TKthunder2

Ted goes homes, Beard quits to travel/be with Jade or some shit, Roy takes over as head coach and settles with Kelee, Nate is the new head assistant, Rebecca adopts a kid somehow and gets with Sam, Trent write a NYT best seller, and Rupert gets tied up in some #metoo shit…

UT+OU=8 additional conference games (staying at 8 games) Going to 9 games means the 16 teams would play each other 1 more time=8 additional conference games. 8+8=16

This is an easy solution. Step 1: Buy more overpriced hotels Step 2: Let them sit vacant for years Step 3: Pay me my consultants fees to find out Step 3 Step 4: Homelessness solved

Remember when the top 4 CFP rankings were Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Alabama, Auburn? That’s the most annoying thing, living outside of the SEC’s sphere over the last decade. Alabama/LSU and other generally deserved their rankings, Mississippi State/Kentucky and their ilk did not and got the benefit of the doubt far too often. It sets up big time games which inflates rankings and audiences. Which just continually perpetuates the feedback loop where it’s a good loss or a great win. The media (ESPN) echos this constantly, which leads to better rankings and eventually recruiting. We’ve been making this argument for years…but fuck it, if you can’t beat’em…

I agree, there was absolutely no reason Kentucky should have been ranked as high as 7th in the nation last year after beating (checks notes) Miami of Ohio, Youngstown State, Northern Illinois, and an absurdly overrated Florida team. But they were: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll?week=5

Why does this matter? Is recently top 10 ranked Kentucky football program that big of a bitch they can’t play a single P5 school each year? For fuck’s sake dump Louisville and schedule Illinois, Indiana, Wake Forest, Duke, Rutgers, Kansas, and Arizona. UK with SEC money out the ass, is playing games AT Toledo and AT Akron…they should be ridiculed to no end. 2023 09/02 - Ball State 09/09 - Eastern Kentucky 09/16 - Akron 11/25 - at Louisville 2024 08/31 - at Akron 09/21 - Ohio 11/16 - Murray State 11/30 - Louisville 2025 08/30 - Toledo 09/13 - Eastern Michigan 11/15 - Tennessee Tech 11/29 - at Louisville 2026 09/05 - Akron 09/19 - Youngstown State 09/26 - South Alabama 11/28 - Louisville 2027 09/04 - Toledo 09/18 - Murray State 09/25 - Ball State 11/27 - at Louisville 2028 09/02 - at Toledo 09/09 - Kent State 09/30 - Eastern Illinois 11/25 - Louisville 2029 09/01 - Georgia Southern 11/24 - at Louisville

What do you think is about to happen when UT/OU join? They will be renegotiating.

The DA is pathetic. APD is bad, but the DA is the bigger problem we’re facing in this city currently.

Texas and Oklahoma are going to vote for 9 games due to the game in Dallas. They did not sign up for playing more G5/FCS teams at DKR/Gaylord. I assume they’ll use that tactic if it come to it: “Look you’re just going to get outvoted when UT/OU join and look like pussies and make the conference look weak and indecisive if you vote for 8.”

Bama/LSU/Ole Miss/Arkansas make up only 5 of our OOC games in the last 10 years. There are still plenty of quality teams outside of the SEC that will bring in eyeballs: ND, tOSU, Mich, Pedo, Wisc, Neb, Mich St, USC, UCLA, FSU, Clem, UNC, Miami, VT, Ore, Wash The ones in bold are teams we’ve played recently or already have on the schedule. I don’t see this as a loss of the general fan. Even if you lose the blockbuster 10 million viewer game every few years this will likely attract more 4 million viewer games that Texas and Oklahoma haven’t been able to consistently do with our Big 12 schedules. Consistent premium quality is better for fans than getting a blockbuster once every half decade of so. I’d rather fuck the hottest milf at the country club every week than hold out for a super model every five years. https://www.secrant.com/rant/sec-football/the-4-million-club/97791125/

Other than Tech those were all rank v ranked games, while it’s undoubtedly a good indicator, it is not a sustainable metric of success. I’ll say it again, 3 things drive college football: nationally relevant rivalries big time brands ranked v ranked matchups You can get lucky with rankings occasionally but that doesn’t drive value that will be recognized by the networks When FOX and ABC have ranked v ranked games to put on TV the Big 12 looks good, but what will the ratings look like when you don’t have a great ranked v ranked game of the week, or an undefeated team that draws national interest? For the answer you can look at the PAC12 who despite being OTA nationally on FOX they were only the 7th most watched game of the week behind games on cable.

They’ll lock up a really good spot on FOX that likely was mostly dedicated to UT/OU previously, which should raise their average for each of the R8. Even if they lose spots on ABC and end up on ESPN more, they’ll still come out ahead, which is why I think ultimately they’ll landed Colorado and Arizona.

