The PAC 10 expansion groundswell

[All-American]

I think you're crazy.

I mean, I did ask for it, so.

Sankey was a key supporter of expanding the playoff to 12 and giving automatic bids to the five P5 conference champions and another autobid for the best of the G5s. He recognizes that, otherwise, the rest of college football would lose interest, affecting viewership, and ultimately the price networks are willing to pay to televise conference games during the season.

I thought your "30 team" observation was interesting, but I don't think it applies that well to college sports. College sports have factors (like history, rivalries, school loyalty, market segmentation) that expand the number of participants that maximise interest among fans and viewers of college athletics. Otherwise, how do we explain states like Alabama and Mississippi being able to support two college teams apiece in the richest conference in the land, while neither are home to major pro sports teams? Yes, the B1G and SEC can add schools, but why do they need to do that? The B12, ACC and maybe the PAC are there to provide homes to other schools and maintain a nucleus of roughly 70-80 schools in the upper tier that are needed to make this whole thing work.

Like I said, college isn’t the same as pro sports. When you don’t have people tied to their alma mater, you run that experiment four times and each time you end up with about thirty-one teams. But people do associate with the university. That’s why the Big 10, though it has the Indiana market locked up and features not one but two universities in the Hoosier State, would move heaven and earth to add that third one in South Bend.

But you ask why they would keep adding schools. I ask why they would stop. You can be sure each conference will add a team it thinks is net value additive versus being value distributive. We know that because we’ve seen it for the past decade and a half. The only question is where it stops. I think the number is north of thirty. I used to think it was sixty or so, since that nicely accounted for all the P5 teams, but the reality is a lot of those teams are dead weight.

Whatever the number is, as long as the SEC and the Big 10 keep widening the gap between them and the rest of the field, the rest of the field will happily jump in bed with them if the call ever comes. At this point, is there a single school in the country not currently in those conferences that would not accept an offer from them if it came? (Notre Dame, maybe?) And that lasts until there is no one else worth adding.

[All-American]

We have had this discussion before, and at some point fusnik will swoop in and call most of us dummies and tell us how it is. But I disagree that we are doomed to a one or two-league power system in college football and everything else will die. Yes, we are seeing some disruption and the two big leagues are in a race to pick off the few remaining blue bloods, but CFB is substantially different than the NFL. If you concentrate the broadcasting power behind a small handful of teams (even if they are big teams), you will not keep the same audience you get with the broader collection of schools we have now. CFB loyalties are different. You think all of the BYU/Utah/USU fans (for example) are going to start rooting for USC or Texas or some other big school the same way they support their current schools? No way. Part of the magic of CFB is rooting for your local school or your alma mater. CFB would be mortally wounding itself by creating a 30-team super league and drastically reducing their overall market. As MBN says, there is plenty of capacity for content and there are plenty of talented kids who want to play college football.

Furthermore, I am always amazed at how badly people misunderstand the NCAA. They think it is some kind of government agency policing universities. It is literally an organization formed and governed by universities. People talk about universities leaving the NCAA. Why on earth would they do that? If they want to change something (like going to a 12-team playoff!) they can just vote and do it. You also need to remember that these universities are run by university presidents, not football coaches. SU is absolutely right when he says ultimately the big decisions are made by the presidents. University presidents are not going to vote to kill off their own organization.

Given the current climate, I think the B12 is as stable as it could be. Lots of good schools in a region of the country with great fan support, but no elite blue bloods left to pick off and destabilize the conference. Unlike the P12, they can expand in any direction and they are in a good time zone. And now that we have a 12-team playoff, increased fan interest and visiblity in the post-season. There are lots of reasons for optimism.

PS: I also agree that Utah will most likely end up in the B12. Would rather see them in the MWC, but oh well.

A lot of your points are actually my points. But let’s talk about the NCAA.

That organization, to be blunt, has completely failed its mission. You are seeing the consolidation and conference shuffling specifically because conferences are filling the leadership and organizational void left by a feckless national governing body.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Whatever the number is, as long as the SEC and the Big 10 keep widening the gap between them and the rest of the field, the rest of the field will happily jump in bed with them if the call ever comes. At this point, is there a single school in the country not currently in those conferences that would not accept an offer from them if it came? (Notre Dame, maybe?) And that lasts until there is no one else worth adding.

