Texas Will Hang Separately
I put up a Sporting Blog post on the latest in conference reconfiguration that covers the main news of the day, which is that the awkward moment in nomenclature we're experiencing where the Big 12 has ten teams and the Big Ten has twelve is a surprisingly stable college football isotope.
Whether its half-life is two days, two years, or two decades we don't know yet, but reports that the Big 12 lives have spread beyond Chip Brown, who is by this point basically the earthly avatar of DeLoss Dodds, to Joe Schad and Pete Thamel, and have reached the point the Nebraska rumors did last week where the sheer quantity of independent confirmation outweighs everyone's natural skepticism towards anything Anonymous Athletic Director would like to leak. The Big… er… Twelve lives.
Why? Because if they're going to rename it they might as well dub it The Texas Conference. The major sticking point with Texas's move to the Big Ten was not distance or tradition or even money but the Longhorn's refusal to share and share alike, which is fine as far as it goes. Anyone who approaches college football from an angle other than realpolitik is willfully naive. Expecting Texas to sign off on a change where they go from the king of everything to just another shiny happy Big Ten (or Pac-10) school was extremely wishful thinking in retrospect.
This is despite a ton of huge advantages moving would bring. For one, I don't believe Brown for a second when he claims Texas "stands to make between $20 mil and $25 mil per yr under a proposed new TV pkg presented by Dan Beebe" before we even get to the coming Longhorn Network. Allow myself to quote myself:
Big Ten teams are currently raking in 15 million per year with a fully-functional network spread across eight states with a ton of people. The Big 12 Texas's entire conference distribution was 10 million in 2007 and as of May 31st conference distributions were ranging between "7 and 12 million" according to the KC Star; Big Ten teams each brought in 20 million. The Big 12's current television contract with ABC goes to the 2015 season and the conference has just lost its third most attractive television draw (Nebraska) and third biggest media market (Denver). The average value of the Big Twelve's TV inventory has gone down considerably this summer.
Texas would make more money moving to the Big Ten. They'd get to join the CIC. They'd have a more competitive environment than one game against Oklahoma every year. Iowa State would no longer be on the schedule. In all absolute ways, moving makes sense. Relatively? Not so much. Now that the Big 10 door is swinging shut—Missouri's scrabbling at the lock but can't get in—and the Pac-10 seems set on adding Utah and calling it a day, the Big 12 leftovers desperately need Texas and will sign up for any lopsided revenue sharing plan they have to as long as they don't have to consider whether they should join the Mountain West or Conference USA. If Texas won't enter as an equal partner, the Big Ten won't take them, and that's as it should be.
But no one should mistake the reason the Big 12 has shed two of its best schools: it's because of Texas. If the Big 12 does end up imploding, it will be because of Texas. Realpolitik has its costs.
The Big Ten's Next Move
This guy on the message board has a bunch of scuttlebutt about Texas that reflects the above and suggests where the Big Ten will look next: the ACC. Take it for what it's worth—not much given how fast these things change—but I've gotten a couple notes that suggest the same thing. The current plan appears to be wait to see what happens with Notre Dame and the rumored get-in-or-get-out ultimatum from the Big East and then possibly look to move to 14. 16 is not regarded as a viable setup without a compelling reason.
One man's guess as to the future direction of the conference, listed from most probable to least:
- The Big Ten sticks at 12 teams.
- ND gets the boot from the Big East, sucks it up, and joins the Big Ten sometime around when their NBC contract expires. The league would then look for a 14th team (Maryland, BC, GT, Rutgers, Syracuse the most commonly mentioned targets) at that point.
- ND stays in the Big East as they are now and the Big Ten picks off a couple of the above-mentioned targets to go to 14.
- Some crazy thing happens and the league goes to 16.
If I had to guess, the Big Ten will stand pat until such time as Notre Dame gets the boot from the Big East, which may or may not ever actually happen.
The Big Ten will only add more teams if Texas and co. bolt for the Pac 10. IF that happens, I think we add Notre Dame to make sure the power isn't unbalanced.
On a side note, could you answer me on my email? Sorry to be a hassle, just not sure you saw it or not.
Big East will never boot ND
If the BE thinks they have leverage over ND because of the non-football sports, they are dreaming. If ND wants to join a conference for football they will--and it sure as hell won't be the BE.
They might well do it if they think the football league is being threatened.
Of course, they might not like Notre Dame's response. If Notre Dame decides that being an independent in football is that important to them, their response will be something along the lines of "Uh, ok, see ya. Hey Horizon League -- any interest in a non-football member?" Or they'll just try it as an independent in everything again. They'll join the Big Ten if they think it's in the best interests of the football program. I'm not sure their basketball program or any of the non-revenue sports really have any part of it.
I must have blinked. Can someone explain when and why Pitt fell off the B10 map?
