OT: Big 12 Moving to Round Robin Format
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5630765
This seems like a good indication that the Big 12 sees itself as a 10 team conference going forward.
I don't understand why they don't jump on TCU and Boise State. Sure makes more sense than TCU joining the Big East and Boise State just switching between mid-majors. Is the argument that those programs don't have the history of, uh, Baylor?
September 29th, 2010 at 11:35 PM ^
Yeah the fact that they haven't scooped up those two teams confuses me too. You would think that, knowing the excitement/revenue/etc. that comes from a conference championship, that they would want to keep that train rolling.
September 29th, 2010 at 11:36 PM ^
Boise State makes little to no sense, especially with Colorado gone. They'd be better off taking UH, SMU, Tulsa, or maybe LaT. Maybe hold out for UTSA. All become pawns to the powers that be and offer no risk.
September 29th, 2010 at 11:41 PM ^
Fair enough. But the interesting bit to me is not who they're not taking, but that they're not taking anybody at all. Standing pat now seems like a death sentence. The Big East certainly seems to acknowledge as much with the TCU posturing.
September 30th, 2010 at 3:14 PM ^
Do you seriously think that Texas San-Antonio is going to be good enough for the Big 12? They are coached by Larry Coker but that program is and will be a joke for quite some time. No way in hell should they ever consider that university unless it's 10 years from now and they're worthy of such a promotion.
September 29th, 2010 at 11:37 PM ^
Boise is a bad choice because they are bad geographically and have a very small fan base: conferences aren't expanding for competitive reasons.
TCU was terrible prior to Ladanian Tomlinson showing up. On top of that, they have nothing to offer in sports other than football, ie basketball and baseball.
It would make sense to add TCU or Houston if they could bring in as much as another share would cost, but they can't. I don't expect the Longhorn-Sooner conference to expand any time soon.
September 30th, 2010 at 12:06 AM ^
They've put together a good program, making the NCAA tournament every year since 2004 and making it to the CWS this year (by beating Texas), where they went 3-2 and were eliminated by UCLA in the last bracket game (which was forced by their win over UCLA in the previous game).
September 30th, 2010 at 12:02 AM ^
Yeah, TCU would be a huge upgrade over Colorado anyway. Boise State wouldn't make too much sense, but it wouldn't be too much more of a geographical disparity than the ACC or Big East.. Idaho is not much of market, but it's a proven program that'e expanding their stadium and would produce more of an instant reward than one of the teams that makes more geographical sense.
September 30th, 2010 at 12:13 AM ^
Adding TCU or Boise or anyone else in the area really won't allow the conference to make much more money. Any new school in the Big 12 will have to pull their weight, meaning that they will need to add a sizable number of television viewers on a reasonably consistent basis. TCU, Boise State, and other teams like Houston can occasionally pull in a decent national audience if they are having a good year and are playing a good team, but their fanbases are small, so they won't consistently draw viewers for games against teams like Baylor. Furthermore, if either team has a bad year or a series of bad years (which is inevitable), they would be more of a drag on the Big 12 than Baylor and Kansas State.
September 30th, 2010 at 12:23 AM ^
And this is the issue.
The 2010 expansion wave was about one thing: television markets.
It's why the Pac-10 wanted Texas (Dallas and Houston), Colorado (Denver), Oklahoma (nat'l fan base) so badly and was willing to take A&M, Tech, and Okie State to make it happen.
Same reason the Big 10 is even considering Rutgers, Syracuse, and UConn if they go to 16 (seems unlikely).
If the Big 12 adds 2 teams you can guarantee they'll be in media markets not currently covered.
Markets that come to mind (that also make geographical and ideological sense)...
#17 Denver (Air Force? Colorado State? Not exactly the most intrguing of options considering they just lost the most popular team in the state)
#32 Salt Lake City (If BYU didn't go all Notre Dame on us, they would've been an interesting option)
#42 Las Vegas (Can't see Nevada or UNLV being considered)
#46 Albuquerque/Santa Fe (Would the Big 12 be thrilled with replacing Colorado/Nebraska with New Mexico/New Mexico State? No, no they would not.)
This is why they are staying at 10.
September 30th, 2010 at 1:07 AM ^
They left the Mountain West because there's a lot of deadweight in the conference and they bring in more than anyone else. And when Utah left, any real shot at a BCS autobid disappeared, so it ceased to be beneficial to them to stay in the conference. Going to the Big 12, however, would completely change the picture.
September 30th, 2010 at 9:01 AM ^
Considering who the MWC is replacing Utah and BYU with I'd say they have just as good a shot of getting the auto-bid as before since the BCS doesn't care about where your school is now, it's about where your school was in the years they compiled the data. I.E. We're not going to get a big uptick in our BCS conference worthiness because we added Nebraska just based on what Nebraska has done in the past - they have to perform once they get in conference. BYU leaving is actually kinda stupid, IMO. Yes, they may pull in some more money but being in a conference is what helps you make the BCS even if you're an also ran and the MWC is the #1 also ran (especially considering they are adding BSU). You can write it down right now - the MWC will send 4 teams to the BCS before BYU makes it once, at best.
