Is 10 the new 12?

[KillerFrog InD KitchenSink]

Are the condidtions actually better for the launch of a 10 team conference era instead of a superconference era? Over on another board a poster raised the possibility that there could be a lot of support for reducing the requirements for a championship game from 12 to 10 ( http://ncaabbs.com/showthread.php?tid=435532 ) . Got me thinking that it wouldn't take much to suddenly have a bunch of 10 team leagues.

1. The Big 10 takes Neb, Mizzou and Rutgers.
2. The PAC-10 decides to stay pat and pursue the TV deal with the Big 12.
3. The MWC adds Boise.
4. The BE adds 2 CUSA + Temple from the MAC
5. The Sunbelt is at 9 and South Alabama is set to join in 2013
6. The SEC, ACC, MAC all stay at 12.

Suddenly with minimal movement, there are 6 conferences with 10 members, 3 with 12, one with 14 and one with 8 (WAC).

The question is if there are 6 conferences that would vote for the rule change. I agree with the poster in the link that the MWC, the PAC-10, the BE would all vote yes. The B-12 and CUSA would probably as well, giving them more flexibility should they get raided. The Big 10, ACC, SEC and MAC have no reason to vote for it, so that is 4 no votes. So it would come down to the WAC and Sunbelt. The Sunbelt is set to get to 10, so they probably vote yes. The WAC might vote no to spite the MWC, but it could also mean that they could finally get to a steady state and not worry about getting raided anymore if the conferences around them are stable. Regardless there would still be 6 votes even if the WAC votes no.

I think that the president's aren't excited about a frameshift change that might leave a lot of school in the dust. Might the 10-team conference era be a path of least resistence?

 

[damnyankeephrog]

QUOTE(KillerFrog InD KitchenSink @ May 19 2010, 10:17 AM) [snapback]561505[/snapback]
4. The BE adds .. Temple from the MAC


More likely the SEC adds Cornell from the Ivy.

 

[KillerFrog InD KitchenSink]

QUOTE(damnyankeephrog @ May 19 2010, 10:10 AM) [snapback]561555[/snapback]
More likely the SEC adds Cornell from the Ivy.

You'd be surprised- seems like a fair amount of support for Temple over there on the BE board should they expand- big market, basketball tradition, football on the mend etc. Still, if the BE took 3 CUSA teams, the CUSA could take La Tech or a Sunbelt team to get to 10.

 

[damnyankeephrog]

"They (Temple) were a member of the Big East Conference until their expulsion after the 2004 season due to a variety of program shortcomings"

My money's still on Cornell.

 

[Cougar/Frog]

The Pac-10/Big 12 joint media venture is really just a pie in the sky idea. Big 12 value is dropping and the last time Texas started looking at a marketing alliance with another conference, it killed its old one. I expect the Pac-10/Big 12 proposal will die as Texas joins the Pac-10....

 

[Delmonico]

QUOTE(damnyankeephrog @ May 19 2010, 10:50 AM) [snapback]561580[/snapback]
"They (Temple) were a member of the Big East Conference until their expulsion after the 2004 season due to a variety of program shortcomings"



There were 3 primary reasons.

1- Their football team sucked canal water. That is less of an issue.
2- They had UConn waiting to take their place. Not an issue at all.
3- Temple didn't want to join in all sports. That still may be the fly in the ointment.

 

[KillerFrog InD KitchenSink]

QUOTE(Cougar/Frog @ May 19 2010, 10:51 AM) [snapback]561582[/snapback]
The Pac-10/Big 12 joint media venture is really just a pie in the sky idea. Big 12 value is dropping and the last time Texas started looking at a marketing alliance with another conference, it killed its old one. I expect the Pac-10/Big 12 proposal will die as Texas joins the Pac-10....

Yeah, you may be right, but it seems to gaining some steam. The Utah to the PAC-10 rumors have died off, and the interview with Dodds in the USAToday yesterday seems like he was positive about the PAC-10/Big 12 TV co-op : http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ca...ghorn-network/1

Reading between the lines, I get the sense that the PAC-10 has done their due diligence and found that adding Utah and CU isn't going to improve their revenue numbers enough, but adding a championship game and a TV co-op with the Big 12 does, which is not too surprising.

