Four four-team divisions (I hate the word "pods")
- Thread starter Quix0te
- Start date
Only problem I see is the fact that OU and UT aren’t in the Big 10. Soooo yeah.
How is that a problem?
I don't know how I know, but I just know.......... if the Whorns did land in the BIG we'd land in the same division, or pod, or slice, or whatever.
It would be inevitable. We'd be sentenced to hearing "I've been working on the railroad" after every 2 yard gain from now until the end of football.
Michigan and Ohio State as well as Michigan and MSU can't be in separate divisions or separate pods or whatever the partitioning is called. It won't matter to them about permanent cross-over games IMO. AND, as we know, Michigan and Ohio State rule the B1G, they cannot be ignored.
Well, that and the BIG has competent leadership, which would recognize ahead of time that splitting up its marquee rivalries is the exact same thing as setting 55 gallon drums full of cash on fire.
If this happens I'm guessing a traditional blue blood in each of the four division/pods/quads
Can the B1G just boot Purdue and Illinois so we can build a cooler conference and make more money.
No. Boot the stds that are maryland and rutgers.
NY (#1) and DC (#6) markets. Necessary evil to make the cash register go cha-ching. Purdue and Illinois bring strong academics and some tradition in basketball, but what else? I don't even know what other sports they're generally good at, but I never get excited to play either school in anything.
Indiana and Northwestern already deliver Indianapolis and Chicago. You could swap Illinois and Northwestern, but I'd rather keep the school in a much better location with the best academics in the conference. Higher profile alumni too.
Of course, this is all just fantasy realignment speculation. I don't think you'll ever see the B1G boot a school that wants to stay, but those are two schools Delany would never add today if they weren't already in place.
I dont blame you but You're thinking statically and using the same old excuses that dont hold water. Rutgers through week 7 last year wasnt even averaging 1 million viewers for their games. It wasnt until they got well into the big ten season that their average went above a million because of the push from other big ten fanbases. They are consistently at the very bottom in viewership. Who cares if they have a big market when no one watches their games? Delaney got caught in expansion hype and had to out smart himself in this one. Rutgers isnt big ten material, period. Its common sense.
Maryland is also consistently in the bottom 3 or 4 teams. When you factor in the inferior play from both schools, it cheapens the conference. The only beneficiaries are teams like indiana who miht get a chance at another win. Maryland at least used to have a good basketball team even though I dont think that justifies it. Rutgers? Ugh its just awful.
Oh, but new york market!!!
Purdue and Illinois are two of the top 5 all time Basketball teams in the B1G, please take that into consideration.
Purdue and Illinois are both charter members of the Big Ten and Purdue is the founding member. Actually, Purdue President James Smart invented the concept of college conferences. Before he convened a few colleges in 1895 to form a conference, there were none.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Conference
I dont blame you but You're thinking statically and using the same old excuses that dont hold water. Rutgers through week 7 last year wasnt even averaging 1 million viewers for their games. It wasnt until they got well into the big ten season that their average went above a million because of the push from other big ten fanbases. They are consistently at the very bottom in viewership. Who cares if they have a big market when no one watches their games? Delaney got caught in expansion hype and had to out smart himself in this one. Rutgers isnt big ten material, period. Its common sense.
Maryland is also consistently in the bottom 3 or 4 teams. When you factor in the inferior play from both schools, it cheapens the conference. The only beneficiaries are teams like indiana who miht get a chance at another win. Maryland at least used to have a good basketball team even though I dont think that justifies it. Rutgers? Ugh its just awful.
Oh, but new york market!!!
Except viewership only matters to sponsors. Yes it matters but the reason the B1G chose those schools was because of the monthly subscriber fees.
You simply can’t have 14 powers in one league because no one would ever win anything, especially in football. There has to be a few sisters of the poor. There has to be balance. Missouri wasn’t brought into the SEC because they were necessarily great at sports. They have the 16 or 17 highest population, so they bring more subscribers to the SEC network
I dont blame you but You're thinking statically and using the same old excuses that dont hold water. Rutgers through week 7 last year wasnt even averaging 1 million viewers for their games. It wasnt until they got well into the big ten season that their average went above a million because of the push from other big ten fanbases. They are consistently at the very bottom in viewership. Who cares if they have a big market when no one watches their games? Delaney got caught in expansion hype and had to out smart himself in this one. Rutgers isnt big ten material, period. Its common sense.
Maryland is also consistently in the bottom 3 or 4 teams. When you factor in the inferior play from both schools, it cheapens the conference. The only beneficiaries are teams like indiana who miht get a chance at another win. Maryland at least used to have a good basketball team even though I dont think that justifies it. Rutgers? Ugh its just awful.
Oh, but new york market!!!
It's not about viewership. The fact that Rutgers was a member of the B1G allowed Delany to get BTN packaged with the YES Network in NY. In other words, if you want to watch Yankee games as a New Yorker, you have to have YES. And if you have YES, you have to have BTN.
