Bleacher Report: TCU's Sonny Dykes Thinks CFB Power Conferences, Group of 5 Could Split 'Eventually'

[TopFrog]

TCU's Sonny Dykes Thinks CFB Power Conferences, Group of 5 Could Split 'Eventually'​

Adam Wells

As the gulf between the FBS power conferences and Group of Five schools grows wider, TCU head coach Sonny Dykes thinks a split between the two is coming.

Speaking to Mike Craven of TexasFootball.com, Dykes explained why there has "got to be a split eventually" between the power conferences and Group of Five conferences:

"There is such a big difference right now between the haves and the have nots and I think we'll eventually split into two separate divisions," he said. "Alabama and Louisiana Tech aren't playing the same sport."

Read more here.

 

[Limey Frog]

Ross Dellinger and others have reported that the House v. NCAA settlement terms will be finalized within a month. That will set the cap on athletic departments' revenue sharing with players, which will form the basis of (hopefully succinct) draft legislation to give to Congress and say "please give us this anti-trust carve out so we can move forward without getting sued to death". I think with the court settlement there's a good chance that legislation would pass. At that point the exact cost of continuing big time football will be clear and enforceable transfer limitation rules will be possible. Once you have a pretty clear idea of what this thing is going to look like in future the TV networks will tell the SEC and Big Ten exactly how many members they should poach from the ACC (and possibly the Big XII). All of this will take less than 18 months. By the 2025 football season I think we'll know whether TCU is going to be allowed to play or not.

Here's what I'm confident we know:

1. Athletes will get roughly 25% of TV and ticket revenue, probably divided by sport (i.e. football guys will split 80% of the 25%).
2. Maybe 40-50 schools can afford to field big time football programs at that rate of buy-in.
3. TCU is one of those schools.
4. Clemson, FSU, UNC, and Notre Dame will be in the SEC or Big Ten. VT, Virginia, and Miami probably will as well. The Big Ten will be at least 20 members, at which point the SEC will probably get that big, too.

Here's a couple further best guesses:

5. If those conferences don't poach any schools from the Big XII, there's probably just enough room in the future model for three conferences with the Big XII being no. 3 (and an obvious junior partner by a considerable margin).
6. If those conferences decide to go supernova with 24 members each there's probably just enough room for TCU and Baylor. If the number is 22 each we'll probably be left out. At that point we're in the G5 subdivision. Anything above 20 pretty much kills the Big XII as a pseudo-major conference.

 

[froginaustin]

@Limey,
It sounds like the small stadium schools, 45k or less seats, would be at a substantial institutional disadvantage if "ticket revenue" is not split somewhat evenly with visiting teams. Or is "ticket revenue" such a small piece of the pie in the media age that it really won't matter if the school only sells 45k or less tickets as opposed to the TTechs and Az States of this world that could possibly (based on stadium size) sell 75k or more?










2Limey

 

[Putt4Purple]

All of this makes my head spin. At my age I’ll just sit at home and watch whatever is on TV. Pretty damn sad to try and keep up with and SUPPORT financially your home school. Not in this economy.

 

[Limey Frog]

@Limey,
It sounds like the small stadium schools, 45k or less seats, would be at a substantial institutional disadvantage if "ticket revenue" is not split somewhat evenly with visiting teams. Or is "ticket revenue" such a small piece of the pie in the media age that it really won't matter if the school only sells 45k or less tickets as opposed to the TTechs and Az States of this world that could possibly (based on stadium size) sell 75k or more?

I don't think ticket revenue will make a huge difference between programs, though you're always going to be in a better position with 80K season ticket holders than 30K. TCU as a small school is comparatively better positioned to compete than other small schools just by virtue of talent-rich location and a number of wealthy alumni, though that won't be enough to close the ground between us and Ohio State in any universe.

