OT: more conference expansion rumors

Submitted by dnak438 on
  1. According to the minutes of the council's December meeting obtained by the Columbus DispatchGee told councillors that "there has been ongoing discussion" within the Big Ten about expanding beyond the conference's current 14 members. Gee reportedly stated that he "believes there is movement towards three or four super conferences that are made up of 16-20 teams."

    And in perhaps the most interesting comment from the minutes, Gee told a student member of the council that the Big Ten had "opportunities" to either add more schools in the Midwest or "move further south in the (E)ast." (Link)

  2. Kirk Bohls of the Austin-American Statesman is reporting that the Big 12 is looking into a possible alliance with the ACC and two other unnamed leagues that could affect scheduling, marketing and maybe even television contracts among the member schools. One of the byproducts of such a move is that it could put a halt to further expansion by these leagues.(Link)

I3en

January 25th, 2013 at 10:58 PM ^

I wish we had picked up both Mizzou and Nebraska a few years ago, those schools both make sense geographically and typically have good programs, Nebraska mostly with football and Mizzou with both football and basketball but to a lesser extent in each. If Louiseville or Kentucky were better academically they'd be good fits as well.

DealerCamel

January 25th, 2013 at 11:02 PM ^

When you get more teams in a conference than there are games in a season, to the point where one ten-team half is the Big Ten division and the other half is the ACC/Other Teams division... I mean, what's the point?

dayooper63

January 26th, 2013 at 12:03 AM ^

There is no reason to have a split down the middle.  You go to pods.  The NCAA bylaws state that you have to play everyone in your conference.  It doesn't state that the divisions be static. It would easily work with 16 or 20.  18 would be a little more difficult.  Here's how it goes.

First, to get to 20, there would have to be a nine game conference schedule.  Let's use UVa, UNC, GT, Duke, Missouri (the move to the SEC was a huge mistake) and ND (just for fun).

Pod A: UNL, Minny, Wisky, Iowa, Purdue

Pod B: ND, Missou, Illinois, NW, Indiana

Pod C: Michigan, MSU, OSU, UMD, UVA

Pod D: UNC, GT, Duke, PSU, Rutgers

 

Year 1: Pod A plays Pod B, Pod C plays Pod D

 

Year 2: Pod A plays Pod C, Pod B plays Pod D

 

Year 3: Pod A plays Pod D, Pod B plays Pod D

You can set them up with two year cycles  with a home and home before you switch, or just rotate every year.

18 with pods would be more difficult, but could be done.  Schools want to play the teams that will fill their stadiums (Michigan, OSU, PSU, UNL, and to a lesser extent, MSU).  So you make 2 large pods of 6 and 2 small pods of 3.  They might look like this assuming UVA, UNC, GT, and, since we are speaking hypothetically, ND:

West Pod: UNL, Wisky, Iowa, Minny, NW, Illinois

East Pod:  UMD, UVA, UNC, GT, Indiana, Purdue

Small A Pod: Michigan, OSU, MSU

Small B Pod: ND, PSU, Rutgers

 

Year 1/2: Small A plays West, Small B plays East

Year 3/4: Small A plays East, Small B plays West

 

Not ideal, but I think the end number is 20, anyway,  Like 14 is now for 16 teams, 18 would just be a stop gap until 20.  You could make the divisions 4 and 5 if you like.

 

BTW - There is a push from the B10 and the SEC to allow a semi-final game before the CCG. 

 
 

turtleboy

January 26th, 2013 at 1:47 AM ^

 

I say we expand to a 20 team conference. The new teams we added play in one division, and we and our other traditional rivals play in the other division. Now we have 10 teams, and our division is big. If only we could come up with a cool name for that big division of 10 teams.....

 

Seriously, though. A conference with 20 teams isn't a 20 team conference, it's 2 seperate conferences that play a championship game at the end. Kind of like the Rose Bowl.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

January 25th, 2013 at 11:37 PM ^

Oh, piss on this talk.  Makes me nostalgic for the days when everyone had their own special playoff idea.  Now everyone has their own special expansion idea, and worse yet, occasionally some asshole in the media comes up with "sources" that this or that is going down FOR SURE and his totally spurious claim gets repeated everywhere and it never happens.  And it actually comes true juuuust often enough that everyone believes every wolf cry that ever happens.

I can't wait til the Big Ten has 28 teams in it and everyone is all "32-team superconferences are obviously inevitable" and we're debating whether Washington or Miami would be a better geographic fit and some people insist they would only accept expansion if it involved Stanford and others are belittling people who suggest adding SMU.

