USC and UCLA to the Big Ten by 2024?

[TBC Alum]

In comparing football vs basketball, football is a better fit for these multi-time zone conferences. Less total games played less frequently makes the travel issue more tolerable.

UConn was very forward thinking in unbundling their football program from their other sports. It definitely would make sense if the NCAA would do the same and allow teams to be in different conferences for football vs other sports.

The moves by SEC and B1G are making this very unattractive to those left out of those 2 conferences. Winners will keep winning while losers will continue to lose big bucks while becoming more and more irrelevant in CFB.

I have no clue what to expect for the BE going forward. As long as football is bundled to other sports in conference affiliation, I expect us to have some interesting and needle-moving changes going forward. If other sports get unbundled, not so much. Either way, I do feel the BE will be strong in the CBB worlds.

[Django]

What if the B1G annexed the BE for basketball and poached the ACC, B12 and PAC? Here’s at a 41-team super conference with 4 divisions.

East
BC-PC-UCONN-Cuse-St John’s-SHU-Nova-Rutgers-GT-Maryland
Midwest
X-OSU-Mich-MSU-Indiana-Butler-Purdue-Notre Dame-Illin-PSU-pitt
Middle-west
Wisco-Marq-Nwstrn-DePaul-Minn-Iowa-ISU-Creighton-KU-Ksu
West-PAC
Neb-Col-Arizona-Asu-Gonzaga-Wash-Oregon-Stanford-UCLA-USC

For football you could have East and West with 15 team divisions

[MullinMayhem]

I feel like this is inevitable. It's pretty clear that in the end only the SEC & B1G will be left standing. Remnants of B12/ACC/PAC12 plus the Big East will likely be added as basketball only members. This is honestly the best case scenario for the Big East, because I don't think we will survive another 20 yrs at this rate as a basketball only league. At the end of the day, we don't want to be lumped in with big football schools, but it may be the only way to survive. Eventually, if you are not a B1G or SEC school, you will essentially be Division 2 or at best seen as mid major. All the best recruits will go there. The biggest TV deals will be there. The most $ and biggest brands will go there. We need to be there if we want long term survival especially as being a power basketball league. If there is a scenario where the B1G and SEC break away from NCAA which is obviously going to happen (when not if) and we do not get included, our product is much less attractive & the schools are now seen as 2nd tier in hoops. You are who you surround yourself with. I remember looking up inside Carnesecca Arena seeing the banners of Notre Dame and the like next to "St. John's". It has a legitimizing effect that you matter. If we lose our link to major brands, we are not going to be seen as on their level.

[butlerguy03]

What if the B1G annexed the BE for basketball and poached the ACC, B12 and PAC? Here’s at a 41-team super conference with 4 divisions.

East
BC-PC-UCONN-Cuse-St John’s-SHU-Nova-Rutgers-GT-Maryland
Midwest
X-OSU-Mich-MSU-Indiana-Butler-Purdue-Notre Dame-Illin-PSU-pitt
Middle-west
Wisco-Marq-Nwstrn-DePaul-Minn-Iowa-ISU-Creighton-KU-Ksu
West-PAC
Neb-Col-Arizona-Asu-Gonzaga-Wash-Oregon-Stanford-UCLA-USC

For football you could have East and West with 15 team divisions

Indiana and Notre Dame would NEVER let Butler in the same conference, let alone the same division. Butler would be left out, and you'd be at an even 40. Sad face.

[gtmoBlue]

I feel like this is inevitable. It's pretty clear that in the end only the SEC & B1G will be left standing. Remnants of B12/ACC/PAC12 plus the Big East will likely be added as basketball only members. This is honestly the best case scenario for the Big East, because I don't think we will survive another 20 yrs at this rate as a basketball only league. At the end of the day, we don't want to be lumped in with big football schools, but it may be the only way to survive. Eventually, if you are not a B1G or SEC school, you will essentially be Division 2 or at best seen as mid major. All the best recruits will go there. The biggest TV deals will be there. The most $ and biggest brands will go there. We need to be there if we want long term survival especially as being a power basketball league. If there is a scenario where the B1G and SEC break away from NCAA which is obviously going to happen (when not if) and we do not get included, our product is much less attractive & the schools are now seen as 2nd tier in hoops. You are who you surround yourself with. I remember looking up inside Carnesecca Arena seeing the banners of Notre Dame and the like next to "St. John's". It has a legitimizing effect that you matter. If we lose our link to major brands, we are not going to be seen as on their level.

WEll then the P2 or P3 need to just suck it up and leave- completely, now, immediately. They can run their own football playoff, their own hoops tourney, their own everything.