At this point, I would love to see Big Ten add ND and Pitt and call it a deal.
Considering the Big Ten of my youth, the additions of PSU, Neb, ND and Pitt would be pretty impressive.
They add no market to the BTN. I love the idea of adding Pitt, especially if it topples the Big East, forcing ND to join. I think the problem is, how do you make things happen if you want 14 teams?
Taking Pitt by itself doesn't get us anything and it's not guaranteed to break the Big East. If ND doesn't join, then we have to take one more. That means we are now splitting revenue with two more teams that don't contribute what they are putting in and we would need to expand to 15 or 16 if ND decides to join later.
...is that its membership provides the Big Ten with a business case with the major cable providers that the BTN should be considered a national network vice a regional network. Nebraska's national brand assists this argument.
If the cable companies buy this, the current $0.88 in footprint and the $0.10 out of footprint subscriber fee arrangement goes away and voila, instand oodles of cash. Maybe they negotiate down to $0.50 per subscriber or lower, but if they are able to swing this, the extra revenue that would come from outside of the current conference footprint would be massive.
I've always thought that this is the end game the conference is shooting for. Such an arrangement would allow them to expand to 14 or 16 teams through schools that have been dismissed as not bringing a significant TV market (Pitt for example).
Because I thought it had been established that the concept of Syracuse or Rutgers opening up vast markets was a pipe dream. Maybe cable executives will be bamboozled with a presentation of a map with big circles emanating from east coast additions to the conference, but I'm guessing they're savvy enough to look into the actual numbers of viewers before accepting any 'national conference' rhetoric.
...which would be why Syracuse and Rutgers haven't joined the Big10.
Yeah, Pitt gets us very little. Remember, this is mostly about money, not about the fun of adding more teams. Pennsylvania is already in the footprint, and Pitt is below average in every other aspect that we look at. Any other option adds at least a few million TV sets to the footprint, but Western PA isn't that big of an area, and it's already getting the BTN. Pitt doesn't have the national fanbase that ND has, most of their fans/alumni are in PA.
A lot of people following expansion confuse "team I'd like to watch play fball/bball in my conference" with "team that will bring the most money to my conference" as the key reason here. This is why a team like Rutgers is in the discussion more than Pitt.
No one gives a shit about Rutgers football. If you can present me some kind of evidence that more people would watch Rutgers than Pitt, please do. I just don't buy that there are more people who would tune in for Rutgers than Pitt based on bald assertion, considering the level of interest in college football in the Northeast (where the Big Ten network is alread ubiquitous, by the way) and the crap-mediocre level of Rutgers football.
I'm not saying Pitt makes that much sense, but I think the BTN would gain as much by being able to make a credible claim to being the best football conference - which I think it could do with UM, OSU, PSU, ND, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pitt - and marketing itself thusly. Neither Rutgers nor Syracuse bring much at all to the conference, either in viewing markets or in athletics (well, Syracuse basketball is good, but I wonder if that continues once Boeheim retires ... ever seen the city of Syracuse?)
Agree with you and thats why Rutgers was really never seriously mentioned as a candidate. They were at least 5th of 6th on the list of teams mentioned by everyone as candidates.
The counter argument is that is doesn't matter that they don't have a huge following. The thinking is that a cable operator will essentially lose the argument about not having to put the channel on basic cable, thus every subscriber in the NY metro area will get BTN (instead of those that buy the sports package or the expanded cable) and the big ten will get the $0.10 or $0.50 or whatever for each of the 20 million TV subscribers or however many it is.
Western PA has a fair amount of football talent, a good bit of which goes to PSU, tOSU (Pryor) and UM (Breaston). The three big fish take what they want out of there and leave the rest to Pitt and WVU.
I'm sure Big 10 coaches use the status of the Big10 relative to the Big East as a recruiting tool. We got a lot more exposure in the media, on Game Day, we have better bowl bids than the Big East, etc. If we let Pitt in, all that goes away.
So basically they add no market and letting them in hurts the ability of current teams to mine the region for talent.
There is one problem with this analysis. While the B12 North teams will cower to Texas' demands now that they have no where to go, the same cannot be said for the B12 South teams. Texas A&M and Oklahoma can go to the SEC or Pac-10. OK State and Texas Tech can share revenue in the Pac 10. Especially Oklahoma, I don't see why they would cower to Texas. They would need to get a piece of the pie, but then Texas A&M, Texas Tech and OK State would at least have to get something to justify their non-move to the Pac 10. It's not just Texas that needs a big chunk of the pie, but rather the other B12 South teams as well. I don't see them walking away so quickly from the Pac 10.
presumably, oklahoma appears on tv just as often as texas therefore doesn't lose out too much with inequal revenue sharing. At least based on how it was explained in the past, revenues are based on number of tv appearances.
