WTF... Big Ten

Super conferences. Its going to work really well until it doesn't. 

@"JimmyinSD" said: with all these other schools joining the Big 10, I think they are up to 16 or 17 schools with the addition of now Oregon and Washington,  at what point to the schools that are already in the big 10 but cant really compete,  like Rutgers, Northwestern, Indiana, Nebraska, and Minnesota say fuck it and go try and start a new conference or join one they can be more competitive in?   This is getting beyond stupid when you have teams joining conferences that are a continent apart in geography.  remember when it was about school pride, student athletes,  and regional rivalries?  This is just getting lame.

"But hey, it's all about the kids"....right?

@"Mattyman" said: "But hey, it's all about the kids"....right?

You want the SEC to call the shots?

@"StickyBun" said: Super conferences. Its going to work really well until it doesn't. 

@"mgobluevikes" said: You want the SEC to call the shots?

I don't think anybody in BIG TEN country really cares about those west coast teams.  Stupid move by the conference, if they really wanted to expand then they should have gone with teams in the east like North Carolina or Virginia or Georgia Tech.   

As Big Ten expands and Pac-12 implodes, a financial reckoning shakes college athleticsOne of the most unintentionally and patently absurd moments in sports history took place two years ago this month in response to a thunderclap that shook college sports.

In a panic move to news that Big 12 standard bearers Texas and Oklahoma were bolting for the SEC, commissioners from the Big Ten, Pac-12 and ACC announced a partnership in solidarity that became known as the "Alliance." The triumvirate professed a desire for stability in a fast-changing climate.
Except, the three conference leaders failed to put whatever they agreed to in writing.
"It's about trust," ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said that day. "We've looked each other in the eye."
That declaration was laugh-out-loud naive, knowing what we knew then and even more so now.
Two years later …
The Big Ten has effectively killed the Pac-12.
The ACC is facing a crisis with nervous and agitated Florida State officials openly discussing defection.
The last vestiges of a Pollyanna notion of tradition and geography providing order in college sports have been sandblasted from existence by the seductive power of TV money. The cannibalism between major conferences has turned the entire enterprise into a real-life game of "Survivor."
It's as if industry leaders are using Gordon Gekko's words as their compass: Greed is good.
The Big Ten (soon-to-be 18) severely wounded the Pac-12 by poaching USC and UCLA last summer. The Big Ten went back for seconds on Friday with the Pac-12 clinging to survival after Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State and Utah shifted their allegiance to the Big 12.
Oregon and Washington wisely accepted the Big Ten's life preserver as the ship sank and will join the league in 2024.
The driving force behind this chaos is money, of course. Those in leadership positions are using three Fs to guide decision-making: Football, Footprint and Finances.
Modern media rights deals have soared so astronomically that if TV executives tell conferences to jump, they'll ask if they should jump off one foot or two.
The gap between the rich (Big Ten and SEC) and less rich (everyone else) has grown so wide in revenue distribution that greed and envy have created a game of musical chairs with schools swapping conferences.
The University of Minnesota provides a snapshot of that changing financial landscape. In the past decade, the rise of revenue from media rights deals and Big Ten profit sharing distributions for bowl games and NCAA tournament appearances in the Gophers athletic department budget has been dramatic.
In 2012 the Gophers reported $25.3 million from those sources, which amounted to 30.3% of total revenue. For 2022, that number was $60.8 million and accounted for 45%.
ESPN projects annual distribution to increase to about $70 million for Big Ten schools that receive a full share under new TV pacts and expanded football playoffs.
Only the SEC resides in that neighborhood financially, leaving other conferences feeling as if they are racing Usain Bolt while carrying a sofa. The financial disparity sparked a rather remarkable edict from Florida State president Richard McCullough, who told his board of trustees that receiving $30 million less annually than the SEC and Big Ten in distribution creates an "existential crisis."
"I believe FSU will have to, at some point, consider very seriously leaving the ACC unless there were a radical change to the revenue distribution," McCullough said.
I have been a proponent of Big Ten expansion primarily because of the novelty and excitement that comes with adding schools with brand names. But it's hard not to feel a little dismayed at how much has changed so quickly and what has been lost in the process.
Long-standing rivalries have ceased. The Big Ten's Midwest footprint now stretches from sea to shining sea, making team travel exponentially more complicated and expensive for schools and time-consuming for student-athletes.
Anyone who doubts that student-athletes will experience more challenges in balancing school and sports in the new Big Ten is being blinded by dollar signs.
It also feels crass to shrug with complete disregard at the destruction of an entire conference. The Pac-12 created its own demise with a series of missteps, and now what becomes of its remaining members is anyone's guess.
Fans will need a flowchart to keep track of and remember all the changes in conference makeup. To think, at some point, Rutgers will play Oregon in a Big Ten football game.
Strange times, indeed. And only the naive believe expansion will stop here at 18 schools.
https://www.startribune.com/big-ten-pac-12-big-12-oregon-washington-gophers-chip-scoggins/600294986/

Its all about the money. So FAU here in Boca Raton (Florida Atlantic University) just made the Final Four in college basketball last year. Its this hidden gem small D-1 university near the ocean that has so much potential and now......NOW.....they've gotten 500% more personal donor millions for the university in the past 5 months it will be transformative. They will recruit well to this location, trust me on this. All new athletic facilities will be fast tracked. Its been a whirlwind and I'm semi-involved in their sports programs as a consultant and can tell you that the $$$$ changes everything. This was like hitting the lottery for FAU. The exposure they received on this was priceless.....literally. 

