UNC is at risk of leaving someday. Possibly Virginia too. Clemson doesnt bring enough of a new market for the SEC. Same thing with FSU.
Penn State’s perspective on additional realignment?
- Thread starter HailToPitt725
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Can you please explain why you feel that "Stanford(#47) makes little financial sense" yet NC(#46) is one of the "schools to watch"?
I think the SEC and Big Ten will be at 24 as well. I think Georgia Tech gets included though. Whether or not they should is a different question but I'd say UVa, UNC, GA Tech, ND, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Stanford. I think Miami gets left out.
Personally, I’m hoping this is the scenario that unfolds. If the Big Ten lands the schools you mentioned above (I’d still swap out Utah for Miami), Pitt might actually have a shot at getting into the SEC if they’d want to also have 24 members.
In terms of invites, there’s Clemson, FSU, NC State, and Virginia Tech… who else would get one over us? Supposedly they’ve vetted WVU in the past, Duke as well (assuming this was in case them and UNC were a joint invite). That’d help our chances immensely because we suddenly wouldn’t be too isolated from their footprint. It’d also get them into the northeast.
I know people enjoying discussing the options but ten years is a huge variable. Think what has happened in just the last five….. NIL, open portal transfers, expansions, all the streaming/internet options.
So hard to predict the future of college football. I am not sure colleges themselves will survive the next ten years.
So hard to predict the future of college football. I am not sure colleges themselves will survive the next ten years.
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That could happen. I wonder about Va Tech and UVA, two others I see the B10 liking.
The one thing I wonder is at what point would Disney and FOX tell the Big Ten and/or SEC to stop expanding? I can’t imagine they would just continue to add members at the current (or higher) per-school distribution, especially if they reach 24.
They could raid some Big XII schools. Louisville might be ahead of Pitt. Oklahoma State and Cincinnati. Maybe Houston. It's tough to know. I don't think the Big Ten or SEC want Miami.
There's a bigger picture though. If they both go to 24 or more they probably breakaway from the NCAA and FBS.
Yeah, Miami is a really interesting case. They have the brand, the academics, and the southeast region. However, the lack of fan (and administrative) support likely makes them lose interest from the SEC, and how many eyeballs is Miami actually going to bring you just by having the Big Ten in Florida? Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State already recruit nationally, but will Minnesota or Iowa suddenly develop a south Florida pipeline as a result? Probably not.
Now, all of this is irrelevant if they’re each going to 24 because I definitely think they’re in then. But, to your point, it’s not a foregone conclusion that the Canes will have a seat in the B1G/SEC should they each expand to 18-20 teams at most.
The networks won't tell them, they will figure it out based off if the revenue per school still grows. There is an interesting debate that would occur with Cal and Stanford. Do those two schools do anything to grow the B10 TV revenue? Their football and basketball are not very good so the B10 is not going to be able to leverage those additions for a higher TV deal. The school presidents will love them because of the academics. What happens? Who knows. I think Oregon and Washington are sure bets and that could be it for the west. There is your 4 team pod with USC and UCLA. Then you expand in the East. I think Duke and UNC are high priorities because of hoops and academics. ND is an obvious one but we may all be dead before they leave independent status in football. Maybe the B10 stops at 20 until they can get ND. It would be 5 pods of 4. Problem is you would have a horrifically bad eastern pod for football with Rutgers, MD, UNC and Duke.
Look at how many midwest and northeast retirees and transplants live in Florida. I think there is value in going into Florida for FSU (a no brainer) but Miami as well. Eventually enough pieces can be put together to pull in a chunk of Joe Pa’s original vision of an eastern conference, which was ruined by d-bags at Pitt and Syracuse back in the day.
You can't just use one game to cherry pick stats. That game was at noon on BTN opposite the most watched football game in Michigan-Ohio State which drew 4 million more viewers than the second most watched game. Rutgers was already out of a bowl game. On top of that you had Texas-Baylor, Clemson-South Carolina, Georgia-Georgia Tech and Cincinnati-Tulane in that same window. That 5 games featuring top 25 teams and 3 games with top 10 teams. I don't care who was playing Rutgers the game wasn't going to draw much.
Imagine if that came to a reality and you took the biggest eastern independents in the 1980s:
Boston College
Florida State
Miami
Penn State
Pittsburgh
South Carolina
Syracuse
Virginia Tech
West Virginia
I think that conference would’ve surpassed the ACC and eventually been able to poach every team not named Wake Forest. It would’ve created the first 16-team super conference and likely would be been the leader in college football when you consider it would’ve been ahead of the game on conference championship, conference cable network, and so on. Definitely a big “what if.”
The problem with Miami is they have terrible fan support. Off campus stadium. Fairweather fans at best. They showed up for that "top 10 showdown" with Clemson a few years back and filled the place. Clemson thumped them, then somebody else did shortly after and the stands were empty again after that.
it is about TV money and contracts. That group would have had a lot of the NE and SE. They'd go toe to toe with the SEC. The SEC would have better football performance but this league would probably have better basketball performance compared to the SEC (since 1980).
