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Realignment talk not going away


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7 minutes ago, pops said:

Cal and Stanford are never joining a conference with Boise and some cal state schools. Ever. And how is San Jose attractive? And don't give me metro tv numbers. Those don't matter when none of those TV's are tuned in to watch any San Jose sports. 

TV market, recruiting, competitiveness.

They’ve moved out of the basement and are now a solid program over the last five years or so.

New Mexico, Nevada-Reno, and Hawaii have been the recent stinkers.

Utah St, UNLV, and San Jose fit the mold of what the other PAC schools are.

edit: 5 years

Edited by TKthunder2
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16 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

They aren’t choosing to stay. They politically have trouble leaving Nevada-Reno. Rumor is Reno stopped investing in athletics after they got the MWC invite and has done next to nothing to improve. That has irritated the MWC members so they don’t want to invite them and UNLV can’t easily leave them.

I’m familiar with the rumors. But they don’t make sense to me. UNLV and Nevada have been in separate conferences for the vast majority of their histories. Nevada didn’t join the MWC until 2012. Before that, the only other time they were in the same conference at the same time was like a 3 year span in the 90s when both were part of the Big West.

 

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1 hour ago, TKthunder2 said:

They aren’t choosing to stay. They politically have trouble leaving Nevada-Reno. Rumor is Reno stopped investing in athletics after they got the MWC invite and has done next to nothing to improve. That has irritated the MWC members so they don’t want to invite them and UNLV can’t easily leave them.

If the PAC gets to 7, I assume they would give UNLV an ultimatum, join now or never, which might give them enough cover to leave Reno. I’d bet if they stay on this path that UNLV will be #8.

MWC is trying to get commitments.  its going back and forth.  Air Force has committed.  SJSU has committed.  New Mexico and Wyoming I haven't heard, but the 6PAC has no interest in them.  Air Force and UNLV are supposed to get $10 million bonuses to stay from the Pac money.

UNLV agreed to stay, but after Utah St. decided to leave, is now waffling.

Latest is Utah St. to 6Pac and talking to Gonzaga all but football and UConn football only!

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1 hour ago, TKthunder2 said:

Once the others declare their intent to leave they can’t vote to dissolve. The only way they get out of the fees now is if they do a full merger.

Also San Jose State is a VERY attractive member. The only reason they likely weren’t included is that they think they might get Cal and Stanford back who would NOT want to share a conference with SJSU who they think is basically a JUCO.

Still only 75 percent of remaining schools with a vote need to vote to disolve. So now it takes 6 out of 7 instead of the 9 out of 11 it took a week ago (Hawaii has no vote as a partial member).  So they could have gone to 11 (or paid one school to go away....or airforce agrees to disolve if they get an AAC invite or whatever) and be at 10 and no fees. Then invite Gonzaga and St maries or whomever for hoops and have a 12 team hoop league.

But now to get a dissolution they would have to go to 12 total.  Complete clusterfuck by the pac 2. 

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42 minutes ago, bullet said:

MWC is trying to get commitments.  its going back and forth.  Air Force has committed.  SJSU has committed.  New Mexico and Wyoming I haven't heard, but the 6PAC has no interest in them.  Air Force and UNLV are supposed to get $10 million bonuses to stay from the Pac money.

UNLV agreed to stay, but after Utah St. decided to leave, is now waffling.

Latest is Utah St. to 6Pac and talking to Gonzaga all but football and UConn football only!

Why would they want UConn football without basketball???

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https://www.actionnetwork.com/ncaaf/conference-realignment-update-recap-gonzaga-pac-12-mountain-west-aac?

McMurphy's summary:

 

"For college football fans wondering what conference realignment would look like if they could speed date for new partners, Monday provided a real-time glimpse.

And like most reality TV shows, it was part lovefest, part trainwreck, and you couldn’t look away.

It started with Memphis, USF, UTSA and Tulane — all of which had offers to join the Pac-12 — announcing they were committed to the AAC. They sent out a 120-word commitment to the AAC ending with “The American Way.”

Lately “The American Way” has been conference realignment...."

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1 hour ago, bullet said:

MWC is trying to get commitments.  its going back and forth.  Air Force has committed.  SJSU has committed.  New Mexico and Wyoming I haven't heard, but the 6PAC has no interest in them.  Air Force and UNLV are supposed to get $10 million bonuses to stay from the Pac money.

