Conference Realignment

[bobongo]

Ok FSU, it's Tuesday again now pick a door.


View attachment 14576

Both doors are locked.

 

[CEB]

Both doors are locked.

 

[Papa Foxtrot]

More anecdotal evidence that the bubble has burst??

 

[eetech]

College football fans should to get rid of this notion that college sports needs to be a certain size, contained to a region, or that college sports tradition is sacred. Those days are gone. The B1G has national aspirations to become a pseudo professional league that dominates college sports content. They have the B1G Network, and they will leverage it similar to how Fox dominates national and regional news coverage, how ESPN use to dominate national and regional sports coverage.

If you want to know how B1G will make everything work, just think of how pro leagues operate. In the NFL, teams in each division play each other, and play other divisions on a rotating basis. I see the same thing happening with B1G football. There's already talk that once B1G is done "acquiring" college brands, they'll move to a 10 game conference schedule. Other sports, especially baseball and basketball, it's a little easier given the amount of games a year.

Let's not pretend teams are all playing each other right now. We use to play everyone in the Coastal, and rotate playing teams in the Atlantic. We didn't play everyone in the ACC every year in football. Same goes for SEC East and West.

It will be Regional rivalries within a national conference...which is essentially how the NFL/NBA/MLB works. This is why I always said Oregon and Washington would eventually end up in the B1G despite what some said that the B1G only wanted blue blood brands mega "brands". B1G was never going to lose the West Coast rivalries which is part of their overall goal of regional rivalries within a national product...and content for all 4 time zones. I would venture to say they are probably not done with the West Coast yet...the west coast is on pause for the B1G until after the ACC teams figure out the GOR.

We are watching the college sports landscape shift before our eyes. Not everyone is going to like it, but I think networks and mega conferences are counting on loyal fanbases to stay loyal to their schools...and by extension, loyal to whichever conference they end up in.

I think you’ve nailed it. It remains to be seen whether it works, but it’s clear to me that networks think there’s too much college football they don’t need to pay for.

Just replicating what they do on Sundays with the NFL on Saturdays with, apparently the B1G, would give them enough viewership without having to pay 120 teams, and only supporting maybe 20-40 teams instead.

The only addition is whether ESPN will be content to pick up the scraps like they do in the NFL (which is also very valuable), or whether they will try and make a true competitor out of the SEC programming against the national coverage. 2 years ago I would have said, definitely compete. But now, it’s clear Disney has little interest in ESPN anymore (which is kind of ridiculous considering how successfully it is placed, but I guess you can’t sell too many Kirk Herbstreit soft toys and a Chris Fowler roller coaster just doesn’t have the same ring to it), and it may not have the money to bankroll the SEC competing nationally, focusing more on the regional aspect which should be fairly valuable in itself.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

Dodd had so much virtue he beat a team 222-0, used players (many much older) kept back from war, brought in players who didn’t even attend GT, played double digit home games, etc. That’s how much virtue he had busting out of his personality.

You should really get basic facts in order before you slander someone. None of this is true.

 

[Vespidae]

You should really get basic facts in order before you slander someone. None of this is true.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

All of this was Heisman, though, not Dodd...

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but I rarely watch football unless Tech is playing. Even the playoffs.

 

[CEB]

That is hysterically well done.

 

[Root4GT]

I've wondered about this for a while now. Everyone is focused on paying their team's players/recruits to play for them, but what if someone starts paying players on opponents' teams to underperform/sit out the week of their game? You could spend half a million per game to have the top 5 guys on your opponent's team sit out or play like crap that one game to help ensure a win for your side.

That is called racketeering and is a Federal offense.

 

[RonJohn]

You should really get basic facts in order before you slander someone. None of this is true.

The internet doesn't allow pesky facts to get in the way of a good narrative.

 

[cpf2001]

Those who say they wont watch the big matchups if GT isn’t a part is just comical to me. We haven’t been in the “club” in a long time yet everyone has been watching the 3 playoff games to hope UGA loses.

Living on the west coast now, it’s already amazing how little UGA matters to me for days GT isn’t playing them. I turned on 5 minutes against TCU out of curiosity and then walked right out that door. Nobody is gonna ask me about it the next day. Nobody is gonna bark out their car with a UGA shirt on. There will be maybe a couple columns in the paper, probably something on the evening news if I watched that, that’s about it.

Contrast that to the winter of 2017 in Atlanta and hearing neighbors go nuts over the games in real time and seeing lots everywhere. That was hard to ignore, but after years removed from it… eh.

Shrinking the pool of teams is likely to have that same sort of effect for a good part of the country. If you don’t live in the South, it’ll just become one less thing to worry about.
How many minor league sports champs can you name? Who won the XFL or USFL or whatever they’ve been running the last few years? What’s the long term plan for getting more nationally relevant by cutting off most of the nation?

 

[forensicbuzz]

Those who say they wont watch the big matchups if GT isn’t a part is just comical to me. We haven’t been in the “club” in a long time yet everyone has been watching the 3 playoff games to hope UGA loses.