 

[Toad Jones]

I wonder if we could keep up, with the likes of Ohio State, Alabama, Penn State, Tenn and so forth, even with 20% in revenue. Maybe we could for a little while, but we couldn't sustain with the likes of the blue blood.. And produce every year a program like Alabama. Truth be known, we're struggling now.

Texas Tech will be one of the hangers-on., then fall off. They can't sustain anything in Lubbock, Tx!

Eventually, only a handful of schools will be in a king conference. I don't have a clue what this does to our educational system. To me, its purpose has vanished and been replaced with sports that continue generating revenue to keep the doors open for education. Just where in the hell are we going anyway??!

 

[Wexahu]

I wonder if we could keep up, with the likes of Ohio State, Alabama, Penn State, Tenn and so forth, even with 20% in revenue. Maybe we could for a little while, but we couldn't sustain with the likes of the blue blood.. And produce every year a program like Alabama. Truth be known, we're struggling now.

Texas Tech will be one of the hangers-on., then fall off. They can't sustain anything in Lubbock, Tx!

Eventually, only a handful of schools will be in a king conference. I don't have a clue what this does to our educational system. To me, its purpose has vanished and been replaced with sports that continue generating revenue to keep the doors open for education. Just where in the hell are we going anyway??!

We’d have a “chance” of keeping up, or fielding very competitive teams from time to time, without the transfer portal. With the transfer portal, we really have no chance.

 

[Palliative Care]

Truly the sky is falling or not. We’ll see.

 

[Toad Jones]

Someone in the now set us straight on regulations? I.e.: who pays these dudes? Do I go to class if I recv an NIL deal and not graduated? So correct me, would you call the university a pimp? Mostly, we don't know where a school stands in the NIL deal.

But here is a biggy? Some quaCK OH.. SAYS,: the first year everyone gets the same. The second year. a payment ? and so on ? Who is the administrator?

 

[Endless Purple]

Ohio State reports about $60 million in football ticket revenue. Plus $70 million for media is $130 million. Compare that to TCU with less than half the ticket sales and media (generous at $70 million combined)

20% cap
Ohio St - $26 million in player payments
TCU - $14 million in player payments

That can make a big difference in expanding the gap. Not narrowing it. Making it a % cap is giving further advantage to big names than a flat rate of $20 million to players and let school have choice to compete.

 

[Limey Frog]

Truly the sky is falling or not. We’ll see.

Sadly, other parties will decide for us and then let us know. All we know for sure is that no one who is deciding this gives a crap about TCU. We'll either help those people make money and be in, or not and be out.

 

[Wexahu]

Ohio State reports about $60 million in football ticket revenue. Plus $70 million for media is $130 million. Compare that to TCU with less than half the ticket sales and media (generous at $70 million combined)

20% cap
Ohio St - $26 million in player payments
TCU - $14 million in player payments

That can make a big difference in expanding the gap. Not narrowing it. Making it a % cap is giving further advantage to big names than a flat rate of $20 million to players and let school have choice to compete.

Those kind of gaps would be pretty easy to overcome as long as there was not annual free agency. Small market MLB teams compete very well with big market teams spending far more money.

But there’s no point in even trying to keep up as long as they let kids play for whoever they want from year-to -year. If they change that one rule, almost everything is fixed overnight. Without changing that rule, nothing can be fixed. Talk of salary caps is kind of silly because there is no way it could be regulated or accounted for.

 

[Limey Frog]

Ohio State reports about $60 million in football ticket revenue. Plus $70 million for media is $130 million. Compare that to TCU with less than half the ticket sales and media (generous at $70 million combined)

20% cap
Ohio St - $26 million in player payments
TCU - $14 million in player payments

That can make a big difference in expanding the gap. Not narrowing it. Making it a % cap is giving further advantage to big names than a flat rate of $20 million to players and let school have choice to compete.

