What Will Revive the Conference

[row Z]

1 hour ago, Win5002 said:

If I was the commissioner of a big conference, I don't think I would have divisions or pods and especially in this case.  Instead I would have a single conference standings.   I would lock in 3-4 annual rivals(in the case of 5 PAC schools to the B1G I would make sure those schools locked in all 4 other PAC schools to keep travel minimized)  and rotate games around the rest of the league but not in an equal rotation to maximize quality matchups.

  

Oh right, my mistake, I was thinking 5 games a year between the Pac12 newbies, but it would only be 4 under your approach since only 5 teams come over.

[Win5002]

2 hours ago, row Z said:

Oh right, my mistake, I was thinking 5 games a year between the Pac12 newbies, but it would only be 4 under your approach since only 5 teams come over.

Maybe both the B12 & B1G could be real creative and allow for a rivalry game of former PAC 12 schools to count as a conference game only requiring 4 other conference games, making it a 2 home and 2 away split.  That gives 9 conference games. So now former PAC schools might choose to play each other in what is designated a OOC game again keeping the former relationships in some form.    

Or go to 8 games and a conference scheduling arrangement.  Again, even a game of former PAC 12 schools introduces the content into CST & EST time zones of 2 conferences they are now members of hopefully gaining more viewership in those areas because they are conference members.   

I think there are creative ways to make it a possibility.

 

[Orange]

Here's what will revive the conference: Winning.

 

We can combine forces with the B1G, Big 12, SEC, MLB, NBA, XFL, and AARP, and none of it will matter unless we put a better product on the fields and courts.  Period.  All other talk is doublespeak nonsense.

[win2bfree]

The first round of the draft illustrates part of the problem.  The PAC 12 needs to do a better job of recruiting/identifing/developing/cornering the talent on the West Coast.  If the conference is going to get better, there shouldn't be drafts with 4 PAC 12 players and 3 MWC players.  Compare that to how only 1 player escaped the ACC/SEC in the Southeast.

[PAC MAN]

On 4/25/2018 at 5:06 PM, Quack 12 said:

I don't see why the B1G would be interested. They're cultivating the East Coast with Rutgers and Maryland. I don't see them looking west. 

I could see Nebraska leaving the B1G if the Pac was able to scoop up UT, the Okies and the Kansas schools. Add CU and Utah to that mix and you've got a solid Plains-Pacific Conference. 

During the 2010 realignment chaos, Jim Delaney did vaguely talk about expanding to the Rocky Mountain region which clearly was pointing at CU.  I wouldn't dismiss the B1G going after UW and two California schools.  If the B1G was going to ask CU to make the move, CU will tell the Delaney that he'll have to take at least two California schools or no deal.  I'd say that Chicago and the northeast are third and fourth when it comes to CU students after California and Colorado but CU and its faculty has been wanting to join the PAC since at least the 1980's and then nearly 25-30 years later the Buffs finally join...not going to happen that easily plus CU stayed in the Big 12 as a token of good faith when CU could have just left the Big 12 for the Pac-10 before the Big 12 kicked off in 1996.

Something is definitely up with the B1G since their new deal takes them to the same expiration date as the Pac-12 media rights deal.  Maybe the BTN and P12N merges?

[Win5002]

6 hours ago, Jalapeno said:

During the 2010 realignment chaos, Jim Delaney did vaguely talk about expanding to the Rocky Mountain region which clearly was pointing at CU.  I wouldn't dismiss the B1G going after UW and two California schools.  If the B1G was going to ask CU to make the move, CU will tell the Delaney that he'll have to take at least two California schools or no deal.  I'd say that Chicago and the northeast are third and fourth when it comes to CU students after California and Colorado but CU and its faculty has been wanting to join the PAC since at least the 1980's and then nearly 25-30 years later the Buffs finally join...not going to happen that easily plus CU stayed in the Big 12 as a token of good faith when CU could have just left the Big 12 for the Pac-10 before the Big 12 kicked off in 1996.

Something is definitely up with the B1G since their new deal takes them to the same expiration date as the Pac-12 media rights deal.  Maybe the BTN and P12N merges?

Jalapeno,

I understand the California/PAC angle with recruiting and a high number of  graduates relocating there.  I'm curious is either the PAC or B1G considered more prestigious than the other to the academic side? 

 

You also bring up an interesting topic in academic wishes and which department the academic or the athletic department has more of a determining voice in conference realignment of the schools?  I wonder if that varies a lot from school to school. 

Everyone would consider ND a fine academic school and I remember when ND was invited again last time to the B1G the ND faculty had a vote and it was overwhelming of their desire to accept a B1G membership for the academic side, but of course the athletic department at ND made the decision for the school it seems.   On the other hand a lot of Oklahoma posters feel OU would take a B1G membership even if it meant making it harder to compete athletically in football by being separated from Texas and Texas teams in a conference.  A lot of them also feel OU might decline an instead stay in the Big 12 with some of that due to academics.   One might have thought the academics versus athletic influences might have been switched between those two universities.    