I really think a lot of conference alignment is due to the NCAA imploding. Schools now know that they are pretty much on their own and are looking for safe havens from the various conferences. I think we are destined to having somewhere between two and four super conferences. Right now, you have to assume the SEC and B1G. I think the football champion is going to come from those two conferences for several years. And that will continue to boost the money they can negotiate from TV contracts. Nobody is going to pay for Netflix, paramount plus or apple TV to watch Ok State play Memphis in football. They just haven't sustained good programs to get that kind of draw.
Would have included Temple….IIRC. Perhaps Temple would have upgraded their program.
Decent basketball conference too.
Going to 24 teams for each of the Big Ten and SEC makes no sense. If you want 48 teams to be power teams, you might just as well have the Big 10 & SEC stay around 16 teams each, and provide them with the lion's share of the revenue.
The next tier of teams can make up teams 33-48 and receive a smaller payout.
Because if poaching the PAC the Cardinal are the 4th best option behind Oregon, Utah and Washington. Also, NC is a large state U with a blue blood hoops team and solid wrestling that fits in the B1G better and expands the footprint. Obviously, Stanford academics and other sports are better, but this is about who adds the most athletic revenue. NC hoops adds more money.
Ideally, football will eventually split off from conferences and do their own thing while letting the other sports return to regional conferences. Does Rutgers’ Olympic sports teams really need to be traveling out to LA, or even Lincoln for that matter?
For example, Penn State could be in whatever super league that Disney and the FAANG companies put together and then have your Olympic sports tied with Pitt, Syracuse, Villanova, etc.
good point. the only area where the NCAA has become totally irrelevant is football. They still own March Madness.
I think people are using the wrong measures for most of this analysis. Here are the measures that are important.
#1 How much money will they bring in to the conference.
#2 How much money will they bring in to the conference.
#3 How much money will they bring in to the conference.
Eyeballs matter most here. What is the size of the market that they command? What share of that market can they deliver?
Today that as a conference isn't impressive. Penn State would have probably still left eventually for the Bog Ten. $$$$
One other huge factor…. The size of the wallets that come with those eyeballs. Stanford has huge wallets attached, Rutgers also has NYC eyeballs/wallets .. which is what got them in.
I had two games cited in the original post. Regardless, the point is look at Maryland’s ratings outside of PSU, MSU, Michigan, and Ohio State. Maryland has bad ratings whenever they aren’t playing somebody who typically draws well.
I’ll put it to you this way, PSU would make more money from the tv contracts if Maryland and Rutgers weren’t in the Big Ten. It is Big Ten, and Jim Delaney, spin to say that Rutgers and Maryland were vital to getting Big Ten games on tv in NYC and DC.
That’s why I think the end-game is the 24-30 biggest brands joining together and creating the “super league.” A new entity would be much easier than inviting new members and kicking out existing ones.
Besides, if you’re Penn State, you’re getting 10x more revenue if you replace Maryland, Northwestern, and Rutgers with Alabama, Georgia, and Texas. I think it’d look something like this:
Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Clemson, Florida, FSU, Georgia, Iowa, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Michigan St, Nebraska, UNC, Notre Dame, Ohio St, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Oregon, PSU, South Carolina, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, UCLA, USC, Virginia Tech, Washington, Wisconsin
There’s 30 teams, although you could either take a few teams out to get to 24 or swap a few teams out, like Stanford. You could break it into geographical divisions and have your own playoff; the champion would most certainly be considered *the* national champion.
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I mostly agree. I think it’ll be a little bigger than 30. Part of college football’s secret sauce is keeping most regions of the country engaged. I see a 20 team Big Ten and a 20 team SEC in a league separate from the NCAA.
Sorry, thought I included them. Thanks for the correction. They’d obviously be in there.
Yeah 40-48 seems realistic with a 12-16 team playoff
F additional expansion at this point unless schools like Rutgers are getting the boot.
Additional expansion is coming and is needed for the ultimate goal of creating their own league with SEC. Let's stop pretending that's not the end game. You can dislike it but that's where we're going.
Creating our own league with the SEC isn't the end game. Maximizing revenue per Big 10 team is. We might end up having our own league, but that isn't the goal.
Adding teams such as Oregon, Washington, BYU, North Carolina, Miami and Arizona State won't improve our position. Whereas Notre Dame will.
Oregon and Washington certainly do add per capita value to our conference. Oregon itself is more valuable than every current Big 10 school outside of PSU, OSU and UM.
Neither Oregon nor Washington will add $100+ million per year to our next TV contract. And that's what they will need to do to add value to the conference.
The numbers at this link do not support your argument. Oregon is an extremely valuable addition, but obviously they would not come by themselves. Washington holds enough value that as a pair Oregon/Washington certainly add value to our conference.
If all of these PAC schools have so much value, the PAC wouldn't be imploding.
Again, unless each of the schools can add $100+ million to future TV contracts, there is no point in adding them.
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