As I understand it the cap will not be per school but set to the average P4 revenue total. So if the average P4 school makes $100M in TV and ticket revenue, the 20% cap will be $20M for everyone. For Ohio State that will actually be less than 20% and for TCU it will be more, but we'll find a way to afford it. The important thing is that the number is the same for everyone, not a percentage of how much your individual program grosses (like in the Premier League, in which Manchester City and Luton Town are truly not operating on the same plane of reality despite being nominally in the same league).

 

[This Ain't Chopped Liver]

We’d have a “chance” of keeping up, or fielding very competitive teams from time to time, without the transfer portal. With the transfer portal, we really have no chance.

Maybe, but do you think the former way of having to sit out a year after transfer is fair? Seems a kid should have the right to decide how he wants to use his four years of eligibility. If you agree with that right, then we are unfortunately stuck with the transfer portal, and the big monkey wrench thrown into it is NIL with the lure of more money to incentivize transfers.

And for some, even if they had to sit out one year after transfer they still might transfer for better pay.

 

[Limey Frog]

Maybe, but do you think the former way of having to sit out a year after transfer is fair? Seems a kid should have the right to decide how he wants to use his four years of eligibility. If you agree with that right, then we are unfortunately stuck with the transfer portal, and the big monkey wrench thrown into it is NIL with the lure of more money to incentivize transfers.

And for some, even if they had to sit out one year after transfer they still might transfer for better pay.

The fair way would be with contracts that have penalties. If you're old enough to sign a million-dollar deal to play somewhere, you're old enough to have to buy your way out of that contract if you break it.

 

[Wexahu]

Maybe, but do you think the former way of having to sit out a year after transfer is fair? Seems a kid should have the right to decide how he wants to use his four years of eligibility. If you agree with that right, then we are unfortunately stuck with the transfer portal, and the big monkey wrench thrown into it is NIL with the lure of more money to incentivize transfers.

And for some, even if they had to sit out one year after transfer they still might transfer for better pay.

I think it’s entirely fair to require a kid to sit out a year if he decides to transfer. It was that way for about 100 years and it was hardly ever even brought up as some kind of unfair rule. It was just the way it was, and the reason for that rule was obvious.

No decisions are being made for the good of the game and making the product better, and eventually that is going to backfire big time.

 

[The Bad Guy]

I think it’s entirely fair to require a kid to sit out a year if he decides to transfer. It was that way for about 100 years and it was hardly ever even brought up as some kind of unfair rule. It was just the way it was, and the reason for that rule was obvious.

No decisions are being made for the good of the game and making the product better, and eventually that is going to backfire big time.

I see nothing wrong with sitting a year, makes the kid be responsible in his decision making... isn't that one of the points of going to college...? I could see there being exceptions to the rule i.e the head coach leaves the program, but no more I'm upset and taking my ball home type behavior.

 

[Endless Purple]

No decisions are being made for the good of the game and making the product better, and eventually that is going to backfire big time.

This 100%.

I think this is all about greed on a couple levels - players believing they are worth far more than they are without the jersey, and not giving any credit to the value of the scholarship and associated costs and stipends. Schools trying to have as large a profit to win before they get on the field. No concern for a competitive sport. This include boosters who pay for players to play and not with marketing/advertising value to exaggerate the situation for their egos.

 

[Endless Purple]

As I understand it the cap will not be per school but set to the average P4 revenue total. So if the average P4 school makes $100M in TV and ticket revenue, the 20% cap will be $20M for everyone. For Ohio State that will actually be less than 20% and for TCU it will be more, but we'll find a way to afford it. The important thing is that the number is the same for everyone, not a percentage of how much your individual program grosses (like in the Premier League, in which Manchester City and Luton Town are truly not operating on the same plane of reality despite being nominally in the same league).

If it is an average of the schools, that is a good thing and give a fixed rate to all schools. I just have not heard that anywhere, and have a hard time believing the name schools would agree to it and give up that advantage.

 

[ShreveFrog]

Spending cap is not worth worrying about. Teams will cheat.