I hope Delany has a debilitating heart attack and retires for his health and bumblefucking Gordon Gee becomes the B1G commissioner and insults Rutgers so badly they decide to petition the Catholic 7 for an invite.

rainingmaize

January 26th, 2013 at 12:43 AM ^

UNC, Duke, Virginia, Georgia Tech, that's who I see them adding. There has already been a lot of speculation in the ACC region about this. I wouldn't be opposed to them adding UNC, Duke, and Virginia. I think the Big Ten also goes hard after Georgia Tech to get the Atlanta market.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

January 26th, 2013 at 1:20 AM ^

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gwkrlghl

January 26th, 2013 at 1:35 AM ^

in FBS. Then when we've accomplished that, we'll split the conference into 'pods'. Teams will normally only play other teams in their pods but we'll have 4 non-pod games a year (or up to 5 if you're Hawai'i). The winner of the Pac-10 pod can play the winner of the B1G pod in the rose bowl. The B1G will go back to being 12 teams. I think it could work

tlo2485

January 26th, 2013 at 1:57 AM ^

Delaney's master plan to dominate and surround SEC territory while pleasing the presidents with extremely respected AAU universities. The only wild-card is Texas and their whole ordeal. It is hard to find a replacement... I would think Duke followed by long-shots Vanderbilt and Florida. SEC will counter in similar states but will be left with sub-par athletic performers (NC State, Kansas State, VTech vs UNC, Kansas, UVA). At that point I would see a Big12-ACC merger very probable: Florida State, Clemson, West Virginia, TTech, TCU, Ok St, UO, Baylor, Pitt, Cuse, Cinci, Lousville, Uconn, Miami, BC, BYU?, Wake Forest, Iowa State, etc)

This gives the B1G the flagship state school in 16 states plus Northwestern, Purdue, MSU, and Georgia Tech (debatable), with major recruiting beds in the Midwest, East, South/Texas, while smothering the SEC and taking their prime territory and markets. TV $$$$$, Research $$$$$= everyone is happy.... Now if only Nebraska would get back in the AAU.

tlo2485

January 26th, 2013 at 2:23 AM ^

Rank Metropolitan Market Regions / Areas
1 New York
3 Chicago
4 Philadelphia
5 Dallas-Ft. Worth
8 Atlanta
9 Washington, DC
10 Houston
11 Detroit
15 Minneapolis-St. Paul
17 Cleveland-Akron
21 St. Louis
23 Pittsburgh
24 Charlotte, NC
25 Indianapolis
26 Baltimore
27 Raleigh-Durham
31 Kansas City
32 Columbus, OH
34 Cincinnati
35 Milwaukee
36 Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville-Anderson
37 San Antonio
39 Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek
41 Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York
43 Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News
46 Greensboro-High Point-Winston-Salem
49 Austin

27 of top 50 and 8 out of top 11.

Missing: LA, SF, Boston, Phoenix, Seattle, Tampa-St Petersburg, Miami, Denver, Orlando, Sacramento, Portland out of the top 25.

For comparison: SEC has 3 in top 10 and is missing 30 of the top 50.

http://www.stationindex.com/tv/tv-markets

douggoblue

January 26th, 2013 at 2:37 AM ^

Boston College and Georgia Tech please. Two good/great schools, southern exposure and BC hockey. Plus I bet BC and GT would add lacrosse at that point and we could have epic B1G hockey and a solid B1G lacrosse league.

The Mick

January 26th, 2013 at 5:52 AM ^

What I don't get : There are 125 FBS football members. Four superconferences with up to 20 members each and a guaranteed spot in a four team playoff for the FBS football champion will leave a minimum of 45 teams without a chance to become the FBS football champion. If that doesn't sound like a lawsuit just waiting to happen I don't know what does. How are they going to deal with this? The highest ranked non-superconference team takes the spot of the worst ranked superconference champion if it's ranked higher than that champion?

Thoughts?

woomba

January 26th, 2013 at 11:03 AM ^

was from a Maryland site (I think the one on 247 sports) that spoke about a possible C7 - Big Ten alliance where C7 will get a TV deal through BTN + a scheduling alliance similar to the ACC/Big Ten challenge.

Sounds crazy enough that it can come true.

Alton

January 26th, 2013 at 2:41 PM ^

Yes, that's right.  The Big Ten admitted Nebraska almost certainly with full knowledge that they were going to be kicked out of the AAU.  AAU membership is important, but the Big Ten clearly would have admitted non-AAU member Notre Dame if they had wanted to join at any point in the last 20 years.  This is money-driven, not academics-driven, so a lack of AAU membership could be worked around if desirable.

snarling wolverine

January 26th, 2013 at 1:57 PM ^

Why is it SO important to have these superconferences?  Is the playoff just going to give auto-bids to the four winners, no matter how good or bad they may be?  I assumed that was not the case given that there's going to be a selection committee.