Yep.

First, we’ve seen first hand how aggy, Arkansas, LSU, Ole Miss, and Alabama travel to Austin. Won’t be surprised to see Florida, Georgia, Auburn, and Tennessee do the same, but this isn’t about getting opposing fans to visit, this is about getting our own fans to attend. Many of us don’t live in Austin. A large contingent of our season ticket holders travel from DFW, Houston, and San Antonio for games. As someone who traveled to DKR from out of town for nearly a decade I can tell you that our Big 12 schedule was pretty much always trash but the #1 factor on whether I’d attend a game or not usually boiled down to the kickoff time or if it was a back to back weekend of home games 11am kicks against a mediocre opponent on a back to back weekend usually was not well attended. Tech was our highest attended conference game in both 2015 and 2017; and our lowest in 2019. Let’s see if you can spot the pattern. 2015 Lowest attended conference games at DKR were Okie St (230 kick but we had just played Cal in DKR the week before) and K State (11am kick the week after OU). Highest attended games were Tech and Kansas, both Primetime kicks neither part of a back to back. 2017 is basically the same story: Highest: Primetime non back to back games against Tech/Kansas Lowest: K State (Primetime kick week directly before OU) and Okie St (11am kick the week directly after OU) thanks Big 12! In 2019 when Tech was our lowest attended conference game, it was a 11am kick. Shocking! If you remove outliers of the 2020 COVID year and an amazingly sparse game where we played K State the day after Thanksgiving in 2021 on the heels of a 6 game losing streak, our attendance between our best and worst game each year only fluctuates between 3-10k people. We packed in 93,000 people to watch Louisiana Tech for fucks sake, bragging that Tech was our best “draw” only further emphasizes why we needed to make this move in the first place. Absent a horrific losing streak we still pack in 85-90k fans even with 11am kicks in back to back weeks with crap opponents. So I will absolutely deny that Tech was our “best draw in Austin” because, if you noticed in those years I highlighted above, our second “best draw in Austin” those same years was fucking a absolute trash Kansas Jayhawks team that went 0-12 and 1-11 respectively proving that any fucking school with a pulse could show up at DKR with a prime time kick that’s not part of a back to back and be our “best draw in Austin”. The arrogance of Tech thinking they are somehow special to Texas will never cease to amaze me.

Week 6 2022 Texas/OU on ABC at Noon Tennessee/LSU on ESPN at Noon Auburn/Georgia on CBS at 330 Alabama/aggy on CBS Primetime You dropping any of those to ESPN2? Also over on SECN they had 3 ranked teams playing unranked opponents including what was billed to be a good Arkansas/MSU matchup. and Mizzou@Florida was on ESPNU Edit: I think you’re also forgetting they lost all their Big Ten content. That was more than 1 game a week.

In 2022 the ACC only averaged about 1.5 games a week on ESPN/ABC. They had a heavy presence on ESPN2/U. The Big 12 with UT/OU averaged 1 game a week (remember they have FOX too). If the Big 12 adds Colorado/Arizona I’m betting that 1 will often shift to the late kick inventory (like it did with the PAC12 which only had 3 games on ABC/ESPN outside of the Late window) but maybe that ups them to 1.5 to match the ACC. That’s still only 3 games a week between the ACC/B12 like you theorized but one of those would be in the Late window meaning 2 games a week in the daytime windows leaving room for 4 SEC games.

The 14 team SEC last year during conference play averaged 3 games a week on CBS or ESPN and 3 games a week on the SEC Network. Only 2 games fell to ESPN2/U (Mizzou/UF, MSU/Aub). Texas and Oklahoma accounted for 8 games on ABC/ESPN while in the Big12 (and many also were in FOX). Their addition easily equates to an extra game a week which would give the SEC 4 quality games worthy of an ABC/ESPN broadcast. I suspect we’ll see push back from the B12/ACC from showing 3 SEC games back to back to back on ABC so I’d guess we’ll see 2 on ABC most weekends and a 3rd and highly likely 4th game on ESPN in a Noon/Prime kick. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think ESPN aggressively bid to get the SEC’s Tier One rights from CBS and help orchestrate expansion with UT/OU just to throw more SEC games on ESPN2/U.

