TKthunder2

Agree think it’s a smart strategy. Play around the P2 conferences, avoid playing your best games in head to head competition with their blockbusters and do your best to capitalize where you can. If Texas isn’t playing (like in Nov2nd) put up a Baylor/TCU game and see if you can get any of that audience to watch an in state match up. Do the same with Okie St, UCF, and any others you can.

Big 12 gets a pity mention in ESPN’s “must watch” cfb games of 2024. (The ACC games are weak also). https://athlonsports.com/college-football/espn-names-eight-cant-miss-college-football-games-for-2024-season-georgia-alabama-texas-michigan Miami at Florida (which coach is going to get fired first game) Texas at Michigan Georgia at Alabama Ohio St at Oregon Georgia at Texas Florida St at Notre Dame Michigan at Ohio St Utah at Oklahoma St

My only problem with that list is Brian Kelly has never won a single conference or national championship…so it’s weird to have him in that category.

I just was having a similar talk with one of my neighbors yesterday, but it was more along the lines of Bama is a top ten job but maybe not a top five job due to NIL, smaller state population, lack of nearby metro areas, and increased competition. Program success doesn’t necessarily correspond to job desirability, for example Clemson has been a top 10 program for a decade but is clearly not a top ten job. However, to say that they are not a great program or not a destination job is just asinine. Bama could turn into 2000-2020 Tennessee for the next 20 years and they’d still likely be a top ten job.

You’d never make it as a copy editor good sir. (But neither would I)

If you pass out in negative 30 you’d been dead in far less than 10 hours.

Cinderella can get some attention when they make a deep run from casual fans but the opening round of 64 and round of 32 games are trash for broadcasters/advertisers outside of the final minutes if it’s close. Even the slightly elevated ratings that Cinderella gets when on a great run, doesn’t offset the potential revenue loss for all the rest of the blow out games. There is a reason the 8/9 games are on CBS while the 16/1 games are on Tru TV. I’m going to go try and find the article about this where I saw the analysis but I’m having no luck at the moment in between work calls.

Point me to the thread, happy to join in the talk but I think in the basketball tournament is applicable in the realignment thread, we commonly talk about the Big 12 adding Gonzaga in here… Again, to reiterate, I love the current tournament setup, but the data shows it’s not as profitable as a P4/5 only tournaments see recent changes to NIT and the new FOX tournament (https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2023/09/11/college-basketball-las-vegas-fox-postseason-tournament-replacing-nit.aspx) IIRC only about 1/3rd of the tournament revenue goes to the men’s DI basketball programs, much more of it goes to pay for non revenue sports and championships for DII and DIII. If you exclude all except the P4, G5, Big East (or whatever combo they decide) and remove it from under the NCAA, while the overall tournament may be less profitable, the shares of profit going to the schools would increase since they would keep more of the money (100% of $500mil > 30% of $1bil). Again, I’m not advocating for this change, but logically see this as the next step. Once major fb realignment is settled and the CFP has been renegotiated, I can easily imagine the SEC/B1G/B12/ACC looking deciding a bigger split should be in the works. The NCAA itself has already laid out a plan for larger schools to pay players and breakaway from the fringe DI schools that are barely funding their athletic departments. I think the P4 schools see the tournament as a money maker and great advertising that they can run. An easy miscount solution is breakaway from the NCAA and run it themselves and allow any conference that wants to participate with them to do so with an entry fee of (making up a number here) $20 million a year. Each round of participation gets the conference a return of $8 million. Meaning you either need 3 bids to the tournament to not lose money without winning a game, or a single bid and 2 wins. Something like that would make some of the fringe one bid league drop out and allow more participation from P4 teams on the bubble.

The problem is that nobody watches. People talk about loving Cinderella but nobody watches those games until the last minutes if it’s close and despite those upsets being memorable moments, they are NOT profitable. Low ranked schools lead to low viewership. When you had FAU, UConn, and San Diego State in the final four, nobody watched and it was the lowest rated final four in many years. Having a only P5 teams would increase the total watch time for the early round games and would purposefully exclude the lesser brands from their bigger games that attract bigger audiences. Writers and casual fans love to romanticize Cinderella, but most real fans want to watch Kansas, Kentucky, UNC, Duke, UCLA, Indiana, Ohio St, Florida, LSU, Arizona, Texas, and so on…in the S16/E8/F4 and that is what sells ads which is what drives the market rate for the entire tournament. It’s not a popular idea, but it’s factual. The P5 schools don’t want to be upset/embarrassed by the Ivy League or MAAC teams, and to rub salt in the wound, most of the times when that happens it tanks the ratings as well which takes even more money out of the pocket of the P5. While the loss of big brackets and Cinderella will likely hurt in the short terms, but in the long term it would be more profitable. You can argue that this shouldn’t be about profitability, but then you likely haven’t been paying attention to the last 30 years.