So the Big Ten and SEC, the only conferences that matter anymore will provide the most vital thing in sports viewing: exciting matchups. Its what 85%+ of the viewing audience wants to see. Big boys knocking heads. I'll be right there as a Michigan fan. I'm just going to remove my hypocritical view that it hurts college football because I'll be tuning in, clicking, etc. Something will be lost, for sure. But something else will be gained and we know what that is. And when the best 80%  of athletes in college football go to 30 universities, you'll see amazing football. But, you ask, what about the kids that mature late? That grow in a program after a being downgraded as a senior in high school? The rest of the colleges will be feeders for the top 30 CFB programs in the country. The transfer portal has never ever been easier. 

Not saying I like this new environment philosophically. But I'm saying I'm going to begrudgingly love it......because it will engender some really good football distilled. if you want a true 'Hoosier's' story, it can still happen in CBB. I love college basketball. 

Well, maybe now the BIG West will finally stand a chance of winning a conference football title  :p  

It's all about business so it's a money grab, nothing new there 

I'm a diehard pro football fan but extremely casual with college, other than the Huskers. Consolidating the talent at the top will absolutely result in me watching more of the big games. But CFB has so many issues. The refs, announcers, and most teams are all really bad. Results in tons of blowouts. As a casual, I just want to tune into the fourth quarter most of the time. If one team is up 21 points I'm not giving it the time of day on the off chance something cool happens. If I miss that, oh well.
Obviously this is all about money but IMO CFB needs to focus more on fixing the game versus just reshuffling the deck (teams moving conferences) ad infinitum.
CBB has many similar problems with the game, only worse. Sprinkle in the fact that the regular season barely matters and I'm not watching anything other than my 1 or 2 favorite teams. Again, IMO.
I say this as someone who watches every NFL snap I can get my eyes on, is still watching a dreadful Royals team and can enjoy other MLB games too. Plus golf every week, ponies, and NBA. I love sports. Good sports.

I guess I don’t really care about college football much, but
what is going on?  Is the whole issue
that conferences with a higher percentage of good teams are worth more money on
average, whereas conferences with only a few good teams are getting paid less
money on average, so the good teams in bad conferences want to bolt to a conference
with more quality teams so they get more money?

Saw a great comment about this realignment from the Missouri football coach:    

Football will be fine,” he said. Instead, he spent the next three minutes questioning the seeming lack of communication between facilitators of conference realignment and the larger student-athlete body, particularly those competing in non-revenue sports such as softball and baseball.
“Look, my question is, did we count the cost? I'm not talking about a financial cost, I'm talking about, did we count the costs for the student-athletes involved in this decision? What cost is it to those student-athletes? We're talking about a football decision they based off football. But what about softball and baseball, who have to travel across the country? Did we ask about the cost of them?
“Do we know what the number one indicator (or) symptom or cause of mental health is? It’s lack of rest and sleep. Traveling in those baseball, softball games, you know, those people they travel commercial, they get done playing at four, they gotta go to the airport, they come back, it's three or four in the morning, they gotta go to class. I mean, did we ask any of them?”
Oregon and Washington will move the Big Ten for the 2024 season, creating a potential coast-to-coast matchup — across all sports — with the likes of Rutgers in Piscataway, New Jersey. Arizona State, Arizona and Utah are following Colorado to the Big 12, which will put the desert schools as UCF in Orlando, Florida.
Gone was the cautious head coach who filibustered SEC media days in July by listing his entire roster, determined not to produce a soundbite that could, well, bite him. 

@"comet52" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said: with all these other schools joining the Big 10, I think they are up to 16 or 17 schools with the addition of now Oregon and Washington,  at what point to the schools that are already in the big 10 but cant really compete,  like Rutgers, Northwestern, Indiana, Nebraska, and Minnesota say fuck it and go try and start a new conference or join one they can be more competitive in?   This is getting beyond stupid when you have teams joining conferences that are a continent apart in geography.  remember when it was about school pride, student athletes,  and regional rivalries?  This is just getting lame.

They aren't leaving, the conference could be called the Big Money instead of the Big Ten because that's what it provides the member schools.

@"comet52" said:

@"JimmyinSD" said: with all these other schools joining the Big 10, I think they are up to 16 or 17 schools with the addition of now Oregon and Washington,  at what point to the schools that are already in the big 10 but cant really compete,  like Rutgers, Northwestern, Indiana, Nebraska, and Minnesota say fuck it and go try and start a new conference or join one they can be more competitive in?   This is getting beyond stupid when you have teams joining conferences that are a continent apart in geography.  remember when it was about school pride, student athletes,  and regional rivalries?  This is just getting lame.

They aren't leaving, the conference could be called the Big Money instead of the Big Ten because that's what it provides the member schools.

College football has just turned into a huge shit show with NIL and the yearly conference realignments. All about money and not what's in the best interest of the game. All the things that have made college football great are going by the wayside..

@"supafreak84" said: College football has just turned into a huge shit show with NIL and the yearly conference realignments. All about money and not what's in the best interest of the game. All the things that have made college football great are going by the wayside..

@"JimmyinSD" said:

@"supafreak84" said: College football has just turned into a huge shit show with NIL and the yearly conference realignments. All about money and not what's in the best interest of the game. All the things that have made college football great are going by the wayside..

kinda like the olympics when they allowed paid pro athletes,  just kind of ruins the appeal.