The Big 12 expansion groundswell

[shoganai]

Four Super Conferences means lawsuits - potentiall crippling lawsuits. Four current BCS teams would have to be eliminated (Vandy? USF? Baylor? TCU? Utah? Colorado? Who would it be?)(assuming ND joins one of the conferences). No one is going to volunteer, and those four teams would immediately join-up and file a lawsuit to stop the realignment from happening. And different form threats of lawsuit from BYU &/or Utah in the past, the spurned four would have DIRECT DAMAGES that they could point to in their lawsuits.

Four teams can easily be sifted out through realignment. If the Big 12 breaks up, Iowa State and Baylor are history, and potentially Kansas State as well - and where is the serious ground for lawsuits? Count on at least as many teams being in danger if the Big East gets taken apart.

We're not talking about teams being kicked out of conferences. We're talking about the conferences they belong to simply ceasing to exist, and invitations to the supposed "Big 4" going elsewhere.

If this all did come down, I'm sure there would be some pretty panicked voices screaming lawsuit. But, the reality is nothing litigious needs to happen for some of these teams to be jettisoned. You might look at the dissolution of the SWC back in the early 90s for a pattern of how it would go down. Some teams squirreled themselves in politically, but half of the league was left cold and lonely on the side of the road, and none of them had any legal recourse.

[myboynoah]

They are symbiotic.

I would like to see my Big 8 Conference remain intact, but I don't think it's likely at this point. I see the conference doing some kind of duct-tape patch-up job to hold things together awhile, but nonetheless collapsing in the next five years. I think the conference management really blew it over the last eighteen months.

Just step aside, the adults are about to arrive.

[Babs]

Just step aside, the adults are about to arrive.

[dabrockster]

The Big 12 basically did in the last 18 months what the Pac-12 did for nearly two decades - use politics as an excuse to do nothing while everybody else made steady strategic growth.

In the Pac's case, Tom Hansen wasn't willing to upset the apple cart and make enemies in his beloved northwest by forcing expansion through. As a result, the conference got further and further behind until a non-Pac guy, Larry Scott, came in and got the job done.

Dan Beebe made the same mistake. He let the smaller teams run the asylum for the last year and prevent quick expansion back to 12, and unfortunately UT and OU went along with it.

Now they're in such a mess that even a mid-major who has beeng dying for a Big 12 invitation since 1994 is apparently hesitant to join.

Mid Major!!??!?!? I'm sorry, but what the hell are you?? BYU Fan, Utah Fan in cognito as a BYU fan? Or just pushing your source so hard hoping it comes true so you can show your self prophecy..

[Babs]

Mid Major!!??!?!? I'm sorry, but what the hell are you?? BYU Fan, Utah Fan in cognito as a BYU fan? Or just pushing your source so hard hoping it comes true so you can show your self prophecy..

I believe he's employing rhetorical devices to make a point.

[shoganai]

Mid Major!!??!?!? I'm sorry, but what the hell are you?? BYU Fan, Utah Fan in cognito as a BYU fan? Or just pushing your source so hard hoping it comes true so you can show your self prophecy..

This outburst is so confusing I'm not even sure what point of mine you're trying to disagree with...

[Art Vandelay]

shogun-guy when you first showed up, I thought you were this guy, for some reason. I was all excited, because he looks happy, his family is adorable, and dang it, he just looks like a nice guy. You may also have an adorable family but you need to lighten up and be more like jimmer-guy.

[dabrockster]

I believe he's employing rhetorical devices to make a point.

Sorry Babs, but all of his posts have shown to me his desire to be a Big Fish in a little pond.. His rehtoric is his own belief which manifested in exactly what he just posted. BYU is a Mid Major...

[shoganai]

Sorry Babs, but all of his posts have shown to me his desire to be a Big Fish in a little pond.. His rehtoric is his own belief which manifested in exactly what he just posted. BYU is a Mid Major...

New flash. BYU is currently a mid-major. Don't dare say this without bracing yourself for the searing rhetorical attacks from dabrockster.

[statman]

Four teams can easily be sifted out through realignment. If the Big 12 breaks up, Iowa State and Baylor are history, and potentially Kansas State as well - and where is the serious ground for lawsuits? Count on at least as many teams being in danger if the Big East gets taken apart.

We're not talking about teams being kicked out of conferences. We're talking about the conferences they belong to simply ceasing to exist, and invitations to the supposed "Big 4" going elsewhere.

If this all did come down, I'm sure there would be some pretty panicked voices screaming lawsuit. But, the reality is nothing litigious needs to happen for some of these teams to be jettisoned. You might look at the dissolution of the SWC back in the early 90s for a pattern of how it would go down.

Of course there would be grounds for a lawsuit. Those teams have past experience of getting paid big $$$ to be a part of the BCS. You take that away from them under what grounds? Because they don't deserve it? Well what teams that DO deserve it aren't getting a cut? BYU and BSU need in under that legal argument.

The problem is, the BCS is on its face anticompetitive. Unlike the professional leagues, they don't have legally supported and tested waivers for remaining an illegal cartel. But cartels just don't disappear because they're illegal. Someone has to sue to get rid of them. There has never been anyone with a really strong case challenge them - and everytime a team got close to having that strong case, they were bought off by the BCS.

Kick four teams out, and there will be four teams with VERY strong cases, and at least two more (BYU & BSU) who would be willing to jump in. And the Attorney General of a State (Utah) who has been constructing a case against the BCS for several years.

This is not a fight the BCS wants to get in. They don't need to either. Going to five Super Conferences takes away all those with the strongest evidence of damages. It's going to be really tough for Utah State or SUNY Buffalo to argue that they have been hurt by not having access to the BCS games or BCS money. They've never come close to such success within their inferrior leagues, why should a court believe that they've been damaged by officially being cut off from such access by being left out of the Super Conferences?

But Iowa State, Baylor or Vandy could make VERY compelling cases that they had been damaged by the SC's exclusive practices.

[dabrockster]

This outburst is so confusing I'm not even sure what point of mine you're trying to disagree with...

As confusing as you and your effort to subtantiate your pathetic source has been...

[oxcoug]

This outburst is so confusing I'm not even sure what point of mine you're trying to disagree with...

Shoganai I think he's pointing out the "mid-major" is a bullshit invention of a term that denotes nothing of substance but is now in wide usage -

BYU is in the top 30 programs in the country by nearly every meaningful measurement, but they get called a "mid-major" while football clownshows like Iowa St, U Conn, Wake Forest and Washington State are supposedly "majors."

[shoganai]

shogun-guy when you first showed up, I thought you were this guy, for some reason. I was all excited, because he looks happy, his family is adorable, and dang it, he just looks like a nice guy. You may also have an adorable family but you need to lighten up and be more like jimmer-guy.

I'm having too much fun with guys like dabrockster.

[Babs]

New flash. BYU is currently a mid-major. Don't dare say this without bracing yourself for the searing rhetorical attacks from dabrockster.

I don't think there's anything rhetorical about dabrockster's hyperdefensiveness.

[shoganai]

Shoganai I think he's pointing out the "mid-major" is a bullshit invention of a term that denotes nothing of substance but is now in wide usage -

BYU is in the top 30 programs in the country by nearly every meaningful measurement, but they get called a "mid-major" while football clownshows like Iowa St, U Conn, Wake Forest and Washington State are supposedly "majors."

I don't think there's the slightest chance there was half that much thought behind what he said.

Of course he will now claim otherwise.