UNLV agreed to stay, but after Utah St. decided to leave, is now waffling.

Yes, Air Force wants the money, UNLV agreed in principle because it puts it out there that time is ticking. SJSU, Wyoming, Reno and New Mexico ain’t getting invites. These 4 schools are pushing the other 3 for their commitment because its the only way it could force the PAC12 to merge with them.

A full merger is the only way those four will be invited. If the PAC12 gets to 8 members then the game is over. UConn football is just a bargaining chip. It’s a short term filler to get them to 8 fb teams with Utah State. They could use Hawaii but they’d have to pay the MWC a fee for them. They’d have to get a basketball team but there are some easy options out there if they can’t land Gonzaga.

Edited by TKthunder2
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21 minutes ago, Texas Wahoo said:

Then just add UTEP or New Mexico State, lol. 

Then they have to play them. Not easy to kick members out.

They want Utah St and UNLV but don’t want to pay that ridiculous penalty for poaching them.

UConn gets them to 8 temporarily, and once that penalty expires they can poach for free and then kick out UConn since they are not a full member.

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3 minutes ago, TrashMaster G said:

Washington-WSU and Oregon-OSU say hello.

Then again UCLA-Cal was quite the expensive split

It’s not always bullshit, here just a few historical examples:

Texas couldn’t leave aggy for the SEC back in the late 80s and then had to take Tech as a tagalong when we tried going to the Big8.

Virginia Tech got into the ACC over Syracuse (who was the first choice) due to politics, and the only reason UNC isn’t suing the ACC currently is also politics.

Alabama and Auburn were forced to play each other after 40 years due to the state legislature which is why even 60 years later, Auburn remained in the SEC West after adding two members West of the Mississippi River, and Missouri ended up in the SEC East despite being West of the majority of SEC West members.

The State of Louisiana blocked the University of Louisiana from upgrading to FBS for year and then only allowed it if they changed their branding to Louisiana Lafayette and also upgraded along with Northeast Louisiana who they made them change their branding to Louisiana Monroe so people wouldn’t think ULL was the flagship over LSU and because Louisiana Tech was worried about being perceived as a weaker football program in the state.

Just because it’s not 100%, doesn’t mean it’s not real.

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6 minutes ago, TKthunder2 said:

It’s not always bullshit, here just a few historical examples:

Texas couldn’t leave aggy for the SEC back in the late 80s and then had to take Tech as a tagalong when we tried going to the Big8.

Virginia Tech got into the ACC over Syracuse (who was the first choice) due to politics, and the only reason UNC isn’t suing the ACC currently is also politics.

Alabama and Auburn were forced to play each other after 40 years due to the state legislature which is why even 60 years later, Auburn remained in the SEC West after adding two members West of the Mississippi River, and Missouri ended up in the SEC East despite being West of the majority of SEC West members.

The State of Louisiana blocked the University of Louisiana from upgrading to FBS for year and then only allowed it if they changed their branding to Louisiana Lafayette and also upgraded along with Northeast Louisiana who they made them change their branding to Louisiana Monroe so people wouldn’t think ULL was the flagship over LSU and because Louisiana Tech was worried about being perceived as a weaker football program in the state.

Just because it’s not 100%, doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Oh, I know it's real some times. Just pointing out that in the cases of UW-WSU and UO-OSU many people were convinced those pairs could not be broken up.

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There is an FSU alum who is an attorney, Doug Rohan, who is doing the podcast circuit. He is insisting that, to save the ACC, ESPN is going to go above & beyond their contract and throw in more money just for Clemson & FSU to stay put. I remember when there was talk of the SEC wanting to go to 9 conference games, but not doing it, because ESPN didn't want to pay more for that additional SEC inventory. Can someone explain to me how ESPN sees the same amount of ACC games being more valuable than additional SEC conference games (with an SEC that now includes Texas and Oklahoma). 

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4 minutes ago, Josef Pwag said:

There is an FSU alum who is an attorney, Doug Rohan, who is doing the podcast circuit. He is insisting that, to save the ACC, ESPN is going to go above & beyond their contract and throw in more money just for Clemson & FSU to stay put. I remember when there was talk of the SEC wanting to go to 9 conference games, but not doing it, because ESPN didn't want to pay more for that additional SEC inventory. Can someone explain to me how ESPN sees the same amount of ACC games being more valuable than additional SEC conference games (with an SEC that now includes Texas and Oklahoma). 