Everyone in that list, except Oregon, has a stadium in the top 23 capacity. Stadium capacity tends to correlate well to TV ratings (more people want to go to your games is similar to the number of people that watch on TV). The other 6 in the top 23 not on this list: aggy, UCLA(not on campus), Nebraska, South Carolina, Arkansas, Michigan St

Can we finally put to bed the dumb argument that Clemson is going to get left out…

Necro bump My detail service closed up shop (owner moved out of the area) anyone have a good recommendation on a mobile detail guy in North Austin?

I think you’re confusing Arizona with Arizona State in parts of the above. The Arizona president/AD was show me the money, the ASU President/AD was all this is fine.

Wasn’t that the exact situation prior to the October attack? Hamas in charge of Gaza with Israel fully withdrawn? I don’t understand why Israel would accept this deal. How many hostages does Hamas have left? Will they stop firing rockets or is this another one sided cease fire? The humanitarian in me thinks ending the war is a great idea, let aid/aid workers in to help the people of Gaza and hopefully restore some semblance of normalcy to their lives…but the tactician in me thinks that it would only allow Hamas to regroup and attack again at a later date. When Israel said “never again” I tend to believe them.

That’s a logical assumption, but that neighborhood fought like caged pit bulls against the hospital expansion on the existing lot. I don’t think they’ll just allow more to medical buildings to pop up there very willingly. A little birdie told me that the Shoal Creek psych hospital isn’t long for this world either so that whole area that includes Randall’s and Burger King could be very attractive for a developer.

ESPN and TimeWarner/Spectrum were blacked out due negotiations https://sports.yahoo.com/espn-spectrum-why-alabama-football-110350974.html

Vandy has been covered and Northwestern is the same for the Big Ten minus the good baseball part. Indiana ain’t going anywhere, large enough state to support them, good academics and basketball royalty. I’d trade Mississippi State or Purdue for Kansas in a heartbeat if I was either leagues. Those two schools are the luckiest in the P2. Still, it sets a bad precedent for the Big Ten/Sec have nots if they start cutting the fat, so it will never happen. The only way would be for a new league to be created where Ohio St, Michigan, Penn St, USC, Notre Dame, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, LSU, and Texas form a new league a start from scratch where all team are viewed critically before being invited in

FSU, Clemson and obviously ND bring eye balls, regularly sell out their 70k+ seat stadium, and have the appropriate fan/institutional support. Miami is different, they could be included but they aren’t the same as the above.

They may not do as well but their schedule isn’t anything ridiculous. Arkansas and Tulsa OOC and they avoid Kansas, Iowa St, UCF, Arizona and obviously UT/OU. The only hard addition for them is Utah.

Oklahoma State will be up there as well.

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The PAC2 will merge with the MWC once they squeeze every last cent they can from the CFP and what little juice is left in their conference coffers. If the ACC loses FSU, Clemson, Miami, UNC, UVA and any high value teams to the SEC/B1G plus their second rate teams like Louisville, NCSU, Pitt, VA Tech to the Big 12 they will also survive in a similar manner. There are just too many schools in the ACC and too many backfill candidates sitting out in the American/Sun Belt/CUSA for them to go quietly into the night. USF, UConn, Memphis, Tulane, and Temple are the quick and obvious no brainers that come to mind before you start looking at less prestigious schools with good football like App State or Liberty.

It’s a bad point. aggy, Arkansas, and OU will hate us, scheme for us every offseason, spring/fall camp and bye weeks…and to a lesser extent and for recruiting purposes we might get a little of that from LSU and Mizzou too. We’ll hear the same stupid narrative that “player X grew up wanting to play in Austin but didn’t get offered” but that will be about 1/3 of our schedule versus what was 1/2 in the Big 12. Sure, schools East of the Mississippi will circle our game, but they’ll also circle Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma and others as well and that make a big difference. I agree they’ll play hard because it’s a big game national broadcast, but that’s not the same as a jihad mentality that the Big 12 teams brought where many would change their offensive/defensive base scheme that would match up the best against what Texas/Oklahoma were running. This was compounded when we went to round robin play. Before we only played 5 opponents each and every year in the Big 12 South and rotated 3 from the North, but when 9 opponents became annual, it incentivized ALL coaches to scheme specifically for UT/OU because a losing season was often considered successful if you could upset one of the bluebloods. No one outside of aggy/OU/pig will do that shit in the SEC when we don’t play them every year which is a big reason I’m a fan of the 3-6-6 scheduling model.

TCU, Colorado, Utah, Arizona St, Oklahoma St, K State, UCF, Arizona, Kansas, BYU, Baylor, Texas Tech, Iowa St, West Virginia, Houston, Cincinnati