The restuvus will just have to live with a diminished NCAA Div 1 Football playoff, a diminished NCAA Hoops Tourney, and the rest. Oh yeah...and less money. Such is life. (The Haves n havenots)
We'll get used to it...and like many of youse old BEasters' who currently yearn and long for "da good ole days of the OBE", we'll all yearn for the good old pre-breakaway Era sports.

"Ah yes, I remember way back in 2022, the ol' Radnorites made their last FF, and Prov made the SS, and six BE teams were in the tourney...the good ol' days." - gtmo

[Jasper67]

I feel like this is inevitable. It's pretty clear that in the end only the SEC & B1G will be left standing. Remnants of B12/ACC/PAC12 plus the Big East will likely be added as basketball only members. This is honestly the best case scenario for the Big East, because I don't think we will survive another 20 yrs at this rate as a basketball only league. At the end of the day, we don't want to be lumped in with big football schools, but it may be the only way to survive. Eventually, if you are not a B1G or SEC school, you will essentially be Division 2 or at best seen as mid major. All the best recruits will go there. The biggest TV deals will be there. The most $ and biggest brands will go there. We need to be there if we want long term survival especially as being a power basketball league. If there is a scenario where the B1G and SEC break away from NCAA which is obviously going to happen (when not if) and we do not get included, our product is much less attractive & the schools are now seen as 2nd tier in hoops. You are who you surround yourself with. I remember looking up inside Carnesecca Arena seeing the banners of Notre Dame and the like next to "St. John's". It has a legitimizing effect that you matter. If we lose our link to major brands, we are not going to be seen as on their level.

I agree that only the SEC and B1G will be left standing as football powers. Of course none of us knows what the future will bring with regard to everything else. There was once a time when baseball was the national past time, football wasn’t so important, and college sports commanded only limited interest. Perhaps the modern obsession with football will diminish as interest in baseball has. We can only hope. Frankly football, a sport which damages the brains of its student athletes (CTE) has no place in the life of a university where the mission is to develop brains and not destroy them. So, who knows? Maybe university boards of directors will come to realize this.

When I look in my crystal ball, I see a future different from the one you predict. While I agree that a P2 or P3 will control football, I don’t expect basketball to follow for several reasons:

First, the NCAA tournament is too successful as it is. The NCAA will likely have to increase its pay out to schools and keep less of the money for itself, but destroying the tournament would make no sense for the B1G and SEC.

Second, basketball is different than football. It is far less expensive to run. With only 5 players on the court, it’s much easier to build a top team than it is in football and as a result much more difficult to corner the market on top talent.

Third, football schools have had a difficult time building top basketball programs. The B1G, for example, hasn’t produced a national basketball champion since 2000 and that Michigan State team has been their only NC since 1989. Basketball dynasties have been built at school where football is second rate - Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, UCLA, Kansas, Indiana,
and UConn being the only schools to have won 4 or more NCs. Even looking at the schools with 3 NCs, we don’t see any football powers - Villanova, Louisville, San Francisco.

Fourth, if a P2 or P3 were to run their own NC basketball tournament, I simply see a return to the days of 2 tournaments with the true NC being undetermined on the court and both tournaments laying claim to their champion being the best team. There would still be a huge audience for such a tournament with everyone else outside the P2 or P3 participating,

Finally, the networks will still need content during basketball season. That’s why Fox gave the Big East a contract in the first place. The current B1G and SEC is not about creating conferences with big numbers per se. It is about each conference bringing together as many top football revenue producers together under their umbrella so that they are no longer sharing their revenue with schools which don’t bring in as much money. Texas, for example, made it well known that they did not like seeing their revenue being drained to go to the small market schools of the Great Plains. P2 or P3 conferences will not be carrying schools which are dead weight for football.

It will be interesting to see what changes - if any - Fox or a competitor network might want to see in the Big East before awarding the next contract. I suspect that they’ll want to see Gonzaga in the lineup to insure more profile games. It will be interesting to see if there are any other schools which follow UConn’s path to deemphasize football in the interests of maximizing basketball revenue. Duke, for example, could be such a school some day although not as long as the ACC survives. Would such schools look to the Big East of form their own basketball-first league? Should be fun to find out as we watch what emerges.

The bottom line is that this current realignment is about controlling football money but not necessarily basketball revenue.

[adoraz]

While I do think these new super conferences may make things tougher for the Big East in the long run (from a revenue perspective), I'd be surprised if the P2 omits any of the current ~350 D1 basketball schools from a future tournament. Further, I'd be VERY surprised if they omit the Big East. There are so many fans of non-Power colleges throughout the country who follow during the regular season and March Madness because of their school. They know they will likely never win a national title but all they need to do is win their conference (or for some leagues like WCC or A10 a couple at-large bids could be up for grabs). From there they will play in a postseason game against a big opponent with dreams of becoming the next St. Peter's. Maybe even Butler or Loyola and in a few years could find themselves in a much better conference. I know this first hand because before I got my MBA from St. John's I attended one of those schools. That school still hasn't accomplished the dream of moving up in the college basketball rankings but the hope remains there.