Once we get into a 24plus team playoff (whether GT is a part or not) everyone will watch because it’s fun watching upsets. GT hasn’t been in March Madness much lately yet everyone watches for many reasons (upsets, fan of the sport, or gambling).

All we are seeing over this 20 year period is what should have occurred in the 60’s and 70’s which is the sport being made legitimate instead of continuing to be professional wrestling with fake matchups in bowl games and media majors picking the National Champ. It has been a farce my entire life and even smart fans have bought the BS of “pageantry” and “tradition”. Yeah, I love that tradition of getting to play powerhouses like Duke and Virginia every year. And then when we win enough games to be given the prestigious honor of playing in a corrupt bowl system we get to go the football hotspots of places like Detroit.

The sport will be much better when all this shakes out as all teams will have a chance to prove their worth on the field instead of bogus years like this upcoming season when we already know which 12 will produce the 4. Why? Because they continue to allow opinions thru polls to influence the top 25. UGA will have to lose 4 games to fall out of the top 25. Meanwhile you’ll have 2 loss teams who never get ranked because they aren’t “deemed” worthy in August. I can‘t wait for the money guys to take over from the NCAA.

You're talking about playoff games while everyone else is talking about regular-season games. Not the same conversation.

 

[yeti92]

That is called racketeering and is a Federal offense.

Who are you charging with racketeering in that scenario, the players?

 

[forensicbuzz]

I think you’ve nailed it. It remains to be seen whether it works, but it’s clear to me that networks think there’s too much college football they don’t need to pay for.

Just replicating what they do on Sundays with the NFL on Saturdays with, apparently the B1G, would give them enough viewership without having to pay 120 teams, and only supporting maybe 20-40 teams instead.

The only addition is whether ESPN will be content to pick up the scraps like they do in the NFL (which is also very valuable), or whether they will try and make a true competitor out of the SEC programming against the national coverage. 2 years ago I would have said, definitely compete. But now, it’s clear Disney has little interest in ESPN anymore (which is kind of ridiculous considering how successfully it is placed, but I guess you can’t sell too many Kirk Herbstreit soft toys and a Chris Fowler roller coaster just doesn’t have the same ring to it), and it may not have the money to bankroll the SEC competing nationally, focusing more on the regional aspect which should be fairly valuable in itself.

What will be interesting is when the NFL finally decides they don't care about CFB and actually start playing games on Saturdays during the regular season, not just after CFB ends. Then we'll see how CFB stacks up directly against NFL.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

I've wondered about this for a while now. Everyone is focused on paying their team's players/recruits to play for them, but what if someone starts paying players on opponents' teams to underperform/sit out the week of their game? You could spend half a million per game to have the top 5 guys on your opponent's team sit out or play like crap that one game to help ensure a win for your side.

They made a movie about this based on real life sports tampering a century ago...

 

[slugboy]

That is hysterically well done.

Jon Bois is fantastic, and his videos are must-watch.

He also did this (Falcons, not Tech):

What will be interesting is when the NFL finally decides they don't care about CFB and actually start playing games on Saturdays during the regular season, not just after CFB ends. Then we'll see how CFB stacks up directly against NFL.

That’s probably coming sooner than we think. If there’s money involved, they’ll go for it.

 

[forensicbuzz]

Living on the west coast now, it’s already amazing how little UGA matters to me for days GT isn’t playing them. I turned on 5 minutes against TCU out of curiosity and then walked right out that door. Nobody is gonna ask me about it the next day. Nobody is gonna bark out their car with a UGA shirt on. There will be maybe a couple columns in the paper, probably something on the evening news if I watched that, that’s about it.

Contrast that to the winter of 2017 in Atlanta and hearing neighbors go nuts over the games in real time and seeing lots everywhere. That was hard to ignore, but after years removed from it… eh.

Shrinking the pool of teams is likely to have that same sort of effect for a good part of the country. If you don’t live in the South, it’ll just become one less thing to worry about.
How many minor league sports champs can you name? Who won the XFL or USFL or whatever they’ve been running the last few years? What’s the long term plan for getting more nationally relevant by cutting off most of the nation?

It's the same thing here in Chicagoland. Sitting in the middle of B1G territory, where the B1G headquarters are, and there's not a peep about anything going on in the SEC. People don't care about the SEC games. They don't watch them, they don't talk about them, nothing. They talk Pro sports or sometimes a Michigan-OSU game. This is a 2 to 2-1/2 hour flight from SEC Country and in the same time zone and all of the SEC West.

 

[stech81]

Dodd had so much virtue he beat a team 222-0, used players (many much older) kept back from war, brought in players who didn’t even attend GT, played double digit home games, etc. That’s how much virtue he had busting out of his personality.

You do understand that game was played in 1916 and Dodd was born in 1908? And Dodd's first year at Tech was 1931 as an assistant coach.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

What will be interesting is when the NFL finally decides they don't care about CFB and actually start playing games on Saturdays during the regular season, not just after CFB ends. Then we'll see how CFB stacks up directly against NFL.

This decision is made by the TV partners, not the NFL.