 

 

 

[Bruininthebay]

The recent decision by Comcast to not include Big Ten Network outside of states with Big Ten schools demonstrates that media rights for college sports may not be as valuable as they were considered.

Cord cutting means that the economic model based on cable subscription fees (which drove the big increases in revenue) has changed and its uncertain how that will affect the next round of media negotiations in the mid 2020s.

The Big 12 never even had enough media appeal to get a conference network but did benefit from the current bubble.  Its likely a Big 12 without Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas would have a hard time sustaining its current over all value for media rights.

The Pac 12 is insulated from a bubble bursting because it can cut costs at the Pac 12 network and didn't get a significant amount of out of market revenue in the first place.  Our Window 4 game broadcasts mean that we will always have an exclusive national window for 7 PM PST kick off games that the Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and ACC can not offer to media partners.  Only the MW is an alternative to the pac 12 and overall MW schools are located in smaller media markets than Pac 12 schools.

Moreover, Pac 12 fans will not travel to CST games.  Oregon and USC travel particularly well and even then they aren't close to an SEC or Big Ten fan base.  The Trojans have a big casual fan base who wants to see games with top opponents, and other than Texas and Oklahoma no team in the Big 12 has a lot of national appeal.

If the Pac schools feel the need to improve revenue because of some drastic disparity, a 1959 dissolution and reformation without OSU, WSU and perhaps ASU (its possible the unfortunate direction this athletic department appears to be taking could cause real lasting damage) so we can play a round robin schedule in football and double round robin in Olympic sports while splitting the pie only 9 or 10 ways.  As many posters have noted, the West has college fans but there is so much else to do that we aren't going to spend the same amount of money that SEC and Big Ten fans spend.

[All Hail]

20 minutes ago, Bruininthebay said:

 

The Big 12 never even had enough media appeal to get a conference network but did benefit from the current bubble. 

Huh?  Texas itself had enough "media appeal" to create a conference network.  Once they launched the LHN, the rest of the conference was screwed.  You think distributors would have signed a deal with the pac 12 network if USC wasn't a part of the package?  No way.  Same thing goes for the Big 12 network, once Texas did their own thing, any possibility of a Big 12 Network was cooked.  Add to the fact that Texas has far more influence over their conference than any single school does over their respective conferences and there was no way Texas was going to allow the Big 12 to compete against the LHN. 

[Win5002]

1 hour ago, Bruininthebay said:

The recent decision by Comcast to not include Big Ten Network outside of states with Big Ten schools demonstrates that media rights for college sports may not be as valuable as they were considered.

Cord cutting means that the economic model based on cable subscription fees (which drove the big increases in revenue) has changed and its uncertain how that will affect the next round of media negotiations in the mid 2020s.

The Big 12 never even had enough media appeal to get a conference network but did benefit from the current bubble.  Its likely a Big 12 without Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas would have a hard time sustaining its current over all value for media rights.

The Pac 12 is insulated from a bubble bursting because it can cut costs at the Pac 12 network and didn't get a significant amount of out of market revenue in the first place.  Our Window 4 game broadcasts mean that we will always have an exclusive national window for 7 PM PST kick off games that the Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and ACC can not offer to media partners.  Only the MW is an alternative to the pac 12 and overall MW schools are located in smaller media markets than Pac 12 schools.

Moreover, Pac 12 fans will not travel to CST games.  Oregon and USC travel particularly well and even then they aren't close to an SEC or Big Ten fan base.  The Trojans have a big casual fan base who wants to see games with top opponents, and other than Texas and Oklahoma no team in the Big 12 has a lot of national appeal.

If the Pac schools feel the need to improve revenue because of some drastic disparity, a 1959 dissolution and reformation without OSU, WSU and perhaps ASU (its possible the unfortunate direction this athletic department appears to be taking could cause real lasting damage) so we can play a round robin schedule in football and double round robin in Olympic sports while splitting the pie only 9 or 10 ways.  As many posters have noted, the West has college fans but there is so much else to do that we aren't going to spend the same amount of money that SEC and Big Ten fans spend.

You mentioned uncertainty with cord cutting.  Most feel that content that people have a strong intensity for  will become more and more important and  the value based on cable/satellite subscriptions alone will be less valuable.  That should be a positive not a negative for  the Big 12 because they are 3rd behind the SEC & B1G in ratings now with a smaller fan base. 

 

[PAC MAN]

17 hours ago, Win5002 said:

Jalapeno,

I understand the California/PAC angle with recruiting and a high number of  graduates relocating there.  I'm curious is either the PAC or B1G considered more prestigious than the other to the academic side? 