No

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10 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

It’s not always bullshit, here just a few historical examples:

Texas couldn’t leave aggy for the SEC back in the late 80s and then had to take Tech as a tagalong when we tried going to the Big8.

Virginia Tech got into the ACC over Syracuse (who was the first choice) due to politics, and the only reason UNC isn’t suing the ACC currently is also politics.

Alabama and Auburn were forced to play each other after 40 years due to the state legislature which is why even 60 years later, Auburn remained in the SEC West after adding two members West of the Mississippi River, and Missouri ended up in the SEC East despite being West of the majority of SEC West members.

The State of Louisiana blocked the University of Louisiana from upgrading to FBS for year and then only allowed it if they changed their branding to Louisiana Lafayette and also upgraded along with Northeast Louisiana who they made them change their branding to Louisiana Monroe so people wouldn’t think ULL was the flagship over LSU and because Louisiana Tech was worried about being perceived as a weaker football program in the state.

Just because it’s not 100%, doesn’t mean it’s not real.

ULL has always been FBS.  They didn't move down in 1982.  LT didn't move up until 1989 and ULM until 1994.  

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"...But that plan is going to be limited by another reality: Memphis, one consultant told USA TODAY Sports, is not valued by TV rights holders significantly more than, say, Utah State. And Oregon State and Washington State, the two original Pac-12 leftovers who decided to bring the conference back, aren’t valued much more than Memphis. 

In other words, the new Pac-12 was not going to be a power conference no matter which of the potential members jumped in. And the notion of a $12 million per member payday, which had been the carrot for a school like Memphis (currently making around $8-9 million in the AAC) was merely theoretical and based on calculations from the Pac-12’s paid consultants that few people across the college sports industry actually believed...."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/dan-wolken/2024/09/23/pac-12-conference-realignment-aac/75354941007/

This is the part that made me skeptical of all these plans.  It just didn't make sense based on the values.  WSU/OSU are not much more valuable than a typical G5, maybe less than Boise.  And after that, you've probably got Memphis, USF and Temple.  Then its all pretty fungible, some slightly worse than others.  Besides the money they are spending, SDSU seems to be mentioned mainly because they are the only G5 school in southern California.  Below are the TV ratings from Sic-em for non power schools.  The schools with 36 games over the 9 years were ranked.    Oregon St. was #66, near the bottom of the P5 and a little below Boise and Memphis and just ahead of USF.  Below that, I've ranked the schools with less than 36 games in order.  UNLV was dead last in MWC and SDSU didn't do that well either, ranked right between Buffalo and Kent.

School All 2013-2021 Top 36 (4 Per Year) Top 36 Rank  
Navy 45 Games, 2.33mm 2.819mm 35  
Washington St. 56 Games, 1.407mm 1.905mm 50 P12
Boise St. 72 Games, 0.827mm 1.258mm 63 MWC
Memphis 52 Games, 0.918mm 1.257mm 64  
Oregon St. 40 Games, 1.124mm 1.214mm 66 P12
USF 48 Games, 0.861mm 1.103mm 68  
Temple 42 Games, 0.773mm 0.891mm 70  
Tulsa 51 Games, 0.603mm 0.82mm 72  
Northern Illinois 36 Games, 0.648mm 0.648mm 74  
East Carolina 37 Games, 0.547mm 0.56mm 75  
         