September 30th, 2010 at 1:51 AM ^
losing a title game loses them revenue and exposure, and I would argue that the conference has lost a lot of clout in the eyes of the fans. Even though there aren't a whole lot of competetive options in big markets at the moment, I think it makes sense for them to expand in a way that A) keeps them relevant in the national picture and B) maintains a title game. I agree that mindless expansion into new markets by adding uncompetetive teams is dumb. But I also think that sitting at 10 teams is worse than expanding within the existing geographical footprint with competetive teams. Lets face it, they won't be able to replace the Denver market and Nebraska fanbase, but they can at least salvage a title game and maintain a competive league.
September 30th, 2010 at 10:46 AM ^
Yes, they may not have huge revenue increases for Football, but the smaller travel time for TX based schools may help to defray some of the costs for non-revenue producing sports.
The PAC 10/2 is going to have to travel across the rockies for non-revenue producing sports.
September 30th, 2010 at 8:53 AM ^
A round-robin schedule does not mean the conference intends to stay at 10 teams long-term. The Big XII would love to go back to twelve teams, if it could attract two great programs. But right now, nobody wants to touch the Big XII, given the lingering questions about the conference’s survival.
September 30th, 2010 at 10:37 AM ^
What I wonder about is how many conferences are ultimately going to a nine-game conference schedule. The Pac 10 adopted that model a few years ago and I assume they'll do the same when Utah and Colorado joins them.
The Mountain West has gone from nine to ten teams (lost Utah/BYU, added Fresno State/Nevada-Reno/Boise State). The MWC could also adopt the nine-game conference model now that it has ten teams.
Obviously, there's been discussion about the Big Ten going to the nine conference scheduling model as well with that happening in 2015. Conversely, there's been no word about the SEC or the ACC regarding this format. If the Big East got to ten programs (Villanova, UCF, Memphis and current MWC member TCU being mentioned as possibilities), I could see them doing that as well.
The reason I bring this up is that as the number of non-conference scheduling slots decrease, independents like Notre Dame and Brigham Young are going to have a more difficult time getting quality opponents late in the season.
Notre Dame, for example, is play Utah on 13 November this year. Does that game get scheduled if the Utes are in the Pac 12, play a nine game conference schedule and face the prospect of being in a conference championship game? I sincerely doubt that.
Outside of USC, Notre Dame has recently played or will play Stanford, Washington, Washington State and Arizona State from the Pac 10 in the October/November time frame. Do those programs rethink scheduling ND late in the season under the Pac 12 setup where winning their division is a prerequisite to getting into the Pac 12 Conference Championship game? I think some of that depends on the AD, the program's goals, etc. But there's also an incentive to go in the other direction when it comes to getting conference wins, becoming bowl eligible, etc.
The one dynamic that's coming into play here when it comes to these nine-game conference schedules is that the money from conference distrubutions (which includes the television contracts) is starting to supplant the revenue from ticket sales as a primary source of income for an athletic department. AD's clearly want to fill the seats at the stadium, but they're less dependent than before from those games as major revenue sources.
That's especially true for a school the size of Northwestern with an athletic budget of abour $45M (smallest in the Big Ten). Conference distributions in FY 2011 are supposed to be $22.2M--that's roughly half of NW's athletic budget right there. With a new ABC/ESPN deal and the Big Ten championship game, that number will probably go above $25M in FY 2012.
Lloyd Carr recently said that he felt Notre Dame would join the Big Ten Confernce because, in part, they needed to become nationally relevant. If ND isn't able to schedule quality opponents outside of USC in October/November on a consistent basis, then their overall attractiveness is going to drop. Obviously, if ND is undefeated late in the season, then the interest should remain pretty high. But in those seasons where its not happening for them and you have a late season schedule with teams like Wake Forest, Navy, Maryland, Tulsa, Western Michigan, etc--well, let's just say that NBC's Saturday afternoon ratings won't be that great.
September 30th, 2010 at 11:19 AM ^
for better or worse. Adding another TX school like TCU with a small fan base and stadium (44K) and limited FB success just doesn't accomplish anything if you start with this premise. Adding Boise, with a 33K stadium, few fans, distant to TX and again limited FB/other sports success is the same story.
Really, there aren't any strong options for the BXII. And the status quo is fine for UT, it's the other schools that are hurting, but they have no options other than to play along with UT. Once UT decides there's a better situation and makes another move, the conference falls apart with some schools tagging along (ala the PAC-10 exodus), and others holding the bag.
But then the BXII was always a marriage of convenience. The old B8 saw that its TV base was weak, and the TX schools needed a new home from the SW conference.
One of the main reasons Nebraska left and joined the BT was they saw all this, and decided to be proactive when the BT opportunity presented itself. Nebraska's Chancellor cited this in the initial press conference.
September 30th, 2010 at 1:18 PM ^
Consider this, some years UT will have 3 home non-con games, a netruel site game, 3 home con-games, and 5 road con games. Meaning they only get home revinue for 6 1/2 games, as a opposed to a myriad of other big name programs that are gauranteed 8 home games every year. I suppose though with the lack of revenue sharing it is a bone they had to throw to the rest of the league. Still it seems like the chances of UT losing con-games goes up when they have to play 5 times every other year in someone elses yard. Although maybe they don't respect anyone in the conference and don't think it will be an issue.