Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)

[CascadeClone]

Eventually the B1G and SEC will expand again and grab UO/UW, Clemson, FSU, a few other ACC teams. Then its gonna go one of 2 ways:
1. The B12 grabs the best of the leftovers from PAC and ACC, goes to 20ish teams and becomes a nationwide conference which is essentially everyone not in the P2.
2. ACC and PAC grab teams from the east and west parts of the B12 and you get 2 conferences, one east and one west, of the non P2.

Yormark is clearly pushing for #1. And its hard to imagine the leftovers in either PAC or ACC having the critical mass and chutzpah to make it happen. Would 4 B12 teams leave the other 8 for a smaller group of equal to lesser schools? Makes no sense, unless the TV people just absolutely want 2 conferences. And even if they did, they could reformat the B12 to get the same thing. I think odds of #2 are slim and none.

 

[Gonzo]

For one thing we know Iowa vetoed that possibility.

Secondly, UCLA is a bigger brand in school and competitive success. Adding that a visiting B10 school to LA can do a two game stint with one flight, seems like an easy add. BB, swimming, volleyball, and many more can play Thursday and Saturday once at UCLA and once at USC and then head back. That would be a great trip.

I actually didn't know that.

 

[BCClone]

NIL matters if their NIL money can elevate their football program. They already have things that would make them attractive to the Big10. Kansas City market, elite basketball, and member of AAU. Probably a long shot but if the Big10 needs a fourth school the next time they expand they could do worse.

Are you suggesting that all those Kansas people who are Nebraska football fans will suddenly become KU football fans? That's a large percentage of that state. The Orange bowl run couldn't even do it. You must be thinking they can win a Natty to get them to convert.

 

[cytor]

The B10 is reaching the point where outside of ND or FSU, no school will be able to bring in enough money to continue to increase the pie for everyone. The numbers are just getting too large to expect any school to bring in $60 to 70 million into the league.

The payouts will have to level off or schools will have to be kicked out, which will not happen, for it to keep rising.
The question is just how much money is each school going to be bring in, schools like EIU, Purdue and a couple of others are getting far more than what they are bringing into BTN.

Honestly, outside of Mich, Ohio State, Ped State and a couple others.... there are no schools IN the conference that are adding any value. The B1G West is definitely not helping.

 

[cytor]

For one thing we know Iowa vetoed that possibility.

Secondly, UCLA is a bigger brand in school and competitive success. Adding that a visiting B10 school to LA can do a two game stint with one flight, seems like an easy add. BB, swimming, volleyball, and many more can play Thursday and Saturday once at UCLA and once at USC and then head back. That would be a great trip.

Cant say I blame them. Oregon opened up a huge can of Whoop A$$ on them recently.

 

[Al_4_State]

Eventually the B1G and SEC will expand again and grab UO/UW, Clemson, FSU, a few other ACC teams. Then its gonna go one of 2 ways:
1. The B12 grabs the best of the leftovers from PAC and ACC, goes to 20ish teams and becomes a nationwide conference which is essentially everyone not in the P2.
2. ACC and PAC grab teams from the east and west parts of the B12 and you get 2 conferences, one east and one west, of the non P2.

Yormark is clearly pushing for #1. And its hard to imagine the leftovers in either PAC or ACC having the critical mass and chutzpah to make it happen. Would 4 B12 teams leave the other 8 for a smaller group of equal to lesser schools? Makes no sense, unless the TV people just absolutely want 2 conferences. And even if they did, they could reformat the B12 to get the same thing. I think odds of #2 are slim and none.

I'm not convinced the Big 10 and SEC expand again.

1) Oregon and Washington are not obvious financial gains. If they were, they'd be in. Same goes for FSU and Clemson in the SEC. Clemson doesn't have a massive fanbase and hasn't shown it can be successful w/out Dabo.

2) Adding more quality programs that aren't adding big dollars creates a lot of unwanted competition for the majority of the schools in these leagues. You think Iowa, Purdue, Minnesota, etc want to make it any harder than it's already going to be to reach the conference title game?

Notre Dame is the only school left that will be guaranteed to increase revenue for the Big 10 or SEC.

 

[Cloneon]

One thing ignored is that adding Oregon and Washington increases the travel costs for athletic teams. Lower tiered teams in the B1G aren’t necessarily in favor of adding teams that won’t increase their take while increasing their travel costs. And those new teams are likely to keep them from even sniffing at the playoffs.

No offense, but as demonstrated earlier, the net travel cost increases are insignificant when compared to the 'potential' (subject exclusively to the media partners) income. What does come into play is that extra hour or 2 of travel time for the student athletes. Bottom line: there are much larger issues at play here than travel expenses (eg scheduling, economy, viewership, advertising, educational reputation, etc)

 

[Cloneon]

I'm not convinced the Big 10 and SEC expand again.

1) Oregon and Washington are not obvious financial gains. If they were, they'd be in. Same goes for FSU and Clemson in the SEC. Clemson doesn't have a massive fanbase and hasn't shown it can be successful w/out Dabo.