         
Army 24 Games, 3.331mm N/A N/A  
Rice 13 Games, 0.836mm N/A N/A  
Fresno St. 33 Games, 0.697mm N/A N/A MWC
Coastal Carolina 10 Games, 0.647mm N/A N/A  
Ball St. 15 Games, 0.635mm N/A N/A  
Colorado St. 22 Games, 0.605mm N/A N/A MWC
Western Michigan 26 Games, 0.603mm N/A N/A  
Appalachian St. 27 Games, 0.587mm N/A N/A  
Air Force 30 Games, 0.584mm N/A N/A MWC
Florida Atlantic 13 Games, 0.583mm N/A N/A  
Connecticut 31 Games, 0.571mm N/A N/A  
Utah St. 33 Games, 0.563mm N/A N/A MWC
ULL 25 Games, 0.562mm N/A N/A  
Western Kentucky 18 Games, 0.553mm N/A N/A  
UAB 8 Games, 0.552mm N/A N/A  
Hawaii 15 Games, 0.55mm N/A N/A MWC
Southern Miss 11 Games, 0.541mm N/A N/A  
Buffalo 25 Games, 0.529mm N/A N/A  
San Diego St. 28 Games, 0.522mm N/A N/A MWC
Kent St. 25 Games, 0.503mm N/A N/A  
Marshall 18 Games, 0.498mm N/A N/A  
Nevada 24 Games, 0.493mm N/A N/A MWC
Bowling Green 25 Games, 0.478mm N/A N/A  
Arkansas St. 24 Games, 0.472mm N/A N/A  
Massachusetts 6 Games, 0.468mm N/A N/A  
Wyoming 29 Games, 0.45mm N/A N/A MWC
UTEP 12 Games, 0.444mm N/A N/A  
Ohio 29 Games, 0.44mm N/A N/A  
Toledo 31 Games, 0.439mm N/A N/A  
Georgia St. 9 Games, 0.434mm N/A N/A  
South Alabama 15 Games, 0.42mm N/A N/A  
Tulane 35 Games, 0.419mm N/A N/A  
Miami (OH) 15 Games, 0.405mm N/A N/A  
San Jose St. 20 Games, 0.398mm N/A N/A MWC
New Mexico 25 Games, 0.371mm N/A N/A MWC
Middle Tennessee St. 12 Games, 0.359mm N/A N/A  
Eastern Michigan 9 Games, 0.35mm N/A N/A  
Central Michigan 17 Games, 0.347mm N/A N/A  
Texas St. 15 Games, 0.337mm N/A N/A  
Louisiana Tech 14 Games, 0.334mm N/A N/A  
UTSA 16 Games, 0.314mm N/A N/A  
UNLV 20 Games, 0.307mm N/A N/A MWC

 

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19 hours ago, TKthunder2 said:

Sounds like they did all of this just to get away from Nevada-Reno (because apparently they have just stopped investing as much in athletics after they got the MWC invite) and San Jose St (because they think they have a one in a million chance at getting Cal or Stanford back).

New Mexico and Wyoming are well liked institutions but in small markets which probably hurt their projected per school payout from a new TV deal.

No one seems to have an issue with Air Force at all, and they could drop Hawaii at anytime since they are not a full member.

So the PAC12 is paying out around $200 million in order to get rid of 4 members only a single one of which the other teams seem not to like.

WSU/OSU could have joined the MWC and kept that $100 million windfall and had the best facilities and NIL in the conference for the next decade and keep them in conversation annually for a playoff spot that could possibly turn into a P4 invite…

But instead, they chose this rebuild the PAC12 path where they will pay out a bunch of money to “lesser” schools and be in a conference of their peers that will have more motivated fan/donor support while WSU/OSU fans/alumni are still sad and unmotivated, which in turn will push WSU/OSU to the middle of the pack where they fall into even further obscurity.

Which would have been the better investment?

The people running Wazzu, OSU and the carcass of the PAC are part of the same  group that kept Larry Scott in power, who pushed through equal revenue distribution to subsidize their programs to create parity in football,  and wanted to emphasize Olympic sports for the identity of the conference.

Not shocking that these same idiots (newPAC is run by a PAC lifer) don't think strategically, don't know how to close a deal, and in general, make horrendously bad decisions.  

I'm so glad to never be in a conference with these clowns again.

Your suggested path would have been much better.  Invest in facilities and NIL to create G6 powerhouse programs that make the playoff regularly, which would then spur more fan donations to NIL and help build their brands up over time.

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49 minutes ago, BigHornedLurker said:

 

2. im up for thoughts on creative ways for Texas to steal the latest wave of realignment valor 

This is easy. Texas leaves Big XII ->  Big XII takes four corners schools -> 2-Pac raids MWC = Texas killed the MWC. Why did you Longhorns hate Wyoming so much!?!

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4 minutes ago, USC Traveler said:

The people running Wazzu, OSU and the carcass of the PAC are part of the same  group that kept Larry Scott in power, who pushed through equal revenue distribution to subsidize their programs to create parity in football,  and wanted to emphasize Olympic sports for the identity of the conference.