The 330 window on ABC is an exclusive window for the SEC, no SEC games can be on any other network (including ESPN) at that time. The only exception to this exclusive clause is for a game on the SECN. At least that’s how the contract was setup when CBS had the SEC’s Tier One rights. Maybe they change it but I think splitting your audience during the biggest game of the week isn’t the best strategy. Assuming it didn’t change, once fully into conference play that’s 1 game on ABC at 330, 3 games on the SECN, and up to 4 other games that can be slotted into the Noon/Prime slots on either ABC or ESPN. Those will be in competition with the Big12 and ACC so some will likely drop to ESPN2/U or at worst SECN alternate/ESPN3. Odds are the #2 and #3 SEC games of the week will lock up 2 of those 4 spots most weeks, which leaves 2 slots for the Big12/ACC to fight for.

We can talk about the PUF in another thread but the simple answer is that there are two university systems in the PUF. Tech, UH, UNT, others started systems due to the pride of their sports teams, not for any other reason (I give Tech a historical pass due to their geographic isolation, but what once was necessary is no longer so due to technology interconnectedness). The simple solution is to join the UT system like SFA just did or aggy system just like East Texas State (Commerce) 30 years ago. Having the UT system setting program standards and setting growth strategies (both for geographic and academic programs) is way more beneficial to the state than letting every campus start unprofitable duplicate programs just to prove they’re as good as the flagship. The state lege does a okay job at stopping big money pits like law, med, vet schools from popping up everywhere but they don’t regulate down to department level. No need to have a mediocre Vietnamese culture/history/language department on every campus when you could have a excellent world class program on a Houston campus. You could use German, Czech, or any other nationality to make this point. California despite its many issues has grown the UC system into a powerhouse. If we ever want a system as good as theirs we need to mirror their setup as much as possible as it can both reduce overhead and make the programs at each school more effective.

Wow, that’s dark. If they can all just leave the PAC12 and let it, as an entity, default that would be a crazy outcome…meanwhile Colorado is still look for way to pay Coach Prime.

“We don’t want to play you anymore” pretty much means “we want to get away from you” in my book. Texas made a choice that we’d rather play Arkansas/aggy, over Tech/Baylor, and TCU (who we’ve already ditched once before). We’re mostly indifferent to West Virginia, Okie St, K State, Kansas, and Iowa St in the Big 12 as we are with South Carolina, Ole Miss, Mississippi St, Mizzou, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt. Besides the direction the planes fly, there is very little difference between these opponents for us except that with the Big 12 we played all 5 of these every year and in the SEC we’ll only play 3 a year which means we’ll have more room for Tier One opponents. Big time Tier One opponents: the SEC has many and the Big12 has zero. We can talk about the above all day long but in reality that just trying to find every excuse to not discuss the elephant in the room. The increase in ticket sales and TV viewership will be driven by these games. Every year we’ll have at least 3 games from some combo of Alabama/Florida/Tennessee or Georgia/LSU/Auburn. There is really nothing to discuss, this is a great move for Texas in pretty much every metric. Omitting the RRSO Texas went from (at best) 3 games against local “rivals” and 5 games we didn’t care much about (unless they were ranked) in the Big 12, to 2 local “rivals”, 3 Tier One opponents, and only 3 games we don’t care much about. So yeah, we left to get away from you.

Look, if after UT/OU left, had the Big 12 been raided by the PAC12/ACC leaving behind Baylor, K State and Iowa St; I doubt the greater college football world would have cared all that deeply. Sounds shitty but its true, just like no one around here would care if Washington St/Oregon St or Wake Forest get effectively relegated to G5 status. There was no wave of apathy around college football when the SWC/BigEastfb disbanded and 4 fb schools were relegated out of the power conference club. More people watched, more people tuned in. This is not a debate, these are facts. Three things drive college football: rivalries, brands and ranked vs ranked matchups. Ranking aren’t dependable and can’t be ‘reliably’ manufactured so that leaves brands and rivalries. Outside of Texas/OU and Bedlam neither has any great rivals in the Big 12. Other than those two games there was not a weekend people would circle in their calendar and the networks would be fighting over broadcast rights. Texas gains 2 rivalry games by moving to the SEC, Oklahoma loses 1, net positive. Then we get to brands and that is where the SEC move really shines. UT/OU keep the RRSO and both gain a minimum of two games with Tier One opponents (at least one home and one away) each year. So when we are looking at value the Big 12 provided only 2 games annually for Texas/OU (RRSO+Bedlam) plus whatever ranked vs ranked that they’d luck into; while the SEC provides 7 games of value (RRSO+UT/aggy+UT/Arkansas+2 other T1 games for OU+2 other T1 games for UT) plus any ranked vs ranked matchups that pop up. Oklahoma went from 2 games of value each year to 3 even after losing Bedlam. Texas went from 1 game of value to 5 because they didn’t lose anything the media or general fans valued by leaving the Big12 and gained more by joining the SEC.

FIFY

I just love how even in your high and mighty egalitarian model…you still left out Wake Forest.