So B1G officially wants to become the Big 21......

[Smoked Toag]

Looks like they are in talks with Washington, Oregon, Stanford and Cal, along with Notre Dame. I'm assuming they won't get Notre Dame.

Big 12 better strike quickly on the rest (leaves Washington State, Oregon State, Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Utah).

 

[patdog]

Timing seems odd with them just announcing the new media deal a couple of weeks ago. It’s hard to see any of the Pacific schools adding enough incremental revenue to make them worth adding.

 

[Go Budaw]

Timing seems odd with them just announcing the new media deal a couple of weeks ago. It’s hard to see any of the Pacific schools adding enough incremental revenue to make them worth adding.

I could see Washington perhaps bringing the entire PNW market, which is extremely valuable. But agree on the rest. Not sure how much Stanford and Cal add besides academics of course. But I think the facade of where people pretend that **** matters for sports conferences is all but destroyed. The fact that a conference would coordinate athletic competitions between schools that are 4.5 hours apart by airplane has confirmed that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

 

[johnson86-1]

Timing seems odd with them just announcing the new media deal a couple of weeks ago. It’s hard to see any of the Pacific schools adding enough incremental revenue to make them worth adding.

Yea, obviously plenty of population and some reasonably good programs, but they're just not football crazy. But maybe that doesn't matter as long as they care enough to tune into games. I guess for advertisers, affluent people that care enough about football to turn on the tv are as good as affluent people that are fanatics.

 

[Duke Humphrey]

I read somewhere their new deals have language that "could" increase the value if they add membership, but speculation is that only ND would drive it up with any significance.

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

It might make sense for non revenue sports (everything but Football and Basketball) to be able to play most of their games without crossing the country.

 

[Cooterpoot]

And the SEC will grab up Clemson, FSU/Miami, Virginia, & NC or something like that. ND might be a bidding war.

 

[thatsbaseball]

Naw I read on SPS that would be a decade before all this consolidation and movement took place. **

 

[Duke Humphrey]

Not until their deal runs out with the ACC grant of rights. The Pac 12 and Big 12 are wildcards because their media deals are expiring and nothing keeping any school in the tent. ACC is another story.

 

[IPMdawg]

If it’s mandated that UCLA has to share media revenue with Cal, it potentially hurts the whole deal. Stanford and Notre Dame have a history of playing each other so that may entice ND. Phil Knight may be dangling an unprecedented, conference-wide Nike contract to get Oregon included. There could be some very interesting dynamics.

Does a 21 team conference work? Essentially you just add a third seven team division, right? Six division games and a game from each of the other two divisions. Top two overall teams play for championship. Takes 7 years to play every team just like the 14 team conferences now. Notre Dame would love to play 2 games a year in California as the only Midwest member of the Big 21 West. Now the current deal is probably for 9 conference games and that would only be 8. Could an annual Big 21/SEC football challenge make up for that?

 

[aerodawg.sixpack]

Timing seems odd with them just announcing the new media deal a couple of weeks ago. It’s hard to see any of the Pacific schools adding enough incremental revenue to make them worth adding.

I think it matters on how the B1G tv contract is set up. They probably have clauses where if they add teams, the payout increases proportionally to accommodate adding new members.

The SEC contract does and that is why we could add Texas and Oklahoma now/2025 and not wait until our media deal is complete. With that said, Texas and Oklahoma will bring more to the table during the next deal than those mentioned would bring to the B1G. But I don’t think any of those schools would bring down their value in any way.

Pretty good set up by the B1G get their big splash contract settled then increase it proportionally just to expand for the sake of expanding.

 

[Dawgg]

Not until their deal runs out with the ACC grant of rights. The Pac 12 and Big 12 are wildcards because their media deals are expiring and nothing keeping any school in the tent. ACC is another story.

Yeah, that ACC deal is prohibitive for all parties. The only thing that could help out the schools that want to depart the ACC is how willing ESPN is to protect the SEC brand. If ESPN begins to feel threatened by the B1G expansion (and how they're going to be completely left out of it), they could be willing to renegotiate their ACC contract if the SEC feels like it needs some of the ACC schools to keep up.

That being said, I'm not sure what the vote split has to be for the ACC to renegotiate. On one hand, the ACC members have some semblance of stability, but on the other, they're relegated to probably being the lowest paid power conference members for the next decade. I would assume the Clemsons and Florida States of the world would be at odds with the Boston Colleges and Wake Forests, while UNC, Miami, and one (but not both) of the Virginia schools sweat it out to see if they win the SEC lottery.