Big Ten and other Conference Expansion

[dragurd]

Pods don't work at 18. My hunch is that, if we go beyond 16, we'll adopt a non-divisional model like the AAC just did. Rotating balanced schedules and 3 protected rivalry games. Domers could still get their California games by burning off two for USC and Stanford, but they'd need to pick 1 of tsun, sparty and boiler.

We could do pods at 20.

Western: USC, UCLA, Stanford, Oregon & Washington
West Midwest: Corn, Minny, Wiscy, Iowa and Illinois
East Midwest: Purdue, Northwestern, Indiana, Sparty and Domer
East: Ohio State, TSUN, Pedsters, Rutgers, Maryland

But I still think we shouldn't.

I think pods were a thing cause it makes the championship structure clean. While 3 teams undefeated but never faced each other is a potential mess.

 

[Bill Lucas]

LHN was an abject failure.

Give it time...

Yeah, Texas fans claim it made the university $100 million or more.

1) It didn't 2) it helped break up the conference and 3) from what I understand the content was horrific.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

I think pods were a thing cause it makes the championship structure clean. While 3 teams undefeated but never faced each other is a potential mess.

Which is why when the whole superconference thing reaches its final form, I think there might be a two round conference championship playoff. Either 4 pods or 3 pods with a wild card team as the 4th. Then we do our B1G-SEC Super Bowl between the two winners.

 

[dragurd]

Which is why when the whole superconference thing reaches its final form, I think there might be a two round conference championship playoff. Either 4 pods or 3 pods with a wild card team as the 4th. Then we do our B1G-SEC Super Bowl between the two winners.

Yeah I could see that. Plus it would avoid the situation of 2 in the same conference playing and the rest of the country gives no shit.

 

[TampaBuckeyes]

Which is why when the whole superconference thing reaches its final form, I think there might be a two round conference championship playoff. Either 4 pods or 3 pods with a wild card team as the 4th. Then we do our B1G-SEC Super Bowl between the two winners.

Just won’t happen. It would take the big ten and sec partnering and saying they will have their champions play and fuck the committee. Sec gets too much from the current system expanding. Would be awesome though and each conference would likely go to 24 teams and have their own playoffs. Maybe one day.

For now I’d think of it more like basketball, where there are conference tourney winners and then March madness is completely separate. NCAA tourney will go to 16 teams eventually.

 

[cincibuck]

Someone on the MWC board says he has a journalist contact who says the Domers have come up with their "non-negotiable" demands. Take it for what it's worth, but it's certainly consistent with their history, arrogance and MO.

They demand a California game every year (giving them an unfair advantage in access and exposure to California recruiting).
They demand to be in a pod with tsun, Sparty and Purdue (attempting to undermine and lessen The Game)
They demand that none of their home games be on the BTN (creating the perception that they are superior to the rest of the conference)

With six of the nine judges on the Supreme Court being Catholic and one of the six an ND Law grad must make the Church and the Domers feel like they can name their terms. But then, how is that any different from their past behavior?

 

[cincibuck]

Yeah, Texas fans claim it made the university $100 million or more.

1) It didn't 2) it helped break up the conference and 3) from what I understand the content was horrific.

It didn't help that the football team took the opportunity to suck.

 

[LovelandBuckeye]

Which brings me to what I really want to write about -- the NCAA Tournament.

How confident are we that it'll remain untouched?

CBS and Turner have a contract to broadcast the NCAA Tournament through 2032. So we should be cool for a decade, I guess. But if the Big Ten and SEC are indeed super-sized leagues pushing a combined 50 members when that contract expires, how crazy is it to think the SEC and Big Ten could grab another league or two -- or not -- and offer networks a postseason tournament featuring nothing but schools from those leagues? Does it sound any crazier than UCLA and Rutgers being in the same conference?


Obviously not.

