What the Big 12, Big Ten and SEC Might Look Like as Future 16-Team Conferences

[houstonbear]

No merger. Period. That lends itself to a very dangerous position for Baylor. A solid 12-16 team Big 12 with rights signed over until 2025 is the BEST possible outcome.

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[NewVision]

No merger. Period. That lends itself to a very dangerous position for Baylor. A solid 12-16 team Big 12 with rights signed over until 2025 is the BEST possible outcome.

Just out of curiosity, assuming money is equal, what's the difference between a 12-16 team league and a 24 team league if rights are signed over until 2025 in both cases?

[KODIAK]

It is all hypothetical because the powers that be have all invested in the Big XII and are not going to sign on to disbanding it to form a new conference with the ACC. That said it is a ridiculous idea to now want them to no longer be all in--especially if a Baylor partisan. A new conference with 24 members a solid majority of whom are former ACC members does not stack up good for any current Big XII member and I would say with emphasis terrible for Baylor because when this hypothetical one blows up and it would rather soon. Baylor is back in 95% chance of screwed territory. This idea is more like an emergency temporary transition situation. Something that does not fit with Big XII members at all right now. The Big XII is not in triage.

The Big XII right now is in the position of power. According to most speculation, it will likely invite or get applications for membership --however you term it-- from 4-6 solid athletic programs most if not all of whom are current ACC members. Make no mistake they will join the Big XII under the rules established by the current 10 members and the Big XII will be sitting with the SEC, Big 10 etc as one of the four 16 school leagues. That is great for Baylor and frankly great for each current Big XII member and great for each of the new 6.

This merger idea as to where things stand right now, is the worst realignment idea I have seen advocated here or anywhere and it is especially bad idea coming from a Baylor partisan.

[Krieg]

If FSU, Clemson, and G-Tech are wanting out of the ACC it is because of 2 things: The power is in the hands of the basketball schools and the money sucks. The money sucks because of the basketball focus and the fact that 4 schools are in the exact same market (North Carolina).

Therefore, the only reason FSU, Clemson, and G-Tech jump from the ACC is if the two problems are fixed. That means taking 1 school from NC (2 at the VERY most) and focusing on football-first schools primarily. Heck, Kansas got the shaft in last year's realignment and they have one of the best basketball traditions in the country. That shows how useful a good basketball product is in this mess.

So, take FSU, G-Tech, Clemson, and not Wake Forest from NC (sorry Wake...). That gives a solid 4-state area that gets reasonably close to WVU as well. Also, it keeps at least some of the old ACC rivalries intact. Go after UVA for the NC school to have a good rival as well.

The problem will be getting schools between the Eastern Bloc (new division name?) and the Western. That's where you have to look hard at Louisville and then beg Notre Dame while resorting to Cincy if you have to (they're rivals with Louisville fwiw). ND will have to go somewhere after all, and we can offer Tier 3 TV contract freedom. There's still Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, and Tennessee that we can't get a team from to connect the two sides, but I think that's the best we can do. Take Maryland if UVA goes to the B1G, or look at BYU again.

Under no circumstances do you take Miami, Duke by itself (0 football), or more than 2 NC schools, imo. You want UNC, then NC State, then a school outside NC like Maryland. The market for Duke or Wake football is probably too small to generate enough revenue to make them worthwhile, but I could be wrong.

[BearlyHere]

1. Never take Miami.

The thing is all the teams will want at least one game vs. a Florida team each year for recruiting purposes (it is the second richest state for recruits). I don't like then either but they do deliver a S. Florida TV market and national interest.

[BearinSoDak]

I think that any team coming from the ACC would be happy with either a game in Florida or Texas. At this point, I'd much rather add quality than quantity. As I stated before I'm not really sold on Clemson. I'd rather take Georgia Tech and Florida State to get to twelve. After that, if other schools come along then fine. Ever since Miami stopped winning championships their popularity has fallen off the map. Add in the potential probation and they could be the equivalent of SMU in this phase of realignment.