2) Adding more quality programs that aren't adding big dollars creates a lot of unwanted competition for the majority of the schools in these leagues. You think Iowa, Purdue, Minnesota, etc want to make it any harder than it's already going to be to reach the conference title game?

Notre Dame is the only school left that will be guaranteed to increase revenue for the Big 10 or SEC.

The one argument which doesn't seem to have been made is the increase of revenue from the basement dwellers in a larger market. For example USC vs Purdue will, likely, be a substantial increase in viewership over say Iowa vs Purdue. Therefore, by increasing the quality and market size of teams to compete against these smaller market teams is an increase in net revenue. It's a win for the smaller market team, the league, and the media partner, but not so much for the larger market team (eg USC in this example).

 

[SEIOWA CLONE]

I’d love to see this magic “value add” formula everyone is using because I must have missed the memo.

The B10 is different from the rest of the conferences with a network. All the other conferences the ACC, SEC and P12, get their money from the network that is broadcasting their games. The genius of BTN is that is only half of the money comes in that way, the other half comes in by the rate at which they charge the households. If you do not have a B10 team in your state, the price of the service is around .10 cents per month, but if you do that price then jumps to $1.10 or so per month. So, states like Florida with a lot of people are going to bring in a ton of money to the conference, just like Rutgers and Maryland did bringing in NY city and Washington/Baltimore.

If the B12 adds Colorado, the league has to hope that its TV partners will pay more, the B10 is going to be able to make money charging more to the people of Colorado, thereby increasing the amount brought in.

The problem that the B10 has is that right now the payouts are reaching such high levels that new schools would have to bring in 60 tp 70 million or more per year to not cut into the pie of the other schools. California does this, and so would Florida or Texas, but most states just do not have the population to bring in the added money.

With ND you get them, they will add nothing to the league from their subscription BTN because those people are already paying the higher price, but FOX will pay a ton of money to be able to broadcast ND games on their network.

 

[KnappShack]

The B10 is different from the rest of the conferences with a network. All the other conferences the ACC, SEC and P12, get their money from the network that is broadcasting their games. The genius of BTN is that is only half of the money comes in that way, the other half comes in by the rate at which they charge the households. If you do not have a B10 team in your state, the price of the service is around .10 cents per month, but if you do that price then jumps to $1.10 or so per month. So, states like Florida with a lot of people are going to bring in a ton of money to the conference, just like Rutgers and Maryland did bringing in NY city and Washington/Baltimore.

If the B12 adds Colorado, the league has to hope that its TV partners will pay more, the B10 is going to be able to make money charging more to the people of Colorado, thereby increasing the amount brought in.

The problem that the B10 has is that right now the payouts are reaching such high levels that new schools would have to bring in 60 tp 70 million or more per year to not cut into the pie of the other schools. California does this, and so would Florida or Texas, but most states just do not have the population to bring in the added money.

With ND you get them, they will add nothing to the league from their subscription BTN because those people are already paying the higher price, but FOX will pay a ton of money to be able to broadcast ND games on their network.

Cable cutting also sounds like a challenge in this structure.

Also maybe an opportunity if the numbers change a lot. The streamers are struggling. Cable is shrinking. The worldwide leader is making deep cuts. The regional sports networks are bailing out of MLB, NBA, and NHL deals.

It's a wild world. Good luck to the PAC

 

[Acylum]

This would make things interesting. Not sure I believe the financials though.

 

[AuH2O]

Honestly, outside of Mich, Ohio State, Ped State and a couple others.... there are no schools IN the conference that are adding any value. The B1G West is definitely not helping.

This is correct, and people need to understand this. It isn't that there is the per team average and everybody is a little above/below. Ohio State is Way the F above the team average. Then there's a gap and Michigan is way the F above the per team average. Ped State and Wisconsin are probably close to or a little above. Same with USC. Michigan State is a wild card, mainly because their on field success has been pretty erratic, but overall they are probably above. Nebraska is a respectable season away from being up there as well. But the rest of these teams don't matter at all. Of course Iowa is worth more than most of the rest, but over that massive of a deal, with the immense value of the top dogs any difference that someone outside of say the top 4-5 deliver on a per team basis is probably immaterial. I would put Iowa along with UCLA as the best of the rest, but none of the schools outside of OSU, Michigan, Wisconsin, and sometimes USC, PSU and MSU carry a ratings as the primary draw any better than the top few of the new Big 12, and that includes ISU when the latter is having decent years like 2019-2021. In the last couple years ISU-Okie State outdrew Notre Dame-Pitt head to head by almost 0.5m, ISU-KSU drew 2M. If Okie St., ISU, TCU, KSU, Bay are having good years they will draw just fine on network/ESPN.