 

[halfwaytoheaven]

QUOTE(KillerFrog InD KitchenSink @ May 19 2010, 09:17 AM) [snapback]561505[/snapback]
The question is if there are 6 conferences that would vote for the rule change.


It depends on what form the rule change takes. The Big Ten might be interested in staging a championship game (even if it isn't their top priority), but, in the interest of protecting rivalries, they might not want to split into divisions that have to play round-robin schedules (16 teams with an 8-game conference schedule means you almost never play teams from the other division). They might instead amend the rule so that the top two teams in the conference meet in the title game. I could see that working for the MWC (and the Pac-10). Go to 10, keep the eight-game schedule, then have the top two meet in the title game. That does leave a pretty strong chance that those teams will have already met earlier in the season, but there's nothing wrong with having two good teams face off more than once.

 

[TCUExaminer]

QUOTE(halfwaytoheaven @ May 19 2010, 11:33 AM) [snapback]561607[/snapback]
It depends on what form the rule change takes. The Big Ten might be interested in staging a championship game (even if it isn't their top priority), but, in the interest of protecting rivalries, they might not want to split into divisions that have to play round-robin schedules (16 teams with an 8-game conference schedule means you almost never play teams from the other division). They might instead amend the rule so that the top two teams in the conference meet in the title game. I could see that working for the MWC (and the Pac-10). Go to 10, keep the eight-game schedule, then have the top two meet in the title game. That does leave a pretty strong chance that those teams will have already met earlier in the season, but there's nothing wrong with having two good teams face off more than once.

 

[Cougar/Frog]

Given the ACC's new deal (most of which relates to basketball, but is being used to leverage football), the Pac-10 is now looking to radically increase its revenue --- if, and it is a big if, it can strengthen its brand. Fox is looking to invest in college football (bidding up the ACC) since it lost the BCS to ESPN. It has money available to bid. And the Big 12 is not really up for a new TV deal, but the Pac-10 is.

A joint venture with the Big 12 does not improve the Pac-10 brand. Conference expansion is a whole lot to do with branding. The ACC expansion was all about improving the conference brand. The Big Ten expansion is all about leveraging the brand to increase revenue.

As to the Pac-10 looking to increase revenue without expansion, the Pac-10 leaders are some of the most reactionary folks in college sports. They have their heads so far up the Rose Bowl's backside that they still think the Rose Bowl is the end all and be all of college football. They are the most change resistant people in college sports and have not expanded since 1978 (and did so then only because USC threatened to go independent). While the Pac-10's official history only goes back 50 year or so, the previous incarnation of the conference goes back to the early days of college football.

Plus, I think the marketing folks have told the Pac-10 leaders that adding Utah is silly, especially when BYU has 100x times the national following, 10x the marketing power, and has a stronger position not only in Utah, but in the entire Western states. They do not want BYU and are finding it really hard to get anything to work without them.

Ultimately, they really want Texas and Texas is playing hard to get in order to extract the best deal possible.

 

[oldscribe]

QUOTE(damnyankeephrog @ May 19 2010, 09:10 AM) [snapback]561555[/snapback]
More likely the SEC adds Cornell from the Ivy.

What? And bring down the SEC anacem....acamed.....classroom standards?

 

[halfwaytoheaven]

QUOTE(Cougar/Frog @ May 19 2010, 01:55 PM) [snapback]561656[/snapback]
Given the ACC's new deal (most of which relates to basketball, but is being used to leverage football), the Pac-10 is now looking to radically increase its revenue --- if, and it is a big if, it can strengthen its brand. Fox is looking to invest in college football (bidding up the ACC) since it lost the BCS to ESPN. It has money available to bid. And the Big 12 is not really up for a new TV deal, but the Pac-10 is.

A joint venture with the Big 12 does not improve the Pac-10 brand. Conference expansion is a whole lot to do with branding. The ACC expansion was all about improving the conference brand. The Big Ten expansion is all about leveraging the brand to increase revenue.

As to the Pac-10 looking to increase revenue without expansion, the Pac-10 leaders are some of the most reactionary folks in college sports. They have their heads so far up the Rose Bowl's backside that they still think the Rose Bowl is the end all and be all of college football. They are the most change resistant people in college sports and have not expanded since 1978 (and did so then only because USC threatened to go independent). While the Pac-10's official history only goes back 50 year or so, the previous incarnation of the conference goes back to the early days of college football.

