Conference Realignment Thread v. 2016

[ArmyVet]

He wasn't saying BC should drop football and join the Big East. He was in favor of BC being in a conference with other mediocre northern football schools (Pittsburgh, Syracuse, UConn, Temple). Obviously BC isn't leaving the ACC. They are cashing +$20 million checks each year. It's not great for fans though as the school is a bottom feeder in basketball and not much better in a weak football conference. I wouldn't want BC in the Big East. They're horrible.

It won't ever happen, but adding one of the preeminent catholic institutions from a major market to the Big East would be exactly the kind of addition the university powers would quickly approve in my opinion.

[Demon22]

BC isn't giving up football and they're not leaving ACC. BC is rolling in cash, 2.2B endowment, they charge 60,000+ per year and give very few merit scholarships.

Understood. He just believes that barring a "difference-making" hire as a HC, that BC unwittingly signed up to be the Vanderbilt of ACC football.

[BEwannabe]

BC will find the right mix at some point.

[Michael in Raleigh]

There actually is ZERO incentive to add new members now. Nova delivered a badly needed and key piece: strengthened conference credibility by punching through to the Final Four. This year's conference tournament at MSG was a truly smashing success. Multiple ranked teams, a #1 ranked team, 2 Top 5/10 ranked teams and all that provided perception-wise throughout the regular season. Viewership is trending up. Loving the ten teams and the Round Robin format. It's all working, and very nicely.

We are in a buyers market, but with nothing worth buying presently. We certainly aren't going to do something amazingly stupid like dilute the conference with sub-par teams. Thank God for the Presidents and Val Ackerman. Nothing is a given anyway, especially when it comes to the notion of adding teams to attempt to increase NCAA bids.

The only program that has any kind of cache is Gonzaga, and it's just too far away.

I agree with this very much.

The incentives to expand are mostly about increasing revenue, specifically from media-related sources. Other leagues have expanded and gotten new money from (1) a new football conference championship game, (2) a re-negotiated TV contract that pays more, (3) a new conference network, or one that is expanded into new markets (most notably, this is why the Big Ten took Rutgers and Maryland).

The Big East doesn't have any of those options. Adding Saint Louis or Dayton or VCU or Gonzaga or even UConn isn't going to get them a conference network, period. Even the 16-team Big East of 2005-13 had little chance of making that happen. The TV contract would only go up at a pro-rate basis. No disrespect intended, but it can be argued that Fox paid above market rate for the Big East because it needed content. Adding ANY new team wouldn't give Fox the incentive to increase beyond pro-rata. Even adding UConn, which, for all its success, isn't the absolute ratings bonanza that a football team would be. And obviously the Big East will not be adding a football championship game.

Really, the only new revenue source might be the possibility of increasing NCAA tournament credits, but that is a bit of a gamble. As others pointed out, for all the ACC's tournament credits this year, that league HAD to do as well as it did in the tournament in order to get $2M/team because the money is divided among 15 schools. Meanwhile, the Big East, with two fewer teams in the tournament and only one team making it past the first weekend (albeit, at least all the way to the Final Four), gets to share $1.9M/team because there are only 10 teams in the league. In other words, the Big East is doing about as well as the ACC is for per-team NCAA revenue, and it could have done even better with one or two different plays in the Xavier/Wisconsin game.

At best, a few more tickets might get sold at the Big East Tournament, which would have to happen since there would be "one more mouth to feed."

Outside of financial motivations for expansion, what else is there? Perception? That can be improved by having more seasons like the one the league just had. Dominant out of conference. Several top 25 teams. Winning records going deep into the standings. And, of course, a deep run into the tournament.

