TCU, BOISE w/ agree to bolt to the big12 next year

[ElKabong]

OK, the b10 is looking to expand by one. Notre Dame is the most wanted but they dig being an independent- which may soon change since they earn half as much from NBC than b10 teams do w/ their tv pacts.

If ND doesn't bite, who is offered? The b10 blogger below has some good stuff here...

http://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/the-big-ten-expansion-index-a-different-shade-of-orange/

An arguement can be made (and is made clearly in the link) that TEXAS w/b who the b10 would likely go after if ND refuses. Conventional wisdom w/ have been Mizzou in yrs past, but with the b10 having their own tv network, Tx would be a much more lucrative get.

If TEXAS is passed over, look for us to bolt for the PAC10. The PAC10 has hinted on the UT radio network they'd like to have 12 teams for the next tv contract talk & w/ like to expand beyond their existing tv market.

Colorado is as good as gone to the PAC10 if they expand. TEXAS sees the writing on the wall. The b12 is a shithole of a conference if Colorado leaves for the PAC10 & Mizzou leaves for the b10....The largets non Tx market w/ be Omaha or OKC....A conference can't survive nowdays on that shaky ground & TEXAS doesn't feel like carrying a conference like they were asked to in the SWC.

Here's what I am guessing.....The b10 asks ND, they decline. They then bite the bullett and ask TEXAS (and grow their tv audience by 33%). That gives the b10 12 teams and a divisional playoff payday in December.

The PAC10 will look to add 2 teams, w/ like to have TEXAS more than the b10 would (but can't match the b10's better offer and prestige, academically). Colorado and Utah are in.

The b12 will need to replace TEXAS and Colorado....TCU, a bad choice in that they add nothing in the way of tv ratings nor attendance, will be offered as will Boise. Utah would be preferred, but the pac10 offer is what they will accept.

The writing is on teh wall, the b12 in 4 yrs is a dead duck.

A&M will have a decision on their hands in 2 yrs. Let the SEC (who courted the ags in 1993) drop kick Vandy or Miss State out, and let them in or bide their time in the b12, whose tv contract is going to be manure w/o TEXAS, Colorado.

Any "geographical concerns" of UT going to the b10 or the pac10 are laid to rest....TEXAS was seriuosly considering the pac10 in