Merged - Big 12 Aftermath Thread

[Northside Hawk]

I don't disagree that money and the business models of boxing and ASSCAR led to their downfall, but it can't be argued that the product they put out nowadays is complete shit compared to what it used to be.

I grew up in the 80s and I can remember there was always some sort of awesome PPV fight on Showtime, my old man and his buddies would get together and watch most of em. And they were still like $40-50 bucks a piece 35 years ago which wasn't no chump change.

You had Holmes, Holyfield, Camacho, Tyson, Foreman, Hagler, Spinks, Cesar-Chavez, Hearns...and big personalities outside the ring like Cus D'Amato and Don King; Teddy Atlas putting a gun to Mike Tyson's head...It was a beautiful fucking era. In 2021 I couldn't tell you a single person who fights at any weight.

Same thing with ASSCAR. You used to have guys with personalities that you could pull for because they were normal looking and talking dudes who got out of their cars and lit up a lung dart, and the shit was dangerous because there were no HANS devices or full-face helmets. ASSCAR drivers had some skin in the game when they strapped in because there was a non-zero chance they were gonna die or lose an eye/leg/(insert injury here).

Now you have 19 year old guys with names like Brechen Woodstrom or some shit who post on their Instagram feed about their CrossFart workout and what moisturizer works best after eating their kale and arugula salad. They come from Portland, OR instead of South Carolina and learn to drive on a computer sim, not flying down dirt roads with dad in an Olds Super 88 with no seatbelts. There's 37 car pileups at 195 mph now where everyone just hops out and walks to the infield Starbucks kiosk and poses for Insta photos like nothing ever happened. There's literally no danger or risk. It used to be they had a medevac chopper at those races for a reason, and goddammit they used it a few times a year.

Who wants to watch any of this new shit?

When Tyson and /or Holyfield contemplate a comeback in their mid fifties and it's perks eardrums, it tells you all you need to know about boxing.

The classic era fighters you mention were all baby boomers, and the end of the baby boomers meant the beginning of the end of the endless boxer pool.

As for NASCAR some drivers didn't even wait for the end of the race to fire up their heaters. Dick Trickle and David Pearson smoked in the car during the race. The decline of NASCAR was the perfect storm of rapid expansion, abandoning the roots, too many boring superspeedways, and Jeff Gordon dominating the second half of the nineties.

You know what sport is next? Professional golf. You just watch. Although Collin Morikowa looks like the goods at the early stage of his career.

 

[kicker22]

lol...is that all you got? An event that happens once every 4 years??? Yes, the Olympics is still popular but I just read a report where prime time viewership was down 42% from 2016.

But I was talking about the major sports like the MLB, NBA, and the NHL. Those are all down, it's not just football.

To be fair to the Olympic interest I think one of the contributing factors to the decline in viewership was the time difference. Let's be honest, with social media being what it is, no one wanted to essentially watch an entire Olympics that was tape delayed. The majority of casual fans/viewers had no interest in prime time viewing because there was no wow/shock factor as anyone that didn't live under a rock, already new the outcome from earlier in the day. Even the diehard fans or those invested would struggle sitting through prime time coverage and sacrificing their time when they already know what's going to happen.

 

[Fryowa]

F.

If he lived in Des Moines instead of a state corner he may not have ever left Iowa.

Yeah. I’m not a world traveler by any stretch of the imagination and the only time I've been out of the country was a trip to China to walk around shit hole factories, but I've seen a fair bit of the US. To think of never leaving sight of a corn field in over 50 years makes me wanna puke.

 

[HawkGold]

How about up Vail Pass? Like to the summit?

Or Wolf Creek Pass? I learned a lesson last summer about driving over Wolf Creek Pass. Never do it with an unopened bag of Funyuns. The Funyuns will open themselves for you with a 3500 foot altitude change. And be all over your vehicle.

We've gone toward Vail, which is up. My wife and I ride together, so I have to limit things. We did do from Keystone to Dillion/beyond and back about 30 miles up and down. We're enjoying not having kids with us due to no car sickness. We are heading to Montana shortly with our bikes. Not sure where we will ride though.

 

[ssckelley]

To be fair to the Olympic interest I think one of the contributing factors to the decline in viewership was the time difference. Let's be honest, with social media being what it is, no one wanted to essentially watch an entire Olympics that was tape delayed. The majority of casual fans/viewers had no interest in prime time viewing because there was no wow/shock factor as anyone that didn't live under a rock, already new the outcome from earlier in the day. Even the diehard fans or those invested would struggle sitting through prime time coverage and sacrificing their time when they already know what's going to happen.

I agree that time difference is part of the issue but not all, at least not to make up 42% drop. The closing ceremonies had an all time low for viewership. This isn't the first time the Olympics have been played with that big of a time difference China was 2008, Australia was 2000, Korea in 1988.

 

[okeefe4prez]

I don't disagree that money and the business models of boxing and ASSCAR led to their downfall, but it can't be argued that the product they put out nowadays is complete shit compared to what it used to be.

