Is Homogeneity Of Membership Good Or Bad?

[GoldenWarrior11]

You're absolutely right, Warrior. The Big East is more stable today than it was 10 years ago. Just to be clear, stability is not the issue for me, long term earning power is.

I don't see West Virginia, or UConn, or Kansas, or any other football school coming to the Big East. Those days are over. If the Big 12 implodes, the remnants will likely form a new all sports conference with the best of the American. At least, that's how I see it.

I agree with you, Bill. But, let's look at the possibility of three schools being left behind in the Big 12: Iowa State, Kansas State and Baylor (as an example). Those three, coupled with BYU/Colorado State/Houston/SMU/Tulsa/Memphis/Cincinnati/UCF/USF still isn't getting a Big 12 deal. I find it hard that this group evens gets a substantial bump from the current AAC deal. Would it be more financially viable, then, for certain football programs to go independent (BYU, ISU, KSU, BU, UConn, Temple, Cincinnati, BYU, UMass) and have a defacto "Independent" scheduling agreement? Those schools then would park Olympics in more regional-based conferences, thus saving money on travel and other expenses.

FBS Independence, today - IMHO, is a death-sentence for a football program. However, there was a point in time where many successful football programs were independents. If there was a collaborative decision from a handful of schools to go that route (thus keeping all TV revenue for themselves regionally for any football games), it *could* end up being a better financial decision for these types of schools, rather than being in a national G5 conference where you are sending your teams all over the place in hopes of getting a lottery ticket out.

Again, I'm not saying this will happen, but I do think more athletic programs need to have alternative methods of success for FBS football, rather than - especially for AAC/G5 schools - hoping for the best and praying against the worst.

[Bluejay]

So why wasn't BE Football generating more revenue? College sports in general and football in particular don't have the following in the Northeast that they do in other parts of the country. Without ratings/viewers, TV contracts are going to be smaller as they were for the old BE vs the other power conferences. My POV is that it was money that broke up the old BE more than football in and of itself. Money continues to be a factor in the path that lies ahead.

I can answer the bolded question for you, but I don't think you will like the answer.

I live out here where college football is king. I can tell you that people in the midwest, great plains and the south, simply did not think that BE football was very good. It generated little to no respect outside of the northeast corridor once the Miamis and Virginia Techs departed. Since those departures, BE football was forever devoid of national championship caliber teams. Further, fans of what were then the Big 12, Big 10 and the SEC snickered about any ranked teams out of the Big East. The thought, which was probably correct, is that the best teams in the BE would not stand a chance of having the same bloated conference records if they were in a better conference.

Except on a very rare occasion, CFB fans outside of the northeast were not going to tune in BE FB games to the detriment of their own conferences and the other "better" conferences for which they had much more respect. As a result, the games didn't garner the same ratings of the other conferences that housed the traditional CFB powers (outside of ND obviously), which, in turn, lead to BE FB not generating more TV revenues. Likewise, the stadia for BE FB teams are generally smaller, sometimes significantly so, than a lot of the stadia in the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, etc. Nebraska's stadium holds around 100K and is sold out every game for some insane amount of time. SEC stadiums are usually packed. The Big House, the Horseshoe, and Oklahoma,Texas and Tennessee are huge. Take 100K and multiply it by a very conservative figure of $20 a ticket and you've got $2M in revenues for every home game (that revenue figure is substantially understated as the average ticket price is surely larger). By comparison, BE stadiums did not fill up as reliably; and even if they did fill up, they were usually much smaller, resulting in significantly less revenues.

I do not mean to offend anyone that may have been a big BE Fb fan, but I assure you that was the perception of BE FB outside of the northeast.

[Bill Marsh]

You're absolutely right, Warrior. The Big East is more stable today than it was 10 years ago. Just to be clear, stability is not the issue for me, long term earning power is.

I don't see West Virginia, or UConn, or Kansas, or any other football school coming to the Big East. Those days are over. If the Big 12 implodes, the remnants will likely form a new all sports conference with the best of the American. At least, that's how I see it.

I agree with you, Bill. But, let's look at the possibility of three schools being left behind in the Big 12: Iowa State, Kansas State and Baylor (as an example). Those three, coupled with BYU/Colorado State/Houston/SMU/Tulsa/Memphis/Cincinnati/UCF/USF still isn't getting a Big 12 deal. I find it hard that this group evens gets a substantial bump from the current AAC deal. Would it be more financially viable, then, for certain football programs to go independent (BYU, ISU, KSU, BU, UConn, Temple, Cincinnati, BYU, UMass) and have a defacto "Independent" scheduling agreement? Those schools then would park Olympics in more regional-based conferences, thus saving money on travel and other expenses.

FBS Independence, today - IMHO, is a death-sentence for a football program. However, there was a point in time where many successful football programs were independents. If there was a collaborative decision from a handful of schools to go that route (thus keeping all TV revenue for themselves regionally for any football games), it *could* end up being a better financial decision for these types of schools, rather than being in a national G5 conference where you are sending your teams all over the place in hopes of getting a lottery ticket out.