...and you raise an extremely valid point. OSU, Baylor and Tech, especially, should not be expecting a big chunk of the pie. But Oklahoma won't bow to Texas. They can get a sweet deal with the SEC or the Pac 10.
Let's just wait until Texas' Board of Regents meets on Tuesday. It seems a move to the SEC for Texas has already been nixed. But should Texas disregard all the reasons for moving to the Delaney Conference, just so they can be the big fish? We'll know a lot more in about 18 hours.
Utah makes sense, but then there are no divisional alignments that work well. You'd probably have to put Colorado and Utah in with the Washington and Oregon teams. Not too bad, I guess.
Anyone know why Boise State was never a consideration for the Pac10?
Because they'd be a net drain, taking bowl appearances while failing to provide any noticeable revenue or academic bump.
The number of people that think that, because of upset victories over OK and Oregon, that Boise is somehow a legit top 10 team that any conference would want, is frankly amazing to me. They are a nice program with impressive record, but the complete absence of talk about Boise joining any BCS conference tells you all you need to know about what they are worth in the football marketplace. And please, no "the BCS teams are scared of adding Boise" rejoinders.
If Texas won't enter as an equal partner, the Big Ten won't take them, and that's as it should be.
But they have a tiny endowment ($53 million). It was a junior college until 1965. It just isn't even close to Pac 10 status in any respect other than football. Even that is questionable -- the day Boise State beats a meaningful opponent with only a week to prepare is the day I'll start taking them seriously.
Sounds about right...but wasn't MSU a junior college of sorts until the 50's? (not that it isn't still).
it wasn't in the sense that Boise State was. Boise State gained four-year status in 1965, a little more than a century after MSU did. (Granted, they didn't have quite the diverse curriculum certain other schools did ...)
Apparently the big change in MSU's rep came when Chicago bailed ... the MSU president pushed to get on the academic steamroller that was the Big Ten, and look at them now! All grown up and everything.
I can't be too hard on them, though. Hey, I got a degree from a land-grant university myself (although I like to think my school was better: we do, like, aeronautics and stuff).
Not only this, but Utah beats Boise State in every meaningful way. Utah has success at multiple varsity sports and is a better school academically.
Now that the MWC has added Boise, they seem like a decent conference that could deserve a BCS bid. If I were Utah, I would stay put. If the B12 dissolves, maybe the MWC can get their autobid? I'm not sure on the legalities of that, but it sounds plausible.
I'd be perfectly content with stopping at Nebraska if Texas isn't coming, and, if Texas demands an unfair share of the pie to join the Big Ten...no thanks. As for ND, I've said it once and I'll say it a million times - Fuck Notre Dame.
At this point, we have Nebraska, a 12th team, and a conference championship. If nothing changes, I am perfectly happy. There is no need to take it up the financial wazzoo for Texas and no need to go begging for ND to join. (With all respect to Irish.) In fact, I tend to think a 12 team concerence is more like, you know, a conference than a 16 team mega-conference where we play half the teams once or twice a decade.
I am no fan of ND, not by a mile. But, if they will join the Big 10 as an equal, they bring a lot to the party in terms of eyeballs, and thus dollars for the BTN and the next TV contract. ND, as an equal, no special deals, has to be the ultimate goal for the Big 10.
The question becomes how to make that happen. One option is to raid the Big East, take a couple of teams to increase BTN footprint and destroy the remainer of the Big East, leaving ND truely independent. This is a bit of a risk, and also makes the Big 10 look like the bad guy, which is something we avoided in the case of the Big 12 and Nebraska.
The other is to bide our time, wait for the Big East to boot ND (highly unlikey) or for the ACC to begin poaching Big East members.
My guess is the Big 10 plays the waiting game. We have a really nice 12 team conference right now, with a playoff to keep Joe Pa happy. We can afford to wait.
I just don't get the notion of what-we-need-to-do-to-get-ND. It's not like any other conference is beating down their door. Who is the competition? The Big East? C'mon. Personally, I think the idea of taking a lesser Big East team, in order to tear down that conference and force ND to the Big Ten is a very bad idea. How is that treating ND as an equal? We wouldn't take TTU in order to lure Texas, but we should take Rutgers (I know, I know, NYC media market even though they don't watch college football and get BTN on basic cable anyway) to get ND? The fact that folks would be willing to water down the conference just to lure in a team with no other options is a strange one to me.
I do agree with your last paragraph entirely. Our conference looks great and we need not be in a hurry for any move right now. We've got some great football to watch in the very near future.