I think they are getting pretty close to that point.

[Jeff Lebowski]

A lot of your points are actually my points. But let’s talk about the NCAA.

That organization, to be blunt, has completely failed its mission. You are seeing the consolidation and conference shuffling specifically because conferences are filling the leadership and organizational void left by a feckless national governing body.

The organization of universities is failing because of the leadership provided by the .... (checks notes) ... universities.

College fans have invented the NCAA bogeyman out of whole cloth.

[Bo Diddley]

We have had this discussion before, and at some point fusnik will swoop in and call most of us dummies and tell us how it is.

I love all the different personalities on this board.

[All-American]

The organization of universities is failing because of the leadership provided by the .... (checks notes) ... universities.

College fans have invented the NCAA bogeyman out of whole cloth.

The organization is failing because you don’t have a national institution that is strong enough to protect the collective value.

As a result you do not have the kind of coordination necessary to prevent what has been a cascade of prisoner-dilemma moves. From Nebraska to USC/UCLA, just about every conference realignment move has been a transaction that benefited the expanding conference and the moving party, and hurt the rest of the sport. That is a direct result of the NCAA being toothless.

[Jeff Lebowski]

The organization is failing because you don’t have a national institution that is strong enough to protect the collective value.

As a result you do not have the kind of coordination necessary to prevent what has been a cascade of prisoner-dilemma moves. From Nebraska to USC/UCLA, just about every conference realignment move has been a transaction that benefited the expanding conference and the moving party, and hurt the rest of the sport. That is a direct result of the NCAA being toothless.

Ha! Most fans complain that the NCAA has too much power.

[USUC]

Twitter tells me that a local sports media personality is reporting that BYU is actively advocating for the inclusion of Utah into the Big-XII. Awesome.

[All-American]

Ha! Most fans complain that the NCAA has too much power.

Most fans are morons. (High five fus!)

But more to the point, I don't think most fans complain that the NCAA has too much power. I think most fans complain that the NCAA cracks down on really stupid things while failing to address major things.

[Uncle Ted]

Twitter tells me that a local sports media personality is reporting that BYU is actively advocating for the inclusion of Utah into the Big-XII. Awesome.

But at a decreased share I assume.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Most fans are morons. (High five fus!)

But more to the point, I don't think most fans complain that the NCAA has too much power. I think most fans complain that the NCAA cracks down on really stupid things while failing to address major things.

With all due respect, I think the notion that the NCAA should be in the business of controlling which conferences schools are allowed to join is crazy. And I will repeat it again, the NCAA is the universities themselves. If the universities wanted that kind of rigid control, they would’ve implemented it.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Lots of chatter this morning about Colorado and Arizona leaving for the big 12.

[Green Monstah]

Personally I'd love Arizona. Screw Colorado. I'm not sure many people give AF about CU sports. Both seem dilutive, however.

[Clark Addison]

Lots of chatter this morning about Colorado and Arizona leaving for the big 12.

I think it would be great to have one of the very few blue bloods other than BYU that is progressive enough to hire a minority head football coach.

[All-American]

With all due respect, I think the notion that the NCAA should be in the business of controlling which conferences schools are allowed to join is crazy. And I will repeat it again, the NCAA is the universities themselves. If the universities wanted that kind of rigid control, they would’ve implemented it.

The fact that the NCAA has failed in its mission of nationwide governance does not mean there is no need for nationwide governance. Indeed, we are now seeing conferences, which while once regional are now becoming national, filling that very role-- as driven by the universities themselves.

If you want to blame the shortcomings of the NCAA on the universities, for failing to give them the ability to govern adequately, versus the NCAA itself, for its failures in using the ability it was given, fine. The fact remains that the expansion era has been a series of individual transactions that benefitted the individual participants at the expense of the whole-- a classic prisoner's dilemma situation that broader coordination is supposed to prevent, but hasn't.