I grew up in the 80s and I can remember there was always some sort of awesome PPV fight on Showtime, my old man and his buddies would get together and watch most of em. And they were still like $40-50 bucks a piece 35 years ago which wasn't no chump change.

You had Holmes, Holyfield, Camacho, Tyson, Foreman, Hagler, Spinks, Cesar-Chavez, Hearns...and big personalities outside the ring like Cus D'Amato and Don King; Teddy Atlas putting a gun to Mike Tyson's head...It was a beautiful fucking era. In 2021 I couldn't tell you a single person who fights at any weight.

Same thing with ASSCAR. You used to have guys with personalities that you could pull for because they were normal looking and talking dudes who got out of their cars and lit up a lung dart, and the shit was dangerous because there were no HANS devices or full-face helmets. ASSCAR drivers had some skin in the game when they strapped in because there was a non-zero chance they were gonna die or lose an eye/leg/(insert injury here).

Now you have 19 year old guys with names like Brechen Woodstrom or some shit who post on their Instagram feed about their CrossFart workout and what moisturizer works best after eating their kale and arugula salad. They come from Portland, OR instead of South Carolina and learn to drive on a computer sim, not flying down dirt roads with dad in an Olds Super 88 with no seatbelts. There's 37 car pileups at 195 mph now where everyone just hops out and walks to the infield Starbucks kiosk and poses for Insta photos like nothing ever happened. There's literally no danger or risk. It used to be they had a medevac chopper at those races for a reason, and goddammit they used it a few times a year.

Who wants to watch any of this new shit?

Same arguments apply to football and basketball. If your pinky strafes Tom Brady's head for two tenths of a second, it is a 15 yard penalty. Hoops is now mostly about jacking up the three ball. No Shaq versus Chris Dudley turf wars under the hoop. You would know that if you weren't some jackass who doesn't know anything about pro basketball.

Part of it is just that we are old and the dudes don't seem larger than life anymore, but part of it is the product just sucks ass now. But about the dudes, these camps and shit are making a disproportionately large number of kids with names like Baker or Trevor rise to stardom. And then the attempt to spin a human interest story about their hardships growing up in suburbia make me dislike the sport even more. "My great grandfather died when I was 9. It was rough..."

 

[trj]

I'm not rooting for the demise of sports, but I am rooting for the demise of "sports business." Not to sound like Karl Marx here, but the money flowing into sports has somewhat diminished them. NASCAR committed seppuku for money, abandoned their roots, moved the start times to appease hypothetical "West Coast fans" and tried to create "game 7 moments" consisting of entirely manufactured drama only to watch their fanbase get halved in a decade. College sports have done the same, as we now have Iowa playing on freaking Friday nights like some kind of MAC turd. The good thing is we got national broadcasts for college sports, the bad thing is TV dictates freaking everything. And then you look at what they've done with tickets. Ugh.

We saw it with boxing as well. Boxing puts everything behind a pay wall. This maximizes revenue in the short term, but in the long haul, you attract way fewer fans. The model works for 5 dudes and has made them insanely wealthy, but slams the door on a bunch of dudes coming up the ranks. Everything is on that track and with more content competing for eyeballs, sports will continue to diminish in popularity.

Many people think that the Super Bowl will eventually go to a PPV model. Short term the NFL would make a shitload of money with the PPV model....long term the Super Bowl moves to a Saturday night and they are getting buys slightly better than the UFC when they have a rock star fighting on the main card.

 

[trj]

Same arguments apply to football and basketball. If your pinky strafes Tom Brady's head for two tenths of a second, it is a 15 yard penalty. Hoops is now mostly about jacking up the three ball. No Shaq versus Chris Dudley turf wars under the hoop. You would know that if you weren't some jackass who doesn't know anything about pro basketball.

Part of it is just that we are old and the dudes don't seem larger than life anymore, but part of it is the product just sucks ass now. But about the dudes, these camps and shit are making a disproportionately large number of kids with names like Baker or Trevor rise to stardom. And then the attempt to spin a human interest story about their hardships growing up in suburbia make me dislike the sport even more. "My great grandfather died when I was 9. It was rough..."

Haha, well played, son. well played.

 

[HuckFinn]

Many people think that the Super Bowl will eventually go to a PPV model. Short term the NFL would make a shitload of money with the PPV model....long term the Super Bowl moves to a Saturday night and they are getting buys slightly better than the UFC when they have a rock star fighting on the main card.

Many people think. Like who? That comment sounds like fake news

 

[trj]

Many people think. Like who? That comment sounds like fake news

John Skipper the former head of ESPN. He leans pretty far left so maybe some would label it fake news.

 

[Seth53]

F.

If he lived in Des Moines instead of a state corner he may not have ever left Iowa.

I lived in Muncie IN 85-87.
(Was sorta cool, walking up to Cardinal stadium 10 minutes before game time and getting a 10th row, 50 yard-line ticket...but I digress).