[HillCountry]

A 24 team conference is just too inwieldy, and will collapse under its own weight (old WAC). The haves will create a new conference leaving the have nots to form another. 16 is absolutely the max IMO for a sustainable conference. 12-14 is ideal.

[BearlyHere]

If the ACC starts to fall, grab six.

[NewVision]

A 24 team conference is just too inwieldy, and will collapse under its own weight (old WAC). The haves will create a new conference leaving the have nots to form another. 16 is absolutely the max IMO for a sustainable conference. 12-14 is ideal.

It's funny that you mention unwieldy. Only one conference has held at 12 or more schools for more than 15 years, and that is the SEC. The Big12 fell apart and the ACC (2005)/Big10 (20011)/Pac12(2011) haven't been at 12 teams very long. It's all about the commitment that the schools make to each other. The Big10 and Pac12 have figured out a way to make sure all schools are "commited": they signed over media rights for a significant period of time (Big10 is something like 20 years).

12, 16, 20, 24. You'll always have disagreement between the power brokers over any size conference. Once media rights are assigned, it doesn't matter. The conference is together for at least the length of that contract. Most of the time that gives schools time to cool off when they get pissed. The media rights are more important than the size of the conference. Do you think 16 is any more stable if rights aren't assigned? I'd still be looking over my shoulder at UT wondering when they were going to stab us in the back if they weren't.

[BearlyHere]

I still think we end up with PAC, SEC, BiG, B12 as 16 team super conferences. The rest won't matter (i.e. Sunbelt, MAC, etc...)

[NewVision]

I still think we end up with PAC, SEC, BiG, B12 as 16 team super conferences. The rest won't matter (i.e. Sunbelt, MAC, etc...)

There's too many teams with powerful alums that get left out in that equation. It's all fun and games until the government calls you a monopoly.

[SicEm Beers]

I still think we end up with PAC, SEC, BiG, B12 as 16 team super conferences. The rest won't matter (i.e. Sunbelt, MAC, etc...)

I have the same idea. Except it would an 80 team league with eight 10 team divisions. The 8 divisions would send their champion to a playoff for a championship. 2nd place goes to the BCS bowls. Divisions would be picked based on geography and the league would split up their huge nearly NFL like TV contract with all 80 schools.

I may create a thread in a week or so about this... outlining some other things and what the map would look like.

[NewVision]

This merger idea as to where things stand right now, is the worst realignment idea I have seen advocated here or anywhere and it is especially bad idea coming from a Baylor partisan.

Just for fun, I thought of what another major merger between power conferences might look like. You'll probably hate this one just as much.

West Virginia
Kentucky
Vanderbilt
Tennessee
Georgia
South Carolina

Florida
Auburn
Alabama
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
LSU

Texas
Texas A&M
Baylor
TCU
Texas Tech
Arkansas

Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Kansas
Kansas State
Missouri
Iowa State

Play an 11 game schedule where you play all of your division plus two from the other three divisions. Four division champs get seeded based on record, SOS, whatever. Highest two seeds host first playoff games against two lower seeds. Highest remaining seed hosts championship game. Winner plays the champion of the Rose Bowl (Big10/Pac12 defacto championship) for national title.

[PatrickMcHorn]

I'll attempt to one up you on a grand pie in the sky scheme plan:

A new division, the Badass Football League (BFL), specifically for football is created for the elite teams, chopping the number of FBS schools in half. Additionally, a new "NCAA" governing body is created just for football purposes that actually has the time, funding, and resources to investigate and punish the top schools in the country for newly written violations that make sense.

The league would consist of the SEC, Big 12, ACC, Big 10, Pac 10, Notre Dame, and 5 teams who go in and out on a promotion/relegation system giving a total of 64 teams.