That's a metric shit-ton of BTN subscribers, whether they give two shits about Rutgers or not (I agree with you that the vast majority don't). That wouldn't have happened without Delany being a master at this stuff. You also wouldn't see conference members raking in north of $50M/year if the guy didn't know what he's doing.
Not every school the B1G adds will be for football reasons. Penn State and Nebraska were great additions on the field. Maryland and Rutgers were not, but markets matter and matter greatly. Continue to ignore that if you want, but I'm glad Delany is on top of it.
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Wall Street Journal/London Times academic ranking has Purdue one of the top five public universities in the US. Purdue and Illinois are also ranked among the top ten engineering schools in the nation. If Purdue and Illinois started another conference, Nebraska wouldn't be in it.If Purdue is so great at starting conferences, perhaps they can start another one.
https://www.timeshighereducation.co...sities/best-public-universities-united-states
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate
I'm so confused by the forming of these power conferences... they ultimately become so big that they begin to break them into divisions or pods, which reflect more of the older 6 and 8 team conferences that they grew from.
So in essence, the benefit of a 16 team conference is that you have 8 other teams from which to schedule a couple games a year so the search for out of conference games is less challenging. Soon we'll have nothing in common with teams from the Big Ten East, which is how we used to be when we were in the Big 8/12.
So in essence, the benefit of a 16 team conference is that you have 8 other teams from which to schedule a couple games a year so the search for out of conference games is less challenging. Soon we'll have nothing in common with teams from the Big Ten East, which is how we used to be when we were in the Big 8/12.
It seems I rankled your feathers on this topic. That wasn't my intent. I was just having some fun in a thread that proposed a reorganization of divisions/pods/playgroups based on the presumed additions of UT and OU. We were already living in fantasyland when the thread started so in that context, I don't see how my posts were somehow out of bounds.
No one is saying that Purdue and Illinois aren't great academic schools. If they want to leave the B1G to start Ivy League Light and leave poor Nebraska out, they're more than welcome. Clearly NU wouldn't be a candidate for an academics-first conference but then that's not what we're talking about.
I realize message boards are serious business, but to be clear, I'm not actually advocating for the removal of Purdue, Illinois or any current B1G member. I don't want Nebraska to reside in a conference that would boot members based on a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately mindset. We could have stayed with Texas if we wanted a foundation built on shifting sands.
My first post on the subject was terse and flippant. That's not usually my style but I was in a mood. My whole point is that, if you evaluated the current members of the conference based on the criteria used to identify expansion candidates, those two would stand out because they're redundant in terms of market and don't bring a brand name when it comes to football. That's it. There's really no arguing that regardless of their historic and academic credentials.
The same could be said of their proximity peers, Indiana and Northwestern. The same could also be said of Michigan State to a lesser extent despite their recent gridiron prowess. But none of those schools are going anywhere. I thought the "fantasy conference realignment speculation" disclaimer was enough but apparently the mere suggestion of contraction is upsetting to some.
Anyway, back to threads about off-season S&C, whether we're taking reaches in recruiting and how much Iowa sucks.
Oh, I've got a pretty thick hide about little jabs like that. Point is, the academic prowess of the B1G is probably the most appealing feature of the conference to schools like Oklahoma and Texas.
Should have just put an asterisk by that post. Seems to work well up here.
Should have just put an asterisk by that post. Seems to work well up here.
I should put an asterisk on every post. Make sure my bases are always covered.
They look good, but if the Big Ten expands with Oklahoma and either Texas or Kansas I think they'll keep the west/east format. It would be easy to move Purdue to the east and add the two new additions to the west. That would put all the west teams in the central time zone and all the east teams in the eastern time zone.
Possibly. It probably depends on whether you ask a university president or an AD. But it's not what makes the conference attractive to the schools; it's the other way around. The B1G certainly wouldn't add OU for its academics, but their athletic prowess and brand would make them attractive anyway similar to NU's appeal in 2010. And conversely, OU would be happy to join for both reasons just like we were.
And that's the whole point I was making. Academics still matter to the B1G, they have to and should, but even for them, that really hasn't been the driving force in conference expansion. It's basically a prerequisite if the other boxes are checked. And even then, academics can be seriously overlooked if the other benefits are too good to be ignored.
That's why I argued that a few current schools probably wouldn't make the cut if they were free agents today, fair or unfair. Or they would make the cut only for certain sports (i.e., Johns Hopkins). Or they would simply be a member of the CIC without any athletic affiliation (i.e., University of Chicago).
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Hmmmm.....that's a good idea. I would love to see Oklahoma & Kansas in the Big10 but the conference destroyer "Texas"......no thanks.
Indeed, if the other boxes are to be checked. Those boxes include: academics + athletics (85% football) + TV market aka brand + expansion of BTN footprint (not the same as TV market) + AAU membership + resurrecting/maintaining classic rivalries + geographic proximity + state flagship.