Again, I'm not saying this will happen, but I do think more athletic programs need to have alternative methods of success for FBS football, rather than - especially for AAC/G5 schools - hoping for the best and praying against the worst.

You may be right, Warrior.

[Bill Marsh]

So why wasn't BE Football generating more revenue? College sports in general and football in particular don't have the following in the Northeast that they do in other parts of the country. Without ratings/viewers, TV contracts are going to be smaller as they were for the old BE vs the other power conferences. My POV is that it was money that broke up the old BE more than football in and of itself. Money continues to be a factor in the path that lies ahead.

I can answer the bolded question for you, but I don't think you will like the answer.

I live out here where college football is king. I can tell you that people in the midwest, great plains and the south, simply did not think that BE football was very good. It generated little to no respect outside of the northeast corridor once the Miamis and Virginia Techs departed. Since those departures, BE football was forever devoid of national championship caliber teams. Further, fans of what were then the Big 12, Big 10 and the SEC snickered about any ranked teams out of the Big East. The thought, which was probably correct, is that the best teams in the BE would not stand a chance of having the same bloated conference records if they were in a better conference.

Except on a very rare occasion, CFB fans outside of the northeast were not going to tune in BE FB games to the detriment of their own conferences and the other "better" conferences for which they had much more respect. As a result, the games didn't garner the same ratings of the other conferences that housed the traditional CFB powers (outside of ND obviously), which, in turn, lead to BE FB not generating more TV revenues. Likewise, the stadia for BE FB teams are generally smaller, sometimes significantly so, than a lot of the stadia in the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, etc. Nebraska's stadium holds around 100K and is sold out every game for some insane amount of time. SEC stadiums are usually packed. The Big House, the Horseshoe, and Oklahoma,Texas and Tennessee are huge. Take 100K and multiply it by a very conservative figure of $20 a ticket and you've got $2M in revenues for every home game (that revenue figure is substantially understated as the average ticket price is surely larger). By comparison, BE stadiums did not fill up as reliably; and even if they did fill up, they were usually much smaller, resulting in significantly less revenues.

I do not mean to offend anyone that may have been a big BE Fb fan, but I assure you that was the perception of BE FB outside of the northeast.

No offense taken. I think you explained it well.

This is really a chicken and egg question. Pitt and Syracuse are both former national football champions. What happened that those programs couldn't sustain interest over the decades? Rutgers is the flagship university in one of the most populated states in the country and is the only FBS program in the state. Why can't they generate more interest? Cincinnati and Louisville are out in football country. Why can't they generate more interest. Temple is a public university in the 4th largest city in the country. Why can't they? You get my drift.

Your point is that BE football wasn't very good and therefore received little interest. My chicken & egg response is that there isn't much interest in the East in the first place, which is why the programs aren't very good.

There are fewer FBS programs in the East per capital than anywhere else in the country. Under those circumstances, it would seem impossible not to have better programs. How can Alabama, a state of about 5 million have 2 recent national champs while New Jersey, a state almost twice as big can't have even one decent program?

Bottom line is that I agree with you that the teams weren't very good and there wasn't much hope for the future since it was chronic. I agree that's why they didn't generate a lot of revenue.

But somehow they were of value to other conferences who chose to add them and share their revenue with them. As a result, they left BE Football to get more money by joining conferences based outside the region rather than stick together with other teams in the region with whom they couldn't make as much money. That was my point. It was money that broke up the hybrid rather than football per se.

[DudeAnon]

One thing that is interesting and coming up. It is possible that we could get out ahead of the public schools with regards to increased stipends etc. Some of you may not remember but Northwestern's Football team almost legally unionized and I believe a large reason this was even possible was because Northwestern is a private institution.

What if The Big East were to preemptively challenge the NCAA and the its restrictions on stipends/benefits. I imagine most public schools will follow if we were to succeed but we would still have a head start.

[Xudash]

Bill,

I respect your opinions and position, too.

I appreciate your position and understand that it has merit. I believe that you have articulated the risks of moving too soon while I've tried to articulate the risks of waiting too long. In explaining my preference, I don't mean to imply that I'm right and that you or anyone else is wrong. Just my 2 cents.

Too soon or too long.

Hindsight is going to have a field day on this one.

[NJRedman]

That perception of the Big East was off base and factually inaccurate. How many times did WVU whoop a fellow BCS conference champ in a BCS bowl? UGA in the Sugar Bowl in Atlanta (Moved bc of Katrina), Oklahoma in Fiesta, Clemson in the Orange. UofL beat the ACC champs Wake and SEC runner ups Florida. The BE had WAY more BCS bowl wins than the ACC and always played the ACC well. Rutgers beat a Russell Wilson led NC State team in a bowl game.

It was a much better league those in the mid-west and south gave it credit for.

[Toronto Rapture]

You're absolutely right, Warrior. The Big East is more stable today than it was 10 years ago. Just to be clear, stability is not the issue for me, long term earning power is.