Truthfully, as time passes, I think people around the country are going to be envious of what the Big East has, which other leagues have lost. When I hear my in-laws, who have lived in NC for over 40 years, talk about the ACC of the 70's, 80's, and 90's, they really miss the smaller league. Everyone played everyone once for football, twice in basketball. Geography was tightly knit. People knew fans/graduates from just about every other school. More or less, there was plenty of commonality among institutions. There was definitely more conference camaraderie. It can be argued that money and keeping up with the joneses demanded expansion, but some things were lost with that. I think the same goes for the Big Ten. Many fans didn't even like Penn State. They definitely don't like playing Rutgers and Maryland instead of Wisconsin and Iowa.

The Big East of today, though more spread out than it was during its nostalgic years in the 80's, really matches what Dave Gavitt put together in the first place. It has exactly the qualities which many fans of schools in other conferences once had and today wish their teams' conferences had. There's conference camaraderie. There's rivalries coupled with mutual respect. There's commonality among institutions. There are shared goals. And, significantly, there isn't any desire by schools to look elsewhere. Even for a league like the Big Ten, where almost certainly no one would ever leave voluntarily, there are some who wish that other schools would get "kicked out" (knowing that won't ever happen). With the Big East, no one wants other schools kicked out, nor does anyone want to leave.

Congrats to fans of Big East teams, most especially Villanova. Even as a longtime ACC fan, I find myself rooting for the Wildcats to pull it off in six days just because I like the whole story of your conference.

All the best!

[billyjack]

There actually is ZERO incentive to add new members now. Nova delivered a badly needed and key piece: strengthened conference credibility by punching through to the Final Four. This year's conference tournament at MSG was a truly smashing success. Multiple ranked teams, a #1 ranked team, 2 Top 5/10 ranked teams and all that provided perception-wise throughout the regular season. Viewership is trending up. Loving the ten teams and the Round Robin format. It's all working, and very nicely.

We are in a buyers market, but with nothing worth buying presently. We certainly aren't going to do something amazingly stupid like dilute the conference with sub-par teams. Thank God for the Presidents and Val Ackerman. Nothing is a given anyway, especially when it comes to the notion of adding teams to attempt to increase NCAA bids.

The only program that has any kind of cache is Gonzaga, and it's just too far away.

I agree with this very much.

The incentives to expand are mostly about increasing revenue, specifically from media-related sources. Other leagues have expanded and gotten new money from (1) a new football conference championship game, (2) a re-negotiated TV contract that pays more, (3) a new conference network, or one that is expanded into new markets (most notably, this is why the Big Ten took Rutgers and Maryland).

The Big East doesn't have any of those options. Adding Saint Louis or Dayton or VCU or Gonzaga or even UConn isn't going to get them a conference network, period. Even the 16-team Big East of 2005-13 had little chance of making that happen. The TV contract would only go up at a pro-rate basis. No disrespect intended, but it can be argued that Fox paid above market rate for the Big East because it needed content. Adding ANY new team wouldn't give Fox the incentive to increase beyond pro-rata. Even adding UConn, which, for all its success, isn't the absolute ratings bonanza that a football team would be. And obviously the Big East will not be adding a football championship game.

Really, the only new revenue source might be the possibility of increasing NCAA tournament credits, but that is a bit of a gamble. As others pointed out, for all the ACC's tournament credits this year, that league HAD to do as well as it did in the tournament in order to get $2M/team because the money is divided among 15 schools. Meanwhile, the Big East, with two fewer teams in the tournament and only one team making it past the first weekend (albeit, at least all the way to the Final Four), gets to share $1.9M/team because there are only 10 teams in the league. In other words, the Big East is doing about as well as the ACC is for per-team NCAA revenue, and it could have done even better with one or two different plays in the Xavier/Wisconsin game.

At best, a few more tickets might get sold at the Big East Tournament, which would have to happen since there would be "one more mouth to feed."

Outside of financial motivations for expansion, what else is there? Perception? That can be improved by having more seasons like the one the league just had. Dominant out of conference. Several top 25 teams. Winning records going deep into the standings. And, of course, a deep run into the tournament.