No school brings all of that to the table for the B1G but the top three, in alphabetical order, are Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Texas. ND hears a different drummer so the B1G's top realistic options are UT and OU. The fact that both refuse to extend the B12 GOR beyond 2025 suggests both are looking around.
Myself, I'd also be happy with any combination of ND, UT, OU, Colorado, GT, Mizzou, UVA or UNC.
Spot on. I'd be happy with just about all of those schools too although UVA lost a lot of its TV market appeal when Maryland joined. Otherwise, they absolutely check the academics box and would contribute to an eastern/southern expansion. It would also be another domino towards a further dismantling of the ACC, which could free up UNC and possibly Notre Dame eventually. You know Delany would love to have UNC join for many of the reasons you listed above, not to mention it's his alma mater.
I've enjoyed the discourse, Quix0te. Here's hoping the scenario you outlined in your OP comes true and we have to find a way to bring UT and OU into the conference. Then there would truly be an East-West balance of power. I would love to see one of NU/OU/UT/UW annually against one of tOSU/UM/PSU/MSU in the CCG. That would essentially amount to an unofficial expansion of the CFB Playoff.
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Jim Delany was a double grad of UNC (undergrad and law school), his wife was a UNC grad and both of their kids graduated from UNC while the family was living in metro Chicago. I'm sure UNC is on Delany's short list for the B1G.
That doesn't mean North Carolina would leave the ACC for the B1G....
You’re getting way ahead of yourself with this expansion stuff.
No one said they would. No one said any of these teams would. How are we getting ahead of ourselves by simply talking about the possibility?
But you better believe Delany has a short list of expansion candidates and UNC is most certainly on it.
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Go to a 20 team super conference. 2 ten team divisions. You play everyone in your division with no crossover games. East champ vs west champ is the conference champ and moves on to the Playoff. You have 4 of the super conferences and the conference championship is the first round of playoffs. You play 3 non conference games that dont count towards your national title hopes. You would then get some awesome non conference games against top opponents. Get rid of the biased poll systems.
Delany likely will be retired before the next round of conference expansions kicks in.
Does the First Amendment have any say?
There will always be polls. They likely aren't going anywhere.
These are good points and yes there are a lot of subscribers here, however I do wonder about diminishing marginal utility over time regarding the conference. Everything we talk about regarding conference expansion is hypothetical and who knows if any of it would ever happen, but I do wonder if the B1G has maxed out it's potential to add teams like OU/KU/TX from the big 12, ND, or UNC or someone from the ACC. Obviously all those schools would add considerable clout to any conference they are a member of, and it's looking like if they would go anywhere they'd look elsewhere from the B1G. Also wonder about the contract with the YES network and how long it runs, considering the massive amount of cord-cutting going on throughout the nation. Would the NY market push to drop the BTN from their "automatic" packaging if no one is watching it and people are cutting cable? What if the YES becomes available on other platforms to try to keep up with the wave? BTN is making itself more available elsewhere including on HULU tv, etc. but many of these online platforms and streaming services are going to try to become more and more option based to allow consumers more choices. Long story short I'm not sure long term it will be that much of a difference than adding someone other than Rutgers to the B1G, especially when factoring in the overall clout of the conference and you can't forget the forthcoming tv deals with other networks (who knows what's going to happen there) but the most lucrative conferences regarding ratings will get the best deals with national networks like Fox and ESPN, etc. who need to be more selective than ever.
As far as the little sisters of the poor comment, I agree you need them but the B1G already had them in perrenial "meh" teams like Purdue, Indiana, Illinois, Northwestern (I get they are on the rise but they won't compete for a NC), and some middle of the road teams like Iowa, Minnesota, and hate to say it but Nebraska (although we are expected to be more of a power and hopefully will be, in which case MSU would go down to the middle of the road again). I understand Maryland more than Rutgers, Rutgers literally adds nothing athletically while Maryland at least had success as a basketball school which greatly increased our ability to say the B1G took over the ACC as the premier basketball conference (didn't work out last year of course).
Not all this information was available at the time of their invitation to the B1G, and I get that Delaney and the PTB know more about this stuff than I do and that's why they are where they are. But after adding Nebraska the B1G was in a good place with strong divisions, better match-ups to draw more outside viewers and adding OU/TX/KU/UNC/ND would have been absolutely huge for the conference which I just don't think will happen now (maybe not then either, but I thought Delaney was rushing to add teams). Unless of course the NCAA does go to the 4 power conferences route, in which case we'd certainly pick up more teams. But who?
Perhaps I'm letting my absolute disdain for all things Rutgers cloud my judgement here, I'm willing to concede that. I can think of a whole host of schools that would have brought more to the table to strengthen the conference athletically, which in the end is what draws the most viewers and makes the conferences relevant nationally.
I agree that it's ok to talk about the possibility. I also think that considering all the current speculation and hype, it would be totally fitting that absolutely nothing changes over the next ten years precisely because everyone expects it to