Plus, I think the marketing folks have told the Pac-10 leaders that adding Utah is silly, especially when BYU has 100x times the national following, 10x the marketing power, and has a stronger position not only in Utah, but in the entire Western states. They do not want BYU and are finding it really hard to get anything to work without them.

Ultimately, they really want Texas and Texas is playing hard to get in order to extract the best deal possible.


I think the Pac-10 is starting to change its ways; they certainly didn't hire their current commish to keep things the way they are. They probably wish they could have a do-over on inviting Texas back in the early 90's - they might not have a shot at them this time around. No matter what kind of paradigm shift might have occurred out West, getting BYU into the Pac-10 is still going to be a mighty tough sell.

And the Rose Bowl is still kind of a big deal. I wouldn't want to mess with that either if I was the the Pac-10 or Big Ten.

 

[Delmonico]

QUOTE(Cougar/Frog @ May 19 2010, 01:55 PM) [snapback]561656[/snapback]
They have their heads so far up the Rose Bowl's backside that they still think the Rose Bowl is the end all and be all of college football.



Check the TV ratings. It still is.

 

[TennisFrog]

Any conference consisting of 11 members that continually refers to itself as the Big 10 has lost its mind.

 

[froginaustin]

Watch what happens, naming-wise, when the Big Twelve drops to 10 members. :dry:

 

[Cougar/Frog]

The Rose Bowl is nice. It draws a lot of casual fans. But most of its strength lies in the fact that is matches up Big Ten and Pac-10 teams. And, in case you are not paying attention, the Big Ten is a ratings machine even with bad teams, which is why the Big Ten gets its teams into really good bowl games and why the BTN is a money machine.

And given that USC is usually Pac-10 representative, it does not hurt the Rose Bowl that one of the nation's premier programs is in the house.

Sorry, even as someone who grew up in SoCal, I think winning a national title is much better than winning an exhibition game. And the Rose Bowl is the major force in college football against a playoff.

 

[Delmonico]

QUOTE(Cougar/Frog @ May 19 2010, 03:53 PM) [snapback]561703[/snapback]
The Rose Bowl is nice. It draws a lot of casual fans. But most of its strength lies in the fact that is matches up Big Ten and Pac-10 teams. And, in case you are not paying attention, the Big Ten is a ratings machine even with bad teams, which is why the Big Ten gets its teams into really good bowl games and why the BTN is a money machine.

And given that USC is usually Pac-10 representative, it does not hurt the Rose Bowl that one of the nation's premier programs is in the house.


It gets good ratings even when the Big 10 doesn't send a rep. 2003 saw an OU-Washington State Rose Bowl out draw a USC-Iowa Orange Bowl. People watch because its the Rose Bowl.

 

[2314@work]

QUOTE(RSF @ May 19 2010, 04:05 PM) [snapback]561705[/snapback]
It gets good ratings even when the Big 10 doesn't send a rep. 2003 saw an OU-Washington State Rose Bowl out draw a USC-Iowa Orange Bowl. People watch because its the Rose Bowl.

Uh, Shack, you forgot to mention the REAL reason - it is the ONLY bowl game on in that time slot.

 

[Delmonico]

QUOTE(2314 @ May 19 2010, 04:07 PM) [snapback]561707[/snapback]
Uh, Shack, you forgot to mention the REAL reason - it is the ONLY bowl game on in that time slot.



All the BCS bowls have exclusive time slots. And the other BCS games are in prime time. The Rose always outdraws the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange regardless the matchups.

 

[2314@work]

QUOTE(RSF @ May 19 2010, 04:08 PM) [snapback]561708[/snapback]
All the BCS bowls have exclusive time slots. And the other BCS games are in prime time. The Rose always outdraws the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange regardless the matchups.

Not diminishing your point that everyone watches because it is the Rose Bowl. I agree with that. But, on New Year's Day, with everyone already tuned into bowl games, it is the ONLY game on in its time slot. The other's you mentioned are prime time and NOT on NYD, with the exception of the Orange, which kicks off after Rose, on New Year's Day EVENING.