Not shocking that these same idiots (newPAC is run by a PAC lifer) don't think strategically, don't know how to close a deal, and in general, make horrendously bad decisions.  

I'm so glad to never be in a conference with these clowns again.

Your suggested path would have been much better.  Invest in facilities and NIL to create G6 powerhouse programs that make the playoff regularly, which would then spur more fan donations to NIL and help build their brands up over time.

This is the part that I think everyone is finally realizing, that the people trying to birth the newPAC are the same people who ran the Pac 12 into the ground... makes me kind of curious what the hell the Boise State and Colorado State administration are thinking bailing on the MWC to a possible dead-on-arrival newPAC

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3 minutes ago, Evil Bill Obrien said:

This is the part that I think everyone is finally realizing, that the people trying to birth the newPAC are the same people who ran the Pac 12 into the ground... makes me kind of curious what the hell the Boise State and Colorado State administration are thinking bailing on the MWC to a possible dead-on-arrival newPAC

They're thinking the same thing they thought when they left the WAC, they are trying to ditch the bottom half of the conference.

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On 9/20/2024 at 3:21 PM, closetohumping said:

IMG_1059.thumb.png.df00ea3ce5257bb8faedb875d015b41f.png

Cal should just own who they are and make that their logo.  Would boost attendance and they would instantly get a lot more support from admin and faculty.

Would certainly add an extra layer of spice to games at Clemson, FSU, and SMU.

It actually looks pretty badass as a helmet logo.

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21 hours ago, Lonestar88 said:

The PAC-12 screwed up imo. If they had just taken 8 MWC teams from the start, those 8 teams could've voted to dissolve the MWC and the PAC wouldn’t owe anyone any money. Now we’re talking about them taking 6 MWC teams anyway.


They’re  going to pay a shit ton of money for the right to take 2 less MWC teams.

This would have been the move if the newPAC was run by smart people.  Wazzu and OSU could have kept the money and invested in their programs.

The only thing that may save them is if the MWC is run by even dumber people, and they haven't changed their bylaws to remove voting power from a member as soon as they announce they're leaving.

If that's the case, PAC could still take three more schools and dissolve the MWC.

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19 hours ago, LTbear said:

I'm betting they really believed they could get Memphis + friends and build what would have been the clear-cut best G5, which would have been the obvious favorite for the 5th conference champ spot in the playoffs each year. 

Agreed.  The idea was good, but the problem is that they didn't do enough to motivate the AAC schools to leave, probably because they didn't look at it from the AAC schools' POV.  They're also focused on keeping membership numbers low for better revenue, and maybe also living in a fantasyland that Cal and Stanford will eventually come back.

I posted last week that if I'm running Memphis or Tulane, I'm not going to the PAC unless there are enough schools in an Eastern division to limit travel to the West Coast to once per year.  PAC would have been smart to take the top 8 from the MWC to dissolve it, then offer Memphis, Tulane, USF, UTSA and six more AAC/Sunbelt schools to kneecap the AAC and create a G6 "superconference" that would almost always get the G6 playoff bid.

Even though it would be 20 schools, the AAC and MWC both have a lot of games broadcast on ESPN, FS1 and CBSsn, so the money would be there.

But all of this assumes that the people running the PAC, Wazzu, and OSU know what they're doing.  As we know- they don't.

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1 hour ago, USC Traveler said:

This would have been the move if the newPAC was run by smart people.  Wazzu and OSU could have kept the money and invested in their programs.

The only thing that may save them is if the MWC is run by even dumber people, and they haven't changed their bylaws to remove voting power from a member as soon as they announce they're leaving.

If that's the case, PAC could still take three more schools and dissolve the MWC.

I can assure you the mwc is run by people at least as dumb. I haven't looked at the full bylaws nor the agreement entered into when the scheduling agreement was put in place but I've seen snippets of the bylaws that do seem to show you are still a voting member until you file a formal notice of intent to leave with the league office. I guess we will see if agreeing to go to a new conference constitutes notice or not. 

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I would bet good money that the "poaching penalty" is unenforceable. These clauses are a form of liquidated damages and every jurisdiction literally has in their laws that liquidated damages clauses must be a logical estimation of actual damages and cannot be a "penalty." The law used that word, "cannot be a penalty." 

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