You also bring up an interesting topic in academic wishes and which department the academic or the athletic department has more of a determining voice in conference realignment of the schools?  I wonder if that varies a lot from school to school. 

Everyone would consider ND a fine academic school and I remember when ND was invited again last time to the B1G the ND faculty had a vote and it was overwhelming of their desire to accept a B1G membership for the academic side, but of course the athletic department at ND made the decision for the school it seems.   On the other hand a lot of Oklahoma posters feel OU would take a B1G membership even if it meant making it harder to compete athletically in football by being separated from Texas and Texas teams in a conference.  A lot of them also feel OU might decline an instead stay in the Big 12 with some of that due to academics.   One might have thought the academics versus athletic influences might have been switched between those two universities.    

I'm not qualified to determine which conference is more prestigious academically but from what I have studied about the realignment and conference make up is that it really comes down to the research activity level of the school.  Frank the Tank had some good blogs about those things and what he said about the whole thing made a whole lot of sense.  If you look at the Carnegie Research rankings, you would notice that a good chunk of them are P5 members.  Right now, I'd say the Big Ten has the edge but I can say that the Pac-12 clearly has the edge over the Big 12 and ACC in that regard.

The typical Big 12 school would be more willing to bend backwards for their athletic programs and this was the stark difference between CU and the Big 12 since CU was more like a PAC school than a Big 12 school even as a member of the Big 12.  The Big 12 school presidents IMHO are more likely to recognize the importance of having a strong football or basketball program.  When a school wins a national championship, it does help increase the number of applications to the college and the college could benefit as well.  I don't sense this as much in the Pac-12 compared to the Big 12.

Despite being somewhat more prestigious than the Pac-12, some B1G schools still would take their athletics seriously which isn't unlike the Big 12 and SEC.  Part of that is due to Ohio State and Penn State coming from large states where they are pretty much THE school of choice in that state.  Then you look at Minnesota...they stopped caring about football since the 1960's as it seems.  Not every school takes their athletics as seriously as their conference peers but CU's President calls athletics the "front porch" of an university and really likes it when CU is on national TV in football.

Norte Dame is good enough academically to join the Big Ten but like CU, they went where their alumni and fans resided which is more likely to be found in the ACC cities than the Big Ten cities and they are already close to Chicago anyway.  What is there really to gain from being a Big Ten member for Norte Dame?

The ACC has a few football schools such as Virginia Tech, Clemson, Miami, and Florida State but the rest of the conference takes its basketball more seriously.  Miami's administration really doesn't care about their football program as much as the ones at Florida State and Clemson do because of the type of community it is part of.  Wake Forest is more like a FCS school than Oregon State & Washington State within the Pac-12 but yet they have a seat at the table.  Ditto for Baylor in the Big 12 and those colleges basically have the money to prop up their athletics programs.  And their research rankings are up there as well...even Louisville has that VHRU rating.

OU fans feel that way because the Sooners won six football national championships without Texas as a conference member and they might have enough of a presence in the Dallas Metroplex to offset the loss of the Texas rivalry.  I was born in Oklahoma and was an OU fan first until my father took me to CU home games during the 1990 season so I am quite familiar with the school and its fanbase.  OU has a renowned metrological school (ever watch the movie Twister?  One of the fellas wore an OU hat for obvious reasons) and this might be more valuable to the Big Ten or the SEC given the number of tornadoes in those regions versus than it would be to the Pac-12.  OU isn't any different from the Pac-12 schools without AAU membership so they really could go to any P5 conference that they desire to be part of.

If it was all about academics, what the heck is Arizona State University doing in this conference?  I think that is a huge misconception that fans have when it comes to determining conference membership.

 

[PAC MAN]

13 hours ago, Bruininthebay said:

The recent decision by Comcast to not include Big Ten Network outside of states with Big Ten schools demonstrates that media rights for college sports may not be as valuable as they were considered.

Cord cutting means that the economic model based on cable subscription fees (which drove the big increases in revenue) has changed and its uncertain how that will affect the next round of media negotiations in the mid 2020s.

The Big 12 never even had enough media appeal to get a conference network but did benefit from the current bubble.  Its likely a Big 12 without Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas would have a hard time sustaining its current over all value for media rights.

The Pac 12 is insulated from a bubble bursting because it can cut costs at the Pac 12 network and didn't get a significant amount of out of market revenue in the first place.  Our Window 4 game broadcasts mean that we will always have an exclusive national window for 7 PM PST kick off games that the Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and ACC can not offer to media partners.  Only the MW is an alternative to the pac 12 and overall MW schools are located in smaller media markets than Pac 12 schools.

Moreover, Pac 12 fans will not travel to CST games.  Oregon and USC travel particularly well and even then they aren't close to an SEC or Big Ten fan base.  The Trojans have a big casual fan base who wants to see games with top opponents, and other than Texas and Oklahoma no team in the Big 12 has a lot of national appeal.