Say the top 3 of the relegation/promotion schools stay in every two years based on a combined RPI like performance level for the two years. The lowest 2 drop down, and the highest two from whatever the lower FBS schools are called are promoted up.

Each school plays what would be a normal conference and non-conference schedule, with holes filled in the schedule by the 5 promotion/relegation teams. More than two games against a non-BFL opponent penalizes you in a BCS like formula for playoff seeding, with the current AQ conference winners (sans the Big East) getting an automatic spot. There's a 12 team playoff with the following format:

First Round:
Seeds 1-4 have a bye. Using last year's regular season final BCS rankings, and always assuming the higher seed wins:

Baylor at Oregon
VT at Arkansas
Wisconsin at Boise
South Carolina at Kansas State

Second Round:
Rose Bowl: Always hosts a Big 10 and/or Pac 12 team if available, if not, it goes by seeding. (Oregon vs. Stanford)
Sugar Bowl: Always hosts an SEC team if available, and opponent goes by seeding. (LSU vs. Kansas State)
Fiesta Bowl: Always hosts a Big 12 team if available and opponent goes by seeding. (OSU vs. Arkansas)
Orange Bowl: Always hosts an ACC team if available and opponent goes by seeding. (Bama vs. Boise)

Third Round:
Home games for the higher seed:
Stanford at LSU
Oklahoma State at Bama

Final Round:
Rotates between the BCS bowls annually.
Rose Bowl part deux: Bama and LSU

Problems with this idea:
- Too crazy and too long: I've got nothing on the crazy, but you could move the season up one week, and play two games before Christmas, and the last two the first and second weeks of January. That will likely not appease many University Presidents, but talk to them about what college baseball teams do every year and show them the check they'll get and maybe you can make some headway.

- Doesn't strictly protect the Rose Bowl at all, and will never be signed off on by Delaney or Scott: We could make friends with aliens, get them drunk, and then convince them to invade the bodies of both Delaney or Scott. Then we just sit back and laugh while the aliens are walking around all drunk like pretend to be the commissioners and sign on the dotted line.

- Monopoly problems: **** you. There's 5 spots open for one hell of a payday that no non-AQ team deserves. They'll go from playing Western Kentucky Methodist to hosting Bama. All you've got to do is win to continue playing.

- Hard on alumni/fans with all the traveling: It's definitely not bad for the highest 4 seeds if they make it all the way through. There's basically one extra game. Shifting the schedule back a week would also make it cheaper to go to first and second round games as they'd be pre-Christmas.

- Risk of injury to players: I hate this argument so damn much. Every other division of football from HS to NFL has playoffs. Are there really people concerned about injury in 11 extra games in this case, when there's around 1500 FBS games played already?

[KODIAK]

I still think we end up with PAC, SEC, BiG, B12 as 16 team super conferences. The rest won't matter (i.e. Sunbelt, MAC, etc...)

That does make sense but I dont really see how the Pac gets to 12 at this point. They will end up being the most unattractive of the 16 school leagues if they expand to 16 because to get there they have to add current Mountain West or Cusa schools out west--like Fresno, Boise, Nevada, Utah St, UNLV etc. If they took BYU, that would be the most attractive of any newer additions. I dont see any options for expansion that add to their pocket books.

They really screwed the pooch by just not taking in the Big XII South. They ended up paying a big price for shafting Baylor. That aspect of their plight I laugh at.

[PatrickMcHorn]

I think the real move that cost the Pac 12 was not taking OU and OSU and forcing Texas' hand.

But I still have no reason to believe that 4 conferences of 16 is an inevitability.

[HillCountry]

I'm thinking 12-14 will be the max. I don't see any real benefit to go to 16, particularly if the leaked BCS info was close to accurate. The PAC will sit at 12. They won't expand just to expand.

[KODIAK]

Pac may sit at 12 for the reasons stated earlier, the Big XII can make more money by going to 16 than 14--according to reports that the TV people have already given the conference pay off estimates based on its size and based on its candidates. The Big XII actually has a list of good candidates from which to pick.