Iowa is a good media brand, but the only game that didn't include Ohio St. and Michigan that outdrew CyHawk on BTN was vs. Minn, which was a 3pm Fox game, and Nebraska on Black Friday, which barely outdrew CyHawk. In fact, it looks like CyHawk was one of the top 4, possibly 3 BTN games of the year, outdrawing conference games with Wisconsin, Michigan and Michigan State. CyHawk is hard to get the exact viewership because they showed regional coverage for a couple Big 10 vs. G5/FCS games.

Ohio State and Michigan are on a completely different stratosphere than the rest of the Big 10. Ped State, USC and Wisconsin are valuable brands. After that you could swap in/out any other P5 brands with the rest and it isn't going to make much of a difference, if any at all. Some of those good but not great Big Ten media brands like Iowa are nice to have in the league, but for an $80 plus M per team, 14 team league, the difference in value they deliver on a per team basis vs. the top half of the Big 12 is probably in the noise of such a massive deal.

The same is going to go for any Big 10 adds. I don't think there's anybody left that drives up the per team value of the league. I'm not even convinced Notre Dame does. Notre Dame is not the ratings driver that is even close to Ohio State and Michigan. I'd put them more in the Wisconsin and USC range. As for Oregon and Washington, they aren't above the per team average either, but the long game might still make sense to grab them, as they have the potential to be big names as part of a west coast group in the Big 10.

 

[SEIOWA CLONE]

Cable cutting also sounds like a challenge in this structure.

Also maybe an opportunity if the numbers change a lot. The streamers are struggling. Cable is shrinking. The worldwide leader is making deep cuts. The regional sports networks are bailing out of MLB, NBA, and NHL deals.

It's a wild world. Good luck to the PAC

True cable cutting could destroy their model, but so far, it's worked very well for the league. Even with streaming, those companies will have to pay the B10 to broadcast their games, or not be able to show them. ESPN making cuts does not affect BTN, because after this year, they are no longer on ESPN, nor do the regional sports networks matter either, they are Baily's problem.

When you look at what the B10 did in setting up their network it was pure genius, the schools they added have all increased the value of the network except for one. The B10 should have grabbed Missouri instead of Nebraska, when they expanded to 14 teams. Mizzu brings in twice the population of Nebraska, they would have natural rivalry games with Illinois and EIU and pushed the border between the B10 and SEC further south, while bringing in the recruiting areas of St. Louis and KC into the conference.
They also could have tried to shoot the moon, and gone after Texas, which would have skyrocketed their shares to well over hundred million per school.

 

[werdnamanhill]

 

[werdnamanhill]

View attachment 114116

This makes some sense. ESPN/fox/apple/whoever wouldn't have to handle the cameras, talent, etc. They just broadcast it. It will make the deal look better on paper, but interesting to see what the price the PAC would have to put up to produce all their content themselves. Interesting idea.

 

[1UNI2ISU]

This would make things interesting. Not sure I believe the financials though.

That may be what Apple is paying but the league/network is going to have to pay all production costs with that deal. The actual dollars to schools will be far fewer.

 

[CascadeClone]

I'm not convinced the Big 10 and SEC expand again.

1) Oregon and Washington are not obvious financial gains. If they were, they'd be in. Same goes for FSU and Clemson in the SEC. Clemson doesn't have a massive fanbase and hasn't shown it can be successful w/out Dabo.

2) Adding more quality programs that aren't adding big dollars creates a lot of unwanted competition for the majority of the schools in these leagues. You think Iowa, Purdue, Minnesota, etc want to make it any harder than it's already going to be to reach the conference title game?

Notre Dame is the only school left that will be guaranteed to increase revenue for the Big 10 or SEC.

It's not solely about if a team has higher than average value. That is a factor, but just one of several, and not the most important. Consolidating the biggest brands under 2 tents, having content in 4 time zones to increase value of otherwise lesser timeslots, being able to have 6 GREAT matchups every week to fill your BEST timeslots, and of course, keeping the SEC walled off in the southeast are all factors too.

Also, realize that Iowa, Purdue, Minny etc are not in charge of this. And neither is the B1G really. They have a seat at the table, but ESPN, Fox, NBC, CBS are the ones signing the checks.

I'd put the odds that the B1G and/or SEC add more teams over a ~5 year timeframe at 90%.

 

[KnappShack]

This makes some sense. ESPN/fox/apple/whoever wouldn't have to handle the cameras, talent, etc. They just broadcast it. It will make the deal look better on paper, but interesting to see what the price the PAC would have to put up to produce all their content themselves. Interesting idea.

The PAC 12 Network strikes back!

 

[SCNCY]

I guess if rumors that Apple is going to be the primary driver, utilizing PAC12 network infrastructure, it gives more weight to what we heard from one of the PAC presidents last week about needing more linear programming.

 

[SolterraCyclone]

That may be what Apple is paying but the league/network is going to have to pay all production costs with that deal. The actual dollars to schools will be far fewer.

Honest question, how would those production costs compare to Big 12 schools and ESPN+? Don’t the Big 12 schools produce their own events broadcasted through ESPN+?