BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

It's risky, but perhaps "a smoking gun" is what Bowlsby's hoping for. If he doesn't have credible evidence for one now, I doubt a judge would allow him to blindly search for it in discovery. I would think ESPN's team says, "You have evidence? Show us first before we have to show you."

(And again, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once --and a jail for five weeks.)

 

I scrounged this from another board.


"John Skipper, former ESPN head, talking realignment.

He was on the Dan Le Batard podcast yesterday and kind of gave a peak behind the curtain on what's happening now on realignment and where he thinks it's going. Listen to the segment "Hour 2: A New Look SEC".

In summary, he said Texas & Oklahoma can get $20-$30M/yr more in the SEC than their deal in the Big12. He envisions the four 16 team super conferences playing out and the divide between the haves and have nots only getting wider with no G5s joining the club.

The other scary part is he said each school plays in the NCAA tournament by choice and not by contractual obligation. If the four super conferences happen he also said there would be nothing stopping them from forming their own 64 team basketball tournament in which every school makes it and no one from the outside the club participates which would render the NCAA tournament worthless.

If all that plays out ESPN will have ruined college athletics."


https://tunein.com/podcasts/Sports--Recr...=164747444

 

Anyone else think college football, in which many poor black children try to cripple each other for the entertainment of mostly white people, is wrong to begin with?

 

And this is from a C-USA board:



"College Football is blowing up, but not because of the guys running it, or the AD's or presidents, or even CTE's. It's blowing up to adapt to a new pay model now that it's addicted to cash.

We are witnessing a restructuring that takes place when you move from travel as an organizing concept which went through its changeovers from train, to car, to plane, and after '83-'84 adapted to market reach, then subscription fees, and now to brand only content. Think of streaming revenue like fentanyl and an AD's love of cash like an addict. And think of networks like pushers. So toss in a cash eater event like COVID in synchronicity with a pay model change and you get a rapid and radical destruction not only of pay model, but a scheduling model which out of necessity demands a reshuffling of all conference models built on Lords and serfs with built in advantages that created the co-dependencies of conferences with 2 contenders and their stat padding buddies who all made money in the market subscription pay model, and before that just on markets and before that just by being neighbors.

Texas and Oklahoma are merely reacting, as other massive programs will to multiple dynamic changes coming the most destructive of which is the technological change to broadcasting which has been static in mode throughout other pay models. With smart TV again computers are altering our lives because Nielsen isn't counting and estimating, and population that might watch is no longer relevant, so actual viewers and how long they watch and when they tune in can all be factored into advertising costs right down to demographics associated with your billing address, and census, to come up with a value which is then passed to the network rights holder and on to your conference. And all of that now says people watch big brands play big brands. Well we always knew that, but now it can be verified and quantified and that means the SEC and B1G 10 will be the best paid.

So what we've always known that! True, but we haven't always had ballooning debt. We haven't always been facing a major enrollment downturn which begins in less than 10 years which means we are overbuilt on Colleges and Universities, which means "Exposure is essential" and Big State U needs to play another Big State U and look impressive doing it in order to look appealing to a dwindling number of potential enrollees.

Complicating this issue is the die off of your most loyal, numerous, and last well funded group of fans, Boomers, and the lack of wealth due to many factors including rising prices in essential commodities, and consequently services, that chisel disposable income and raise debt while automation eliminates many jobs that once paid better.

So Texas and Oklahoma got the COVID wake up call and opened their eyes to the challenges that we all face in the near future, some of which are tied to the economic rise of China and our internal corruption, and they got a burr under their saddle to adjust before the football cash cow dies around 2036 when the youngest Boomer will be 74 and the oldest living Boomers 90, and all at, or past, average life expectancy and into their non attending and giving reduced years. So, a new economic paradigm enters. And they think they can hold onto this revenue a couple of decades past prime by giving consumers what computers say they want which is a battle royal between Ohio State, Alabama, Oklahoma, Clemson, and any other historic past power Michigan, USC, Washington, Tennessee and the new up and comers.

I'm sure the lineup is at least partially influenced by trivia and video games only enacted in real time. Or to put it another way it's gladiators meet Jeopardy's tournament of past champions.

I know it all sucks but this is what happens when a society no longer knows what it believes in and why, and that's always the point that hell shows up!

So it's not the SEC, or Big 10 when they start to grow, it's just that they both had a good framework to build around. It's not the schools. It's not even the networks that have wrought this, but rather a soulless corporate "more money is everything" culture. Couple that with forgetting one simple old childhood lesson, the love of money is the root of all evil and you have it. Whether from the Bible or the story of Midas the lesson is the same. It makes us destroy what we once loved the most: God (whatever your understanding), Family (70% of the cause of divorce is financial), Country (profit before security), Pass Times (baseball, basketball, football) and the relationships in them (our conferences). If we continue unchecked down this road, everything.

So onto 2 super leagues we head and from there....., well God help us all!"

 

I've had a similar thought many times, more often with regard to pro sports but it holds true anyway. "It's the lure of money, it's got a very strong appeal."

 

I do see an "adjustment" to NCAA football similar to what happened when they split D1 into A and 1-AA. With the heavy tilt southward, the sport might be gaining more money - but it's a non-entity in the Northeast and declining rapidly West of the Red River. Those are two huge population centers that you would seem to need in order to make the media rights fees work. This kind of reminds me of NASCAR's expansion in the '90s and after Earnhardt's death. There is only so much money out there that people are spending on college football. And people shouldn't confuse the NLI money with "new money" or revenue streams - that money was already there - it's just come out of the darkness.

 

This isn't good. I wonder if he has talked to the Clemson President. What happens if they partner up with Clemson and do to the ACC what UT and OU did to the B12?

 

Feels like he’s spitballing to get something from the ACC.

 

"Nice little athletic league you have here. Be a pity if something happened to it."

 

This is all just gross.

 

Talk to someone from another country and see how amazed they are that university sports are a big business.

 

Oh I have. When I was in London for work in 2012 I'd chat up the cab drivers and they couldn't believe 100,000 people would pack into a stadium and watch two colleges play football.