[HillCountry]

Pac may sit at 12 for the reasons stated earlier, the Big XII can make more money by going to 16 than 14--according to reports that the TV people have already given the conference pay off estimates based on its size and based on its candidates. The Big XII actually has a list of good candidates from which to pick.

True, if the tv contract pays more per school for 16 teams. But the BCS itself will pay a set amount, to be divided as the conference sees fit.

[NewVision]

I know I know, broken record, but I am curious as to the kind of money that a BigSEC that had 6 of the final top 10 BCS teams, and 13 of the final top 25 BCS teams, along with 10 of 14 BCS titles and represents 35.5% of all BCS teams since 1998 (44 of 124). Switch LSU and Arkanas, and you have the follow breakdown:

SEC Northeast + WV =
8 BCS appearances between three teams (Kentucky, Vandy and SC never been) and one national title (Tennessee)

SEC Southeast + Arkansas - LSU =
13 BCS appearances between four teams (Ole Miss and MissSt never been) and five national titles (Florida-2, Alabama-2, Auburn-1)

Old SWC + LSU - Arkansas =
12 BCS appearances between four teams (Baylor and Tech never been) and three national titles (LSU-2, Texas-1)

Old Big8 =
11 BCS appearances between four teams (Missouri and IowaSt never been) and one national title (Oklahoma-1)

This are the two most powerful conferences over the last 15 years, covering a little less than 1/3 of the population. Amazingly enough, power is split pretty evenly throughout the conference (parity). And if you want college rivalries, you can't do much better than putting the old SWC and Big8 basically back together. Travel would actually be reasonable for everyone too. Easily 25-50% of the games each year would look like BCS games.

In the end, it would end having the quality of a mini-NFL with rivalry aspect that makes college football special. Winning a playoff out of those two combined conferences would basically be a de-facto national champion. An 11 game conference schedule with 5 division games and 2 games from each other division would set that league up for an NFL-esque type payout, especially if a BigSEC network were created.

From a numbers standpoint, the NFL makes $4 billion annually from it's primary media outlets (Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN and DirectTV). Let's say this conference is 1/4 as popular to the media because of the quality of the teams involved. That's over $40 million per team, and that doesn't even begin to consider a potential SEC type network that would dominate the south. Because of the popularity of the NFL, it actually expects it's media revenue to increase to $8 billion before the end of the decade* because of escalators in the contract. If a BigSEC conference had similar escalators, you'd be talking about media revenue exceeding current total revenue for entire athletic departments.

Amazingly enough, that kind of money would not only maintain the quality of the top revenue generating sports (each school would be upgrading annually to have the best facilities in the country), but to get into some of the "other" sports that have been cut because of budgets and Title IX. I'm thinking about men's soccer. This has been one of the first sports cut for Title IX and budget concerns. With the kind of money a BigSEC could pull in, soccer is back on the table. And over the past few years, soccer is gaining in popularity**. Given time, it could be a revenue generating sport, especially if you get the college rivalry aspect going. It will never be football or basketball in the fact that soccer on its own wouldn't warrant a big media contract, but it would probably be a strong pillar for the BigSEC network, driving increased ratings during lull periods, which in turn, generates more revenue.

If organized by a strong leadership team (I'm looking at you, Slive and the former Big12/Big10 guy that organized the Big10 and Pac12 network deals), you could see a conference that generates obscene amounts of money. Amazingly enough, we can finally fill in the ??? in the A&M-type logic.

1) Merge two most powerful and competitive athletic conferences in the nation
2) Sign over rights for Tiers 1-3 for a long, long time
3) Negotiate obscene media contract with escalators, while still owning BigSEC network (and its advertising rights)
4) Profit

References:
*http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/stor...ly-experts-say
**http://www.time.com/time/specials/pa...993757,00.html