I don't see West Virginia, or UConn, or Kansas, or any other football school coming to the Big East. Those days are over. If the Big 12 implodes, the remnants will likely form a new all sports conference with the best of the American. At least, that's how I see it.

I agree. I wonder, would it be a better option for the remnants of the Big XII to join up with the AAC as opposed to try and carry on as some semblance of the Big XII and add it's own members outside of the AAC? If the two were to join, I think that even what are perceived as lower tier Big XII programs would be a substantial improvement in both football and basketball over much of the AAC and would elevate the status of the AAC in both football and basketball, but thats assuming that some of the better AAC programs are not poached themselves (UCONN, Cincinnati). But even then, as Golden Warrior brought up below, would that league be considered on the level of a power conference and receive the according TV deals and so on? Still, I think that might be the best chance for the remnants of the Big XII as opposed to going independent in football.

I agree with you, Bill. But, let's look at the possibility of three schools being left behind in the Big 12: Iowa State, Kansas State and Baylor (as an example). Those three, coupled with BYU/Colorado State/Houston/SMU/Tulsa/Memphis/Cincinnati/UCF/USF still isn't getting a Big 12 deal. I find it hard that this group evens gets a substantial bump from the current AAC deal. Would it be more financially viable, then, for certain football programs to go independent (BYU, ISU, KSU, BU, UConn, Temple, Cincinnati, BYU, UMass) and have a defacto "Independent" scheduling agreement? Those schools then would park Olympics in more regional-based conferences, thus saving money on travel and other expenses.

FBS Independence, today - IMHO, is a death-sentence for a football program. However, there was a point in time where many successful football programs were independents. If there was a collaborative decision from a handful of schools to go that route (thus keeping all TV revenue for themselves regionally for any football games), it *could* end up being a better financial decision for these types of schools, rather than being in a national G5 conference where you are sending your teams all over the place in hopes of getting a lottery ticket out.

Again, I'm not saying this will happen, but I do think more athletic programs need to have alternative methods of success for FBS football, rather than - especially for AAC/G5 schools - hoping for the best and praying against the worst.

Some people speculate that it is only a matter of time before ND is no longer an independent. If that were to happen, it would be a further indictment over remaining independent in football in today's landscape, and going into the future. But things could change.

[GoldenWarrior11]

Some people speculate that it is only a matter of time before ND is no longer an independent. If that were to happen, it would be a further indictment over remaining independent in football in today's landscape, and going into the future. But things could change.

The key aspect for Notre Dame is that they will remain an independent until doing so prevents them from officially competing for a national championship. To date, it hasn't. With Notre Dame's unique scheduling (USC, Stanford, Navy, 5 ACC teams, and the occasional Michigan, Michigan State, and Shamrock Series), if they go 11-1, 10-2 or even 12-0, they would absolutely be a near-lock (depending on the season) for a CFP playoff birth. They have a national following, and are the only school to have its own TV contract for NBC. With the ACC, they will remain an independent for the long-term future.

Today, the knock against being independent is the bowl-tie ins. However, anyone with common knowledge about NCAA Bowl games is that there is an overabundance of meaningless bowl games, many fans do not attend said bowl games, and - for the future - we will see more and more star college players stop playing in these weak bowl games in order to protect their future NFL careers. Too many meaningless and uninteresting teams make bowl games. Unfortunately, because of the money involved, meaningless bowl games are part of the game today. However, if advertisers see a lose in profit or revenue because of the changing landscape, the format may possibly change (which I think it will).

Make no mistake - UConn, UC and USF were kicked out of the power conference group in 2011. By 2020, the number of schools could very well increase dramatically (between the eventually destruction of the Big 12, and the remainder of the teams in the G5/AAC). At that point, you could see what could be described as a "unionization" of G5 schools arranging a de-facto football independent structure, thus protecting their Olympic sports from costly travel (and extremely weak interest from students/fans/boosters going half-way across the country for bad matchups).

[stever20]

Notre Dame at 10-2 has almost no chance(very few 2 loss teams will). Remember 2 years ago when ND was 10-1 playing Stanford, they were not a lock at all to be in the CFP even if they had beaten Stanford.

What will be interesting, is if the Big 12 is blown apart and we're down to a P4. Then, you are going to see a huge push for champions only I think. At that point, Notre Dame will be likely forced.

The problem with your thought is that if that happens- and for it to really happen, almost everyone in the Big 12 would have to find a home. So there wouldn't be this massive increase in teams going to the G5. Maybe 1 or 2. Definitely not enough to make a difference. And here's the thing. The P4 conferences aren't going to want the Big East to have those schools available, so they will keep the G5(6) around and having their pay structured where they will make a lot more than independent teams.

With Bowl games- I think what we're going to find is that guys that skip the bowl games would be limited to top 10-15 picks- that aren't in the CFP. And even there, don't think all of them will skip. This year top 3 picks played in the Texas, Sun, and Sun Bowls. I think we'll see more guys skip- but it's not going to be so overarching that it impacts things much.