. No one but the TV execs want this craziness but now that it's here I think we could make the best of it by going semi-pro in football and leaving all of the other sports in some version of regional conferences that maintain natural rivalries and limit cross-country travel and associated costs.
August 11th, 2023 at 11:35 AM ^
Greed/capitalism destroying something people love, does it get more American than that? An interesting parallel is how when the Big 6 EPL clubs announced they were joining the Super League, the fans of the Big 6 and the rest of the English football system protested so fiercely that they, in addition to real pressure from all levels and parties of the UK govt, forced the greedy billionaire owners of the Big 6 (4 of whom are now American, surprise surprise) to pull out and walk away. The future of CFB just doesn’t seem exciting as it once did *sigh*
August 11th, 2023 at 10:04 AM ^
I actually find myself agreeing with Brian here - what Delany began has reached a major milestone, which is the demise of an entire conference from the search for more money, to lift a phrase from "Spaceballs".
August 11th, 2023 at 10:07 AM ^
Brian has been on point during the last two roundtables.
August 11th, 2023 at 10:11 AM ^
His anger is righteous. What's happening to the sport is flat-out bad for the sport, and it's bad for the fans. I don't see how anyone but the people at the top benefit from any of this stuff. The rule changes to reduce the number of plays to shorten broadcast time (without reducing commercials) is infuriating. The murder of the PAC for no reason other than money is infuriating. The abandonment of Oregon State, Wazzu, Stanford, and Cal is infuriating.
August 11th, 2023 at 11:28 AM ^
If we are being blunt it’s not that bad as a fan of Michigan. Well the realignment, obviously the commercial thing and plays sucks.
As a fan, watching Michigan play usc/ucla/oregon/Washington in exchange for less time playing Illinois, northwestern, and Indiana is a win for interesting games. I personally don’t really care that Michigan has played Indiana 100 times. We’ve won almost all the games, there was a five year run where the games were weird but it’s just more interesting to play usc. And the reality is it’s clear the football world agrees with that because tickets cost more and the games get better ratings. People claiming to care so much about wsu or Oregon state is weird to me. You don’t watch those games and re-alignment has always killed some programs and elevated others, there’s nothing new about that. Idaho used to be in the pac 12 equivalent, Tulane was in the sec, smu and tcu were in the southwest conference etc
The student athletes losing in this situation aren’t football players, it’s the non revenue sports. I really think the sports landscape would be fine if they just made these moves for football and the rest of the sports stayed in regional conferences.
August 11th, 2023 at 10:58 AM ^
The last two podcasts have not gone up on the MGoBlog app. I'm assuming this is due to Seth's family issues so no complaints but hope they can get posted there at some point.
August 11th, 2023 at 11:24 AM ^
You can get them from the WTKA app. That's what I used.
August 11th, 2023 at 11:37 AM ^
YouTube as well
August 11th, 2023 at 11:18 AM ^
I caught the discussion about how the bigger size of the B1G, now at 18 teams, is not really a conference any more. Brian made very good points as did Craig which makes sense and I agree with. That being, you should be able to play every team in the conference. As it stands now, we don't play Minni for the Brown Jug every year as an example.
It's become a where she stops, nobody knows type of thing. Point is, the college football landscape is changing so fast these days. Maybe some five years ago, there was talk about seeing four 16 team super conferences that would have their own CFB Championship game. That's out the window given what's happening lately. How much larger will be the B1G ultimately becomes is anyone's guess. It is destined to go to 20 but it could be even more in a few short years from now.
August 11th, 2023 at 11:34 AM ^
I'll take the contrarian side here and ask what are we really leaving behind? A system where we tied with Nebraska as CFB champions? The BCS? The exploitation of athletes, while the NCAA continues to profit immensely?
If you believe that players should have the right to profit monetarily from their talents, it seems contradictory to be outraged when the league starts to look more professional. Yes, there will be those who lose out in this new structure. It's unfortunate, but we must recognize that college football is inevitably moving towards a super league setup.
I'm not losing sleep over this change. Keep key rivalry games, throw in a 16-team playoff, and you've got something that feels like a great mod from NCAA 2014. Not the death of the sport.
August 11th, 2023 at 11:42 AM ^
Conferences don’t need to expand in order to pay the players. There has always been more than enough money to go around.
August 11th, 2023 at 11:52 AM ^
But you need more money to pay the coaches xxxx millions a year, not to mention the ADs, not mention all the hangers on at the BigTen administrative level.
Oh we also need the money for scoreboards that encircle the stadium.
August 11th, 2023 at 7:54 PM ^
People waxing poetic about a bygone era are just lying to themselves
August 11th, 2023 at 11:35 AM ^
i loved every minute of it. burn it all down.
August 11th, 2023 at 12:23 PM ^
It's a small thing, but I hate when MGOBLOG doesn't post the Roundtable on its podcast feed.
Having to listen via the Ticket podcast sucks. They drop in ads randomly and those ads are always way louder than the segment. It's jarring.
Again...small thing in light of everything.
August 11th, 2023 at 4:34 PM ^
ARE YOU LISTENING TO THIS ON THE STITCHER APP? WELL, WERE GOING KAPUT!
August 11th, 2023 at 2:27 PM ^
I'm done hearing about realignment. It's super boring. The season is about to start--that's what I want to hear about.
August 11th, 2023 at 3:47 PM ^
The conversation around the MGORadio the past two weeks reminds me of a Robinson Jeffers poem --
"Be angry at the sun for setting, if these things anger you."
While I, personally, don't like the changes I can acknowledge this has always been the case in college football. Sure, Rutgers and Maryland were added to the BIG, but before that there was BC making the jump to the Big East, PSU joining the BIG, there was a SouthWest Conference with Houston, and Rice, and TCU and buncha other small Texas schools. The PAC 12 was the PAC10 and before that the PAC8. There was a BIGEast that became the ACC, except in Basketball. Yada yada yada.
In other words, THIS is college football. The whole system, which is basically the minor leagues for pros, can't even remotely be fit into a university model and yet here we are, smashing a square peg into a round hole because there's just too much money involved.
By the way, all that money that Brian laments has directly benefitted his career. Brian doesn't have an amateur sport blog because no one would care - Brian essentially has a college football blog because the sport is so big, and will only continue to grow with these changes.
The demise of college sports has been talked about ad nauseum and yet here we are. Still on MgoBLOG, still waiting for the start of the season.
I don't like these changes, but I don't like Tik Tok either. At some point you're just an old man yelling at the clouds.
Being angry about this is like being angry at the setting sun.
August 11th, 2023 at 4:36 PM ^
Spot on commentary.