I recently asked a television executive about the possibility of something like this happening, and he more or less told me it would probably be more lucrative but likely be an inferior product because, just about everybody agrees, one of the things that makes the NCAA Tournament special is how all the teams from all 32 leagues have access to it. Without that, you never get Saint Peter's over Kentucky. Or George Mason to the Final Four. Or Dunk City. Or Davidson's Steph Curry becoming a star by bouncing through the bracket.

But the only thing I heard is "more lucrative."

That scares me.

Because nearly every decision the decision-makers have made when it comes to seismic changes in college athletics in recent years has been motivated by money with little regard for anything else. So while I've heard many make the case that the one thing you cannot do is mess with the NCAA Tournament because an NCAA Tournament without all 32 conferences would ruin what is arguably the best postseason tournament in American sports, I guess my question is this: What if messing with the NCAA Tournament -- and by "messing with the NCAA Tournament" I mean basically replacing it with a gigantic Big Ten/SEC Tournament that determines the "national champion" -- is more lucrative for the Big Ten and SEC?

Would they mess with it then?

Before you answer, remember, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has already floated the idea of an SEC-only postseason tournament in football -- and if he's willing to put ending the CFP as we know it on the table, I can't imagine he's unwilling to put ending the NCAA Tournament as we know it on the table. He doesn't strike me as the sentimental type. Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren doesn't either.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-b...y-mean-big-changes-in-college-basketball-too/

An SEC only tourney in football would make very little money from the rest of the country. Especially casuals.

 

[ScriptOhio]

Pods don't work at 18. My hunch is that, if we go beyond 16, we'll adopt a non-divisional model like the AAC just did. Rotating balanced schedules and 3 protected rivalry games. Domers could still get their California games by burning off two for USC and Stanford, but they'd need to pick 1 of tsun, sparty and boiler.

We could do pods at 20.

Western: USC, UCLA, Stanford, Oregon & Washington
West Midwest: Corn, Minny, Wiscy, Iowa and Illinois
East Midwest: Purdue, Northwestern, Indiana, Sparty and Domer
East: Ohio State, TSUN, Pedsters, Rutgers, Maryland

But I still think we shouldn't.

I think pods were a thing cause it makes the championship structure clean. While 3 teams undefeated but never faced each other is a potential mess.

First 11 games: play everyone in your pod, everyone in anther pod (that pod rotates every 3 years), and 2 non conference games.

Play scUM at the 11th game. The 12th game will be the conference championship semifinal game for the 4 pod winners. The Commissioner assigns the other teams 12th game, etc. based on record and who hasn't played each other. The winner of each semifinal game plays in the CCG. Of course somebody will object because they want more than 2 nonconference games.

 

[ORD_Buckeye]

With six of the nine judges on the Supreme Court being Catholic and one of the six an ND Law grad must make the Church and the Domers feel like they can name their terms. But then, how is that any different from their past behavior?

I've always supported Warren on here, but if he lets them in with any special treatment, my hatred for him will burn with the fire of a thousand suns. And if they concede the demands that are clearly meant to marginalize Ohio State and to supplant The Game with Notre Dame rivalries with USC and TSUN, I (now I'm going to throw up in my mouth a little bit right now) wouldn't care if we were on the phone to Sankey the next morning. Every school in this conference, for two decades, has been cashing checks that Ohio State wrote, and if we get screwed in any way to favor fucking Notre Dame? And to our new friends in California.....

 

[dragurd]

First 11 games: play everyone in your pod, everyone in anther pod (that pod rotates every 3 years), and 2 non conference games.

Play scUM at the 11th game. The 12th game will be the conference championship semifinal game for the 4 pod winners. The Commissioner assigns the other teams 12th game, etc. based on record and who hasn't played each other. The winner of each semifinal game plays in the CCG. Of course somebody will object because they want more than 2 nonconference games.

