USC/UCLA to the Big Ten?

If true as reported, that puts the B1G at 16 teams:

Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
UCLA
USC
Wisconsin


If you wanted to bring it to an even 20, who would you add? Assuming ACC schools are off-limits due to the Grant of Rights deal that extends through 2036, you are really looking at other Pac-12 (Grant of Rights expires in 2023) or Big 12 schools (Grant of rights expires in 2024).

Who you got?

Arizona
Oregon
Stanford
Washington
Cal
Colorado
Kansas
Oklahoma State (not an AAU member)
Iowa State


Personally, I would expand up the West Coast with Stanford, Oregon, and Washington, and then add Kansas. If they wanted 2 more, I would pick Colorado and Cal.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
From what I just read, a lot of folks are thinking that this shakes up with both the Big10 and the SEC adding more teams to get to 20 or 24 teams each. Essentially, college football would be just these two conferences and the NCAA would have little role in the process. Big10 would move into Texas and Florida to gather those markets, but essentially both conferences would pick the best bones from ACC, Pac 12 and Big 12. Those not selected basically start playing MAC schools.

If 24 each, there would probably be four divisions of six teams in each conference. So, it would functionally be a 8 team playoff. Win division, then semi, then conference champ and then conference champs play each other. Getting closer to the NFL model. This would be bad ass.
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I don't see it unless the ACC implodes. The nerds have nerded the numbers and the Pac 10 teams other than USC and UCLA and possibly Wershington are probably not accretive to a super conference. IMHO, the only accretive schools left out there are probably UNC and Florida State (and of course Notre Dame). Not even recent football power Clemson makes the cut. You don't bring in a team just because they're good at football now, you bring them in because they have a massive fanbase that is gonna fork over $200 a year to watch football when the cable model finally shatters. We just have to pray to God that there isn't some reorg that jettisons Iowa and that the Big Ten can hold it together.
 
CP87 said:
If true as reported, that puts the B1G at 16 teams:

Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Rutgers
UCLA
USC
Wisconsin


If you wanted to bring it to an even 20, who would you add? Assuming ACC schools are off-limits due to the Grant of Rights deal that extends through 2036, you are really looking at other Pac-12 (Grant of Rights expires in 2023) or Big 12 schools (Grant of rights expires in 2024).

Who you got?

Arizona
Oregon
Stanford
Washington
Cal
Colorado
Kansas
Oklahoma State (not an AAU member)
Iowa State


Personally, I would expand up the West Coast with Stanford, Oregon, and Washington, and then add Kansas. If they wanted 2 more, I would pick Colorado and Cal.
Click to expand...

I believe from that list Washington is the only potential credible team. Look at Disney's stock price. It is down like 50%, way more than the market. ESPN is dragging it down. They are going to swing for the fences on a direct to consumer play because they have to. When that happens you don't want some turd like Cal or Standford or Iowa State in your proverbial punch bowl.
 
Largest Metro markets (those within the B1G footprint bolded):

1. NYC/NJ
2. LA/Anaheim
3. Chicago
4. Dallas/FW
5. Houston
6. Washington DC
7. Philadelphia
8. Atlanta
9. Miami/Fort Lauderdale
10. Phoenix (one of the fastest growing metros in US)
11. Boston
12. Riverside/San Bernardino
13. SF/Oakland/Berkeley
14. Detroit
15. Seattle
16. Minneapolis/St. Paul
17. San Diego
18. Tampa/St. Pete
19. Denver
20. Baltimore
21. St. Louis


They could reasonably add #10, 13, 15, and 19.
 
If this goes where it may go, academic standards might have to be loosened a smidge. :)

Baylor is a great school and brings in the Texas market.

ASU has a smidge of academic swag and brings in one of the fastest growing markets in the country.

Stanford and Cal are no brainers academically. They bring NOCAL tv markets.

Notre Dame's hand might finally be forced and they would want us and not the SEC.

We need a Florida school, and I guess Miami is the logical pick if we consider academics and big tv market. Ugggg.

There is 6. We only need 4 to get to 20.

If we are going all the way to 24, then add Kansas and North Carolina. Decent academics, great hoops additions, adds KC and Releigh TV markets.

SEC can grab Clemson, FSU, Virginia, Colorado, Arizona, Okie State, and maybe Oregon and Washington?
 
MelroseHawkins said:
To me this is just an illustration of fan distribution. Not sure how it pertains to this thread. Am I missing something?
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I was just curious which metros generally cheered for which teams (in particular, I was wondering who St. Louis cheered for). This is an old image (2014), but I thought it was interesting.

For example, Oregon doesn't contain a large metro, but in terms of cheering-interest, it dominates much of the west coast (including the large metro area of SF/Oakland); makes the idea of adding them a lot more appealing.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
If this goes where it may go, academic standards might have to be loosened a smidge. :)

Baylor is a great school and brings in the Texas market.