I had a stock boy at the drug store I worked in (Danny Ray) that had never been out of the county (age 18). Delaware County. And this is northern Indiana, not some hick town south of Indy.

 

[Motigerhawk]

I am so glad I had parents willing to travel and family spread out over the country. We have told our daughters from day 1 they need to leave where we live now. And they left town for college with no issues (not out of state, but a couple hours away), and they have no problem leaving the state for work when they graduate.

It is a sad statement in this time and age to have never left where you live. The world is so much smaller than it used to be.

 

[Northside Hawk]

Same arguments apply to football and basketball. If your pinky strafes Tom Brady's head for two tenths of a second, it is a 15 yard penalty. Hoops is now mostly about jacking up the three ball. No Shaq versus Chris Dudley turf wars under the hoop. You would know that if you weren't some jackass who doesn't know anything about pro basketball.

Part of it is just that we are old and the dudes don't seem larger than life anymore, but part of it is the product just sucks ass now. But about the dudes, these camps and shit are making a disproportionately large number of kids with names like Baker or Trevor rise to stardom. And then the attempt to spin a human interest story about their hardships growing up in suburbia make me dislike the sport even more. "My great grandfather died when I was 9. It was rough..."

The real battle between Shaq and Chris Dudley was over who could hire the best mason to take care of all of their bricked free throw attempts.

 

[BryceC]

Hoops is now mostly about jacking up the three ball. No Shaq versus Chris Dudley turf wars under the hoop. You would know that if you weren't some jackass who doesn't know anything about pro basketball.

I'm not exactly young but I prefer basketball now. I love the skill instead of the ramming into each other.

 

[kicker22]

I agree that time difference is part of the issue but not all, at least not to make up 42% drop. The closing ceremonies had an all time low for viewership. This isn't the first time the Olympics have been played with that big of a time difference China was 2008, Australia was 2000, Korea in 1988.

You're absolutely right, but it'd be interesting to see what percentage of the decline is attributed to it. Honestly that was key factor in why I didn't watch the closing ceremonies. I use to love opening and closing in the past, but when I watched so little of the actual games this year (due to it being pre-recorded) I simply found myself unable to get into it and skipped the closing games completely.

 

[HawkGold]

There will be many more changes. Was the car for the OSU player real? This will be the end of college football.... gradually as we recognize it. The Big is going to have to do some scrambling to remain viable. Sooner or later M and OSU and maybe PSU will walk. Then the Big is sort of in the same position as the 12. I imagine games outside super conferences will be not as many as today.

 

[okeefe4prez]

Bumping this old thread. PAC 12 just announced they are content to stay at 12. I really can't see the B1G making a move unless somehow Notre Dame or UNC/UVA were in play, which they simply are not given the ACC Grant of Rights Agreement.

This is the death knell of Iowa State. There was a miniscule chance of the PAC 12 giving it a go, but now that hope is gone.

https://twitter.com/chrisvannini/status/1430967372458905604?s=21

I guess at this point, the leftovers have to pray they can poach UCF, Cincinnati and maybe two other schools and pray that it looks good enough to stay as a P5.

 

[haydensly]

Bumping this old thread. PAC 12 just announced they are content to stay at 12. I really can't see the B1G making a move unless somehow Notre Dame or UNC/UVA were in play, which they simply are not given the ACC Grant of Rights Agreement.

This is the death knell of Iowa State. There was a miniscule chance of the PAC 12 giving it a go, but now that hope is gone.

https://twitter.com/chrisvannini/status/1430967372458905604?s=21

I guess at this point, the leftovers have to pray they can poach UCF, Cincinnati and maybe two other schools and pray that it looks good enough to stay as a P5.

I think that is exactly what they will try to do. But it would probably be a good idea to wait it out a bit and make Texas and Oklahoma fulfill their obligations through 2025. If not, they will lose TV money, which they desperately need.

 

[ohhawk]

Long ways to go with all this but I believe it's going to be very difficult to develop a consensus of opinion to stay put among all the remaining Big 12 teams as some are better candidates for attracting attention than others for possibly being invited to a more stable conference in the future.

As a potential invitee to the Big 12 (if that's the direction they chose) I'd be wondering about the above. Is the core of this conference going to be there 5 years from now? If not, where does that leave me if I accept an invitation?

...............and as far as ISU is concerned I would not count them out as landing on their feet even in the BIG 10. A long shot maybe but I'm not ruling it out. With some of the statements from the Alliance about the college model I'm believing it may not always have to be about pure financial gain.

 

[Fryowa]

I guess at this point, the leftovers have to pray they can poach UCF, Cincinnati and maybe two other schools and pray that it looks good enough to stay as a P5.

I think the bigger concern for ISU is what they can’t control…

They really need to worry about the shit teams bailing to go be bigger fish in a smaller conference. The B12 is dead no matter what without Texas and Oklahoma, so there’s really no money to stick around for anyway. If your program is trash already, why not try to go AAC or MW and get some wins?