I'll just say this: if the P2 leaves out the Big East I will stop watching college basketball. There are millions of other fans throughout the country who I'm sure feel the same way about their school/conference.

Also, I like MM's idea of being annexed into the Big Ten and have thought of that myself, but I'm not very confident it'll happen. The idea of a mega tournament at MSG each year has to be appealing to the Big Ten (we already know they can't do that successfully with their current setup and UCLA/USC won't help), but as Jasper mentioned all of these moves have been about football.

Will certainly be an interesting few years.

[Jasper67]

While I do think these new super conferences may make things tougher for the Big East in the long run (from a revenue perspective), I'd be surprised if the P2 omits any of the current ~350 D1 basketball schools from a future tournament. Further, I'd be VERY surprised if they omit the Big East. There are so many fans of non-Power colleges throughout the country who follow during the regular season and March Madness because of their school. They know they will likely never win a national title but all they need to do is win their conference (or for some leagues like WCC or A10 a couple at-large bids could be up for grabs). From there they will play in a postseason game against a big opponent with dreams of becoming the next St. Peter's. Maybe even Butler or Loyola and in a few years could find themselves in a much better conference. I know this first hand because before I got my MBA from St. John's I attended one of those schools. That school still hasn't accomplished the dream of moving up in the college basketball rankings but the hope remains there.

I'll just say this: if the P2 leaves out the Big East I will stop watching college basketball. There are millions of other fans throughout the country who I'm sure feel the same way about their school/conference.

Also, I like MM's idea of being annexed into the Big Ten and have thought of that myself, but I'm not very confident it'll happen. The idea of a mega tournament at MSG each year has to be appealing to the Big Ten (we already know they can't do that successfully with their current setup and UCLA/USC won't help), but as Jasper mentioned all of these moves have been about football.

Will certainly be an interesting few years.

Don’t give up watching college basketball if the P2 just play each other in hoops. The NCAA tournament will continue and most fans won’t care about a P2 tournament if there is one.

PS - Butler IS in a much better conference than they used to be.

[adoraz]

While I do think these new super conferences may make things tougher for the Big East in the long run (from a revenue perspective), I'd be surprised if the P2 omits any of the current ~350 D1 basketball schools from a future tournament. Further, I'd be VERY surprised if they omit the Big East. There are so many fans of non-Power colleges throughout the country who follow during the regular season and March Madness because of their school. They know they will likely never win a national title but all they need to do is win their conference (or for some leagues like WCC or A10 a couple at-large bids could be up for grabs). From there they will play in a postseason game against a big opponent with dreams of becoming the next St. Peter's. Maybe even Butler or Loyola and in a few years could find themselves in a much better conference. I know this first hand because before I got my MBA from St. John's I attended one of those schools. That school still hasn't accomplished the dream of moving up in the college basketball rankings but the hope remains there.

I'll just say this: if the P2 leaves out the Big East I will stop watching college basketball. There are millions of other fans throughout the country who I'm sure feel the same way about their school/conference.

Also, I like MM's idea of being annexed into the Big Ten and have thought of that myself, but I'm not very confident it'll happen. The idea of a mega tournament at MSG each year has to be appealing to the Big Ten (we already know they can't do that successfully with their current setup and UCLA/USC won't help), but as Jasper mentioned all of these moves have been about football.

Will certainly be an interesting few years.

Don’t give up watching college basketball if the P2 just play each other in hoops. The NCAA tournament will continue and most fans won’t care about a P2 tournament if there is one.

PS - Butler IS in a much better conference than they used to be.

Yes I'm aware about Butler- that's the point I was making that even mid-majors have the dream of moving up to a big conference. Butler proved that. Same with Loyola to a lesser extent since they're moving up to the A10.

As for whether I'd watch: first, there's absolutely no chance I'd watch a Power 2 tournament. As for an NCAA Tournament: if isn't respected as much as the P2 and isn't considered a national title then frankly I'd just totally tune out of college basketball. I guess it'd depend on where teams like Duke, Kansas and Syracuse end up. If they're part of it I'd still watch some but certainly much, much less than I do now. I really have little interest in watching BE teams play for anything less than a national championship.

[Jasper67]

The P2 will be all about football, so I don’t see them getting all the top basketball talent. At worst, we might be looking at a split national championship or co-champions. But I really don’t see the P2 walking away from the current system in basketball.