OT: A&M to the SEC Official

Don't forget that Baylor's president is none other than Ken Starr. He loves making messes.

good basketball schools should be considered for B1G membership, please argue why this is important, with the understanding that football revenue usually accounts for far more $$$ than basketball revenue.

(As a rough example, for 2009-2010, the top football revenue program was Texas with $93 million, whereas the top basketball revenue program was Duke, with $26 million.

http://businessofcollegesports.com/2011/06/20/which-football-and-basketball-programs-produce-the-largest-profits/

) 

falls...

Football is king.  Everything else is secondary.

ND is a no brainer if they want to come, because of money.  Everybody else is a stretch, short of Texas. 

Mizzou adds a couple markets.  Rutgers, Syracuse, BC...maybe adds markets, maybe not.  Agree with an above poster, you see more Michigan and Penn State stuff in NYC than Syracuse.  

As for the SEC, remember...they have stuck to their rule to not add any schools from states already represented.  That rules out the FSU and Clemson's of the world.  That is why they are looking at Mizzou and West Virginia.  WVU probably makes the most sense, actually, as crazy as that sounds.  They would love to get into Virginia, but Va Tech and VA are a package probably.  

If the SEC and Pac 10 go to 14...I think the Big 10 probably has to as well, regardless of what they are saying now. 

And so it begins..

MEGA conferences here we come

I just threw up a little.

Now we can have some fun.  Guess at the four Megaconferences?  I was playing around with it this morning.  It's interesting.

Assumptions:  Notre Dame gives up the ghost and goes to a conference, because the writing is on the wall.  Texas does the same and has to give up TLN.  And the Big Ten, while not "needing" to add, will do so just because.  And we won't add in states where we are already located (sorry, Pitt) nor schools with no athletic history whatsoever (sorry, Rutgers), but that makes our additions rather obvious.

BUT...there are two critical unknown variables.  (1) Does the SEC make the "obvious" moves, or do Florida and other constituent members VERY negatively react by adding schools in their states?  Eg does Florida keep FSU out?  South Carolina keep Clemson out?  I assume NO...but that decision will RADICALLY affect whom the SEC chases.  And then (2) does the ACC try to form a SuperMegaBasketball conference -- Kansas and Louisville are Connecticutt out there!!

So here is MY guess at the four MegaConferences:  The Pac16, the SEC, the Big 16, and the -- you got it -- ACC:

PAC16
Current:  Washington, WSU, Stanford, Cal, USC, UCLA, Arizona, ASU, Oregon, Oregon State, Utah, Colorado
Adds:  FROM BIG XII -- Oklahoma; Oklahoma State; Texas; Texas Tech

SEC
Current:  Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky, Vandy, LSU, Alabama, Auburn, Miss, MSU, Arkansas
Adds: FROM BIG XII -- Texas A&M; FROM ACC -- Virginia Tech, Florida State, Clemson

BIG 16:
Current: We all know them
Adds: INDEPENDENT -- Notre Dame; FROM ACC - Boston College; FROM BIG EAST -- Syracuse; FROM BIG XII - Missouri

ACC:
Current: Maryland, Virginia, UNC, Dook, NC State, Wake, Ga Tech, Miami
Losses: TO BIG 16:  Boston College; TO SEC:  Va Tech, FSU, Clemson
Adds (are you ready for this): FROM BIG EAST:  West Virginia, Rutgers, Pitt, Cincinnati, Connecticutt; FROM BIG XII -- Kansas, Kansas State.

That would give ACC the 16 teams needed, and while not so awesome for football, it would be a freaking madhouse for basketball -- Kansas, UConn, Duke and NC all in the same conference.

LOSERS -- Big XII (gone), Big East (gone as a football conference, left with basketball-only schools), TCU (left out), and Baylor and Iowa State (also left out).  Hellllllo Mountain West!!!

Wish they would have kept this out of the season. while it wont overshadow the games, it will draw attention away from them.

though the ut-aTm game will be particularly interesting this year. Heck, the Rice band already performed a script $ec at Texas.

I don't know if Baylor can kill this through litigation or not, but their message on their official website is pretty pathetic:

Nothing is more beloved in Texas than Texas football. Entire towns travel to neighboring communities on Friday nights as rivals meet under the Friday night lights; Saturday mornings find families rushing out to pee wee football games and spending their afternoons with friends tailgating or watching some of the most historic and storied football rivalries in the nation; Sunday afternoons see families gathered in living rooms across the state to cheer on the Cowboys or the Texans. Football in Texas is more than a passing interest, it is a part of the fabric of this great state.

• Will Texans stand by and watch hundred-year-old rivalries be cast aside as the state's largest universities align themselves with other states across the country?
• Will Texans sit and watch as Texas' flagship universities pledge their loyalties to other states?
• Will Texans stand by as our most promising student athletes are lured out of Texas by new rivals?
• Will Texans watch as our most precious resources—the great minds of the next generation—are exported to new conference institutions?

Texans must stand up and call the leadership of the University of Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech to clear-headed thinking about the state's future. Texas' flagship institutions of higher learning are the guardians of the state's future—their loyalties must first be to Texas and to her citizens. Ask these leaders to take a stand for Texas and to stop this madness that will lead to the dissolution of the Big 12 and the end of an era for Texas.

on the academic superiority argument?  I'm not thinking that they should, but is this just Michigan Arrogance at work?  The local sports talk guys here in cbus were begging on the air yesterday for Delany to go after Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, and maybe Kansas (for basketball primarily) to get the football powerhouse, and to bring back the old Nebraska-Oklahoma rivalry.

I'm just not so enamored with 16-team conferences.  You'll play your own division for 7 games, then 2 games as crossovers, so 9 conference games and 3 OOC?  Eight teams in the other division, so you'll take 4 years to cycle through them, 8 years to cycle through playing them home and away.  If the divisions go East and West, Michigan goes to Nebraska or Oklahoma once every 8 years (gee, glad to see you in the conference!).  If you instead have protected crossover games, then you see the unprotected teams even less often, maybe travel there once a decade or so.

Is it so bad to stay at 12 teams?  Or will 16-team conferences get 2 automatic bids to the BCS?  Or will the big conferences be seen as better in the subjective minds of the pollsters who decide who goes to the BCS games, regardless of reality?  Will 16 team conferences start to erode in quality, or will their division start to become more unbalanced?

early departure from all this drama.

I am a happy dragon right now.  Maybe it's the bottomless supply of BuckeyeTears(TM) talking for me, but watching the BXII tear itself apart and Baylor make even more of an ass out of itself than usual is very entertaining.