Truthfully, as time passes, I think people around the country are going to be envious of what the Big East has, which other leagues have lost. When I hear my in-laws, who have lived in NC for over 40 years, talk about the ACC of the 70's, 80's, and 90's, they really miss the smaller league. Everyone played everyone once for football, twice in basketball. Geography was tightly knit. People knew fans/graduates from just about every other school. More or less, there was plenty of commonality among institutions. There was definitely more conference camaraderie. It can be argued that money and keeping up with the joneses demanded expansion, but some things were lost with that. I think the same goes for the Big Ten. Many fans didn't even like Penn State. They definitely don't like playing Rutgers and Maryland instead of Wisconsin and Iowa.

The Big East of today, though more spread out than it was during its nostalgic years in the 80's, really matches what Dave Gavitt put together in the first place. It has exactly the qualities which many fans of schools in other conferences once had and today wish their teams' conferences had. There's conference camaraderie. There's rivalries coupled with mutual respect. There's commonality among institutions. There are shared goals. And, significantly, there isn't any desire by schools to look elsewhere. Even for a league like the Big Ten, where almost certainly no one would ever leave voluntarily, there are some who wish that other schools would get "kicked out" (knowing that won't ever happen). With the Big East, no one wants other schools kicked out, nor does anyone want to leave.

Congrats to fans of Big East teams, most especially Villanova. Even as a longtime ACC fan, I find myself rooting for the Wildcats to pull it off in six days just because I like the whole story of your conference.

All the best!

Thanks Michael for a great post.
I think we all always enjoy getting your take on things.

[stever20]

your money per team is wrong...
ACC is getting like 40 million/15 teams- or 2.67 million per team.
BE is getting 19 million/10 teams- or 1.9 million per team.

As far as this season- to call this year dominant out of conference? Do you know what the OOC record was this year? 95-30. Last year? 94-31(with a much harder schedule). 2 years ago? 94-31. What made this year special was 1 and only 1 thing. Villanova making the final 4. Like it or not, March Matters.

[JohnW22]

your money per team is wrong...
ACC is getting like 40 million/15 teams- or 2.67 million per team.
BE is getting 19 million/10 teams- or 1.9 million per team.

As far as this season- to call this year dominant out of conference? Do you know what the OOC record was this year? 95-30. Last year? 94-31(with a much harder schedule). 2 years ago? 94-31. What made this year special was 1 and only 1 thing. Villanova making the final 4. Like it or not, March Matters.

At the end of non conference we had 3 teams top 10 and Nova was 16. I believe in the other thread you said nothing wrong with being "top heavy" when talking about Duke and UNC. Id say 3 top 10 and 4 top 20 teams is pretty good at the end on non conference

[stever20]

your money per team is wrong...
ACC is getting like 40 million/15 teams- or 2.67 million per team.
BE is getting 19 million/10 teams- or 1.9 million per team.

As far as this season- to call this year dominant out of conference? Do you know what the OOC record was this year? 95-30. Last year? 94-31(with a much harder schedule). 2 years ago? 94-31. What made this year special was 1 and only 1 thing. Villanova making the final 4. Like it or not, March Matters.

At the end of non conference we had 3 teams top 10 and Nova was 16. I believe in the other thread you said nothing wrong with being "top heavy" when talking about Duke and UNC. Id say 3 top 10 and 4 top 20 teams is pretty good at the end on non conference

Um, no.

at the end of OOC play-
Xavier #6
Butler #9
Providence #12
Nova #16

you are right- that's pretty good. It's not dominant.

look at the conferences entering conference play:
B10- 1,4,14
B12- 2,3,11,19
ACC 5,7,13,15,18
BE 6,9,12,16
P12 8
SEC 10,20

There was no dominant conference OOC quite frankly. Big East would have had Nova beaten either Oklahoma or Virginia.

[Edrick]

Since 1952, SLU has won five NCAA Tournament games in 9 appearances. It's a garbage program.

Can we just stop with that nonsense? They are literally closer to being Fordham than a Big East program.

[Flyer75]

SLU hires Travis Ford.