BCS leagues expanding - yeah?

One small contrarian voice here.

When it comes to travel? Bear in mind, the tools to go to class remotely have never been easier. Shit, a lot of students, athletes or not, who are on-campus have remote classes (which seems like a blatant money grab to me on the part of the schools to get room and board you may not need, but I digress), including both of my college-aged kids.

Travel is arduous in different ways, physically, shit, mentally, so it's not as if it isn't a legitimate issue, but the "Oh noes! They're going to miss a bazillion days of class" Chicken Little's of the world are not really being totally honest or are ignorant about that. That's without taking into account that schools bend over backwards academically for athletes anyway.

Sorta related to this? I'm getting tired of national college sports media having it both ways.

I read a Will Leitch piece today on the irrelevance of college basketball. I agreed with some points, disagreed with more, but what struck me was the "college basketball is unrecognizable from the college basketball we all knew."

Which is true ... and Leitch isn't the only one who's written some version of that.

Problem I have, is many of the national types (not Leitch, who isn't a college basketball writer, I'm thinking of the national college sports media) who write that stuff are very often also the first ones to bear a torch to want to burn down the NCAA, get unions in college athletics, pay players directly, keep the transfer portal open, etc.

And I don't necessarily disagree with most of it, but I'm also not stupid enough to think all of the above isn't going to bring about significant change in college athletics. There are going to be a lot of eggs broken, including alienation of fans who never wanted any of this change in the first place. How could it not?

And I'm sure as hell not going to have it both ways and criticize the side-effects of the very thing I would be advocating for in a different column.

 

I think there's another bubble about to burst that might put the brakes on your scenario. It affects sports and beyond.

There's going to be a cord-cutting/streaming reckoning to come.

How many apps can people afford? I remember when I cut the cord. The main reason was to cut down on the ever-increasing satellite bill.

That worked for about a half-year until myself and my family added one app after another. I guarantee we pay more now than we ever did in the satellite/cable-only days.

It's not sustainable, especially when your entertainment choices are going for the same kind of exclusivity that the sports apps seek.

I do think the cable nets are going to wither to some degree, partly due to what you cited with ad revenue, which is why they're paying top dollar now to maintain programming exclusivity.

However, I also wonder at what point realignment hits critical mass to the point where the cable nets and networks to a point are hurt by it?

For all of the bitching and moaning by ACC schools on their ESPN deal, isn't it in ESPN's interest to eventually start to protect that deal? It's not good for business to lose national brands Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina or Virginia to rival Fox/CBS/NBC. ESPN probably has more to lose than the ACC does if those schools go to the other network. It's not unlike shoe deals.

Also? For all of the cable nets and apps, network TV still draws the most eyes. There's a reason the SEC and Big Ten both have network-heavy deals. The Big Ten specifically wanted more of its inventory on network TV, part of the reason they got into bed with NBC and an increased deal with CBS.

 

Cal's conference road games in 2023: At Washington, Oregon, Utah and UCLA (and Stanford). All easy flights, less than three hours.

Cal's conference road games in 2024: At Florida State, SMU, Pitt and Wake Forest.

Stanford's road schedule 2023: At Oregon State, USC, Colorado, WSU. Again, pretty simple (you can charter right in to Pullman).

Stanford's 2024 road schedule: At Clemson, NCSU and Syracuse (and Cal).

This makes sense?

 

The Tree is also travelling next year to South Bend and San Jose (I hope they know the way).

 

Getting them to come to San Jose has been a struggle. But now on the schedule are six games between the county rivals, three at Stanford and three in San Jose in the resumption of the Bill Walsh Legacy Game.

 

I’m surprised the AAC hasn’t at least sniffed around at UMass. The basketball program has some history beyond the Calipari years. I know the American doesn’t have hockey, but UMass’ entire athletic program is strengthened by it. As much as I like UConn back in Big East for basketball, they are the only public and stand out like a sore thumb. Perhaps they should go back.

 

I see where FSU now admits that independence is "not a true option," according to The Athletic. So what, pray tell, are their options? None. Their whining and posturing and threatening to leave are being exposed as nothing more than grievance politics and performance art to please their boy in the governor's mansion down the street.

 

I don't think anyone is thinking about players missing classes on long trips. The issue is the cost of sending the softball and baseball teams across the country.

 

It's a bit of a canard though. Almost all of those sports travel by choice for nonconference games and no one calls that out. The only reason anyone complains about conference travel is because we're not used to it. Fear of change and all. I have other reasons I don't like realignment, but travel is very low on the list, and it's one that gets brought so much it's becoming an empty trope.

Why? Take the diamond sports. If you're north of the Mason-Dixon Line, almost every single one of those programs, major or mid-major, takes a two-week-or-more trip down south or out west to get their games in, travel that is much more arduous than a weekend series and many do it by bus. Yes, they usually do part of it over Spring Break, but not all of it. And most of the programs have been doing it for years. Where is all of the consternation about that? Where is the cost concern? Most of those schools can and do fund-raise to off-set the cost. They will do the same for long conference trips.

Same for volleyball. Almost every team takes a Florida, California or another trip south or west. Or? Those teams come up north to play.

I know what the response will be, "they're doing those games by choice". Um, yeah, they're also moving into interstate conferences by choice. They're taking the money that comes with it by choice, some of which will underwrite the travel.

Most of the athletes I've heard from like, or at least accept, the idea they get to travel a bit to play better competition. Why? Because they already do travel.

On top of all of that? Volleyball is the only non-revenue sport I know of that is remotely round-robin, and like basketball, it's going to have to adjust to the new normal with more conference opponents, so I doubt you'll have USC-Rutgers or Washington-Maryland home-and-home's on the annual.

Baseball and softball are not round-robin, and like football, opponents are skipped from year-to-year. The conferences will work to keep travel to a minimum.

 

Our D3 conference would designate central neutral sites to get their non-revenue games in. But that was a range from Texas to Indiana, so meeting somewhere in Missouri was manageable. And it was D3.

If D1 athletic budgets can't figure out a way to do the same with the bolstered funds they will have, that should be a dealbreaker.

 

Unless you are going to have Stanford and Cal play each other 10 times in every sport, there is no way possible to minimize their travel.

I already saw that UCLA's football travel mileage will increase by more than 250% next year. And in the Big Ten in a sport like baseball or softball, it would be a competitive advantage, travel-wise, for the midwest/east schools to not travel to the West Coast. And it would be a competitive disadvantage for the four West Coast teams to play each other each year and not get a skip, as they are historically better than the existing Big Ten teams (USC does not have softball).

 

All Big Ten schools (including Oregon and UW) would benefit from having a festival weekend of Olympic sorts in southern California. It'll allow all teams to play there at once and give an in recruitingwise. It could eliminate true home games but as mentioned, these teams are already playing all sorts of neutral site games in Florida during the spring semester.