I understand that $, status and Big Ten stability are all key pieces in this puzzle, but I'm shocked at how little people seem to be concerned with the actual football side of things. Obviously our football team has fallen on its' worst time in history, but what I ultimately still care about is winning championships. If/when we return to glory I would far prefer to see a situation where we only have to deal with teams on par with what we've owned in the past in order to make it to the national title game. I think Nebraska falls into that category and Notre Dame and whatever other Big East school would as well, however, when you start talking about adding the likes of Oklahoma or Texas after running the gauntlet of a conference schedule that would likely include OSU, MSU, ND, PSU and a few weaklings, I just don't see the benefit for U of M. Do you really want to play Texas or OU after that AND THEN go for the title against Florida, LSU or 'Bama? If we got one every 25 years I'd be thrilled (okay, I'd be thrilled with that now, too).
One of the major complaints a lot of the new guard had with Lloyd and the old school was the inevitable one non-conference loss and one slip up against a sub-par Big Ten opponent. Sure, we'd still win the Big Ten title by beating OSU, but it was never playing for the national championship with the obvious exception. Rich Rod was supposed to change all that and well, let's just hope better days are ahead, but if we ever get there I sure don't want to have to deal with two super-powers after running the conference table.
because it seems to be working in the other conferences.
In fact, that's kind of the point from a football perspective. People don't seem to take Big Ten teams with losses seriously because the perception is that the path to a Big Ten title is easier than, say, in the SEC or the Big 12. But add a Nebraska and get one or two teams back to where they belong, and when Michigan is in the hunt again, after we beat five or six solid teams to get to the title game and roll another one (or maybe someone we've already beaten) in the conference championship, there won't be any crap about strength of schedule or any of that.
I don't think Michigan needs to start borrowing pages from Kansas State and schools like that. Schedule the big teams, go out and beat them, and prove that you're worthy of a championship, and you'll play for one. (In the current system, the only other method seems to be shooting down team planes, which is probably a bit excessive for a mythical championship.)
of the B10. If they are not coming, then UM, MSU, Purdue should stop scheduling them. We are only aiding and abetting their grand delusion.
Let them go play Louisville at Churchill Downs or whatever their latest scheme is to try to stay relevant.
I really don't know how Oklahoma, OK St, and Texas A&M can just sit back and just let UT rape them financially. And it looks like Beebe's accounting numbers are more sketch than Enron's was. Hoping that the Aggies bolt to the SEC to screw this plan up; they need to get out of the shadow of UT anyways.
Pure fantasy given the loss of media markets. At best the Big 12(10) is a regional conference with limited national pull. The idea of a Texas network remains ludicrous to me also.
As for the other schools and their relation with Texas...I think panic would not be too strong an assertion here.
It actually makes me want to wash off my mouse and clean my hard drive, seeing that on my monitor. If Michigan had an equivalent to Texas' naming-honorarium, it would have to be; "Bo Schembechler Stadium - Geoffrey Fieger Field." In East Lansing, it would be, "Duffy Daugherty Stadium - Sam Bernstein Field."
Joe Jamail "The King of Torts," in action, in a Texas deposition:
I couldn't believe that, either. He is the wealthiest attorney in U.S. history, and has done it in ways that I, as a fellow attorney, don't respect. The "Fieger" reference actually may give him too much credit- at least Fieger defended Kevorkian and actually ran for political office. The Bernstein comparison is more apt.
While we're throwing up in our mouths a little, let's not forget that Ann Coulter got her law degree at Michigan.
you are dealing with J. R. Ewing.
I am glad Texas is not going to the PAC 10 since beef and white wine do not go together.
but if it doesn't work, can we at least get their Jumbotron?
... that the Big XII be renamed 'Big Tex." I also recommend that this be the name of a sandwich, if it is not already.
There's my contribution to the conversation.
co-Tex?
i still just cannot believe that georgia tech is an actual option. i feel like the insanity of that kind of move is on par with trying to acquire ucla. the geographical gap is just too big to justify it ime
One must not think sports or just football here. The Big Ten is a prestigious conference, with high ideals and academics.
Georgia Tech just got accepted into the Association of American Universities this year (2010). This may not mean anything to the average sports guy, but in acadamia there is no organization more desireable to be linked. The Big Ten wants schools that are academically excellent. GT just entered that status this year.
I am not surprised. GT opens an avenue to Atlanta and its revenue. Plus there are recruiting paths that would open too. GT could come in to the Big Ten. It is not impossible.
i understand the academics. i know georgia tech is one of the top engineering schools in the country but still. imagine the big ten footprint and then georgia. i suppose texas is approx the same distance but thats texas. georgia tech isnt quite the brand that texas is
GT offers some interesting media exposure, perhaps, but the lack of any real geographical connection makes the whole thing untenable. The Johnny come lately AAU status isn't going to impress any B10 presidents either.
There are other more interesting candidates...I am sure the B10 will just rake in money as they await ND to ultimately follow the money.
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