If the Pac schools feel the need to improve revenue because of some drastic disparity, a 1959 dissolution and reformation without OSU, WSU and perhaps ASU (its possible the unfortunate direction this athletic department appears to be taking could cause real lasting damage) so we can play a round robin schedule in football and double round robin in Olympic sports while splitting the pie only 9 or 10 ways.  As many posters have noted, the West has college fans but there is so much else to do that we aren't going to spend the same amount of money that SEC and Big Ten fans spend.

That was way out in left field.  If they didn't have the media appeal, why does their T1 & T2 rights bring in slightly more money than the entire Pac-12 media rights contract?

As for Pac-12 fanbases, that appears to be the case since CU's crowds are noticeably smaller these days as a Pac-12 member than a Big 12 member and Boulder is still at least six hours away from the west end of the CST.

Some Pac-12 schools spread themselves thin with the desire to be great with Olympic Sports.  If the majority of Pac-12 schools decided to really focus on football and basketball, I think the money would come.  The ACC isn't quite as focused on football compared to the SEC and Big Ten and it shows as well.  And the fans really do notice as well.

Some posters have noticed that I have a lot of enthuasim for CU sports.  I earlier stated that I was an OU fan and it's night and day difference between CU & OU when it comes to their fans.  I carried that over to being a CU fan.  You would find that same level of enthuasim in Nebraska as well.  Both states don't have much to do in those states.  This isn't meant to say I'm a better fan than anyone on this board...it's to point out what is so different in the Pac-12 versus the Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC.  You don't know how easy it would be for me to drop my support of CU and go back to being an OU fan but Colorado is my home.

[Orange]

These are universities, not professional athletic organizations.  The idea that we should "focus" on football and ignore athletic opportunities for all manner of students entering college is anathema to everything having to do with amateur athletics.  I'm fine being called a "shitty football fan" if that's the result.  I think we do better for serving society (which, after all, is the point of colleges) by offering free education to people who excel in football, basketball, baseball, softball, T&F, swimming, etc.

Will we be on national tv all the time as a result?  Nope.  But we'll cultivate better people as graduates.  And I think that's a superior outcome.  And it used to be a tactic that BENEFITED our football programs, rather than harmed them.  From Latin Berry to James Rodgers to LaMichael James to Jordan Poyer, many athletes from those "olympic" sports became fertile ground for athletes on the football field.

[Quack 12]

On 4/27/2018 at 10:10 PM, Jalapeno said:

CU's crowds are noticeably smaller these days as a Pac-12 member than a Big 12 member

Except in 2016, when CU played for the Pac-12 Championship. I can't imagine that folks in Boulder would generally be more excited to play an Iowa State or Kansas, as opposed to an Oregon State or ASU. CU's lack of attendance in recent years is directly related to lack of competitiveness. Very few terrible teams sellout their stadiums. Oregon's 110-game sellout streak ended in 2016 - primarily because they opened against UC-Davis -  but their smallest crowd was the last home game against Stanford, because the Ducks were crappy.

[KUGRDON]

“No Pac-12 teams were listed”

 

 

[All Hail]

2 hours ago, KUGRDON said:

“No Pac-12 teams were listed”

 

 

I don't see how Washington isn't in the top 7 or even top 5.  They have a very friendly schedule and get all of their toughest Pac 12 games at home.  They have one neutral site game of consequence and it's Auburn.  If they win that game, they are pretty much a shoe-in for the CFP.  Auburn didn't look to hot against UCF to end the season.  They are obviously very good but they are beatable.  I thought UW was by far the most impressive team of the bowl week as they gave an awesome team in Penn State everything they could handle.  

[glduck]

i would agree, arguing that our collective weakness is washington’s best shot at a playoff bid.

[KUGRDON]

 

[Pac12Fan]

Which team breaks through this year?  We have no dominant teams. We must have a few sacrificial teams (not on purpose) in order to get into the playoffs meaning we need a USC or Washington to win the games against Utah and Stanford so that we can get back to the big game. Our conference has too much parody and we keep knocking each other off the top. It makes for good conference games but makes us soft on a national level. 

[Utefan1211]

1 minute ago, Pac12Fan said:

Which team breaks through this year?  We have no dominant teams. We must have a few sacrificial teams (not on purpose) in order to get into the playoffs meaning we need a USC or Washington to win the games against Utah and Stanford so that we can get back to the big game. Our conference has too much parody and we keep knocking each other off the top. It makes for good conference games but makes us soft on a national level. 

May the best team win. I don’t believe any team is going to bend over in order to be the sacrificial team so that a few flashier teams can go to the “big game”. Screw that! If that is what needs to happen, we don’t need a conference. We just need a dominant team to run the table.