Pretty much. Also how much has the Pac backstabbed it self twice. That never came up. The BIg Ten offered them a scheduling alliance twice. Firstg time they backed out 2nd they were like maybe then 6 months later were like that makes our schedule harder... and now they are dead

 

[Bill Lucas]

 

[Dryden]

Pretty much. Also how much has the Pac backstabbed it self twice. That never came up. The BIg Ten offered them a scheduling alliance twice. Firstg time they backed out 2nd they were like maybe then 6 months later were like that makes our schedule harder... and now they are dead

Larry Scott’s incompetence is the gift that keeps on giving.

https://www.johncanzano.com/p/canzano-phil-knight-can-help-put

…

Larry Scott had no problem with taking a $7,500-a-night hotel room for himself. This was 2019, and the Pac-12 Conference was in peril, woefully behind its college conference peers when it came to revenue, brand and vision.

The Pac-12 commissioner was in Las Vegas for the conference basketball tournament and meetings with his athletic directors, who were bleeding financially. The tone-deaf Scott booked himself in a two-bedroom Sky Suite villa at ARIA.

It came with 24-hour butler service, a private elevator and 3,370-square feet of space. Scott’s suite also included a marble jacuzzi tub, a fully stocked bar, and access to a private pool.

It was a terrible look. One that still sticks in the craw of Pac-12 athletic directors, university presidents and chancellors who are now scrambling to hold the conference together after UCLA and USC left this week for the Big Ten.

“Be clear,” a sitting athletic director told me on Friday, “Larry put us on the path here.”

The conference is now teetering after the defection of its two Southern California-based universities. Los Angeles is media market No. 2, with nearly 6 million television households. That nearly matches the total number of TV households in the next three larger Pac-12 markets (Bay Area, Phoenix and Seattle) combined.

…

 

[TampaBuckeyes]

Larry Scott’s incompetence is the gift that keeps on giving.

https://www.johncanzano.com/p/canzano-phil-knight-can-help-put

…

Larry Scott had no problem with taking a $7,500-a-night hotel room for himself. This was 2019, and the Pac-12 Conference was in peril, woefully behind its college conference peers when it came to revenue, brand and vision.

The Pac-12 commissioner was in Las Vegas for the conference basketball tournament and meetings with his athletic directors, who were bleeding financially. The tone-deaf Scott booked himself in a two-bedroom Sky Suite villa at ARIA.

It came with 24-hour butler service, a private elevator and 3,370-square feet of space. Scott’s suite also included a marble jacuzzi tub, a fully stocked bar, and access to a private pool.

It was a terrible look. One that still sticks in the craw of Pac-12 athletic directors, university presidents and chancellors who are now scrambling to hold the conference together after UCLA and USC left this week for the Big Ten.

“Be clear,” a sitting athletic director told me on Friday, “Larry put us on the path here.”

The conference is now teetering after the defection of its two Southern California-based universities. Los Angeles is media market No. 2, with nearly 6 million television households. That nearly matches the total number of TV households in the next three larger Pac-12 markets (Bay Area, Phoenix and Seattle) combined.

…

This was an interesting read. And the commented are hilarious. I love the one about Uncle Phil helping to woo USC UCLA along with the Ohio state and team up north to the pac 12.

Most people in the comments seem to think this is the end of the pac and that holding onto Oregon and Washington is their only hope as the foundation for the future. Which makes me wonder why we are telling them to hold tight. I assume whether or not we get the domers we want them in the league.

If anything finishing off the pac and getting to 19 teams would only put more pressure on notre dame. Only thing I can think of is they want to retain the option to snag 2 from the acc and destabilize that league as well. That would be a real mercenary move.

 

[Woody1968]

This was an interesting read. And the commented are hilarious. I love the one about Uncle Phil helping to woo USC UCLA along with the Ohio state and team up north to the pac 12.

Most people in the comments seem to think this is the end of the pac and that holding onto Oregon and Washington is their only hope as the foundation for the future. Which makes me wonder why we are telling them to hold tight. I assume whether or not we get the domers we want them in the league.

If anything finishing off the pac and getting to 19 teams would only put more pressure on notre dame. Only thing I can think of is they want to retain the option to snag 2 from the acc and destabilize that league as well. That would be a real mercenary move.

I think if they want any more Pac teams, they need to move now.