ASU has a smidge of academic swag and brings in one of the fastest growing markets in the country.

Stanford and Cal are no brainers academically. They bring NOCAL tv markets.

Notre Dame's hand might finally be forced and they would want us and not the SEC.

We need a Florida school, and I guess Miami is the logical pick if we consider academics and big tv market. Ugggg.

There is 6. We only need 4 to get to 20.

If we are going all the way to 24, then add Kansas and North Carolina. Decent academics, great hoops additions, adds KC and Releigh TV markets.

SEC can grab Clemson, FSU, Virginia, Colorado, Arizona, Okie State, and maybe Oregon and Washington?
Click to expand...

Stupid question: does it matter that so few fans in Texas cheer for Baylor (compared to Texas and Texas Tech), or is simply getting into the Texas market the important thing?
 
One thing that hasn't been discussed yet is bringing these two into the league is absolutely huge for baseball. The postseason draw this year proves that the BIG is nothing more than a mid-major in the eyes of the selection committee. Hopefully this helps change that.
 
NorthKCHawk said:
If this goes where it may go, academic standards might have to be loosened a smidge. :)

Baylor is a great school and brings in the Texas market.

ASU has a smidge of academic swag and brings in one of the fastest growing markets in the country.

Stanford and Cal are no brainers academically. They bring NOCAL tv markets.

Notre Dame's hand might finally be forced and they would want us and not the SEC.

We need a Florida school, and I guess Miami is the logical pick if we consider academics and big tv market. Ugggg.

There is 6. We only need 4 to get to 20.

If we are going all the way to 24, then add Kansas and North Carolina. Decent academics, great hoops additions, adds KC and Releigh TV markets.

SEC can grab Clemson, FSU, Virginia, Colorado, Arizona, Okie State, and maybe Oregon and Washington?
Click to expand...
I hope after this expansion that ND applies and we turn them down. F ya!
 
CP87 said:
Stupid question: does it matter that so few fans in Texas cheer for Baylor (compared to Texas and Texas Tech), or is simply getting into the Texas market the important thing?
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Jim Delany built a revenue model around cable TV subscribers. BTN drove revenue by charging over a dollar a month for carriage and insisted BTN be included on basic cable tiers. Under that model, simply getting into Texas would have been a big deal assuming there were enough cable subscribers who would demand BTN because assuming they got BTN onto every major cable system and got $1 a month from 5 million cable subscribers in the state, that would translate into $60 million of annual revenue ($1x12 months x 5 million subscribers) (numbers just made up for illustrative purposes). This was the allure of adding Maryland and Rutgers, with them came the lucrative cable markets of DC and NYC. Sooooo many cable subscribers. Sooooo much money.

For the brilliance Delany exhibited in terms of implementing his BTN master plan, he showed an equal amount of stupidity in bringing in Maryland and Rutgers. I pointed this out 10 years ago. Delany did not see where the future was going. He was completely blind to everything other than the immediate cable revenue and he did a massive disservice to all of us as fans by adding those shit ass teams. Here is my post from 2012 pointing out my opinions back then.

Technological shifts and the shortsightedness of B1G expansion | HawkeyeNation.com Forum

The future model is likely one of direct to consumer streaming. Many people, myself included, do not have cable any longer. But we may subscribe to a streaming service like YouTubeTV or Hulu for a few months in the fall to watch football. Well when you do this, ESPN, BTN and the other sports networks only capture 3 months of revenue, so using that Texas example above and assuming everyone did this, the hypothetical revenue of adding Baylor would go from $60 million to $15 million. That is a big fucking drop. For a company like ESPN, they get roughly $10 a month in carriage fees. They have made contractual commitments on the assumption they will get $120 per year from 80, 90, 100 million customers, whatever. Instead, they are now seeing their subscriber base drop daily and a big chunk of customers only sign up for college football, so they're only seeing $30. They want to change to a model where they're converting that $30 into $200 and their plan will likely be to sell a college football streaming bundle. The customer gets a lower price than subscribing to full cable/streaming for 3 months and ESPN gets $200 instead of $30. Their whole plan hinges on whether or not they can get full control of the premier content rights. They already have the SEC. The Big Ten deal is nearly up. For this deal to work, you do not go in picking up shitbag teams like Rutgers just because they are adjacent to a big city, you have to get the pre-eminent brands. Teams with established history, big stadiums, pageantry, goodwill, massive fanbases.

Sorry for the long post, but in the old model, yes, Baylor made sense, but in the new model where revenue driven to the ecosystem will depend on the sheer size of the fanbase and willingness to buy the content package, no, Baylor makes absolutely no sense. Just geographic location in Texas gives you nothing, being in Texas only means something if you are A&M or UT and have a bajillion fans. We're in limbo for now, but the two leaders in the clubhouse, the B1G and SEC, are jockeying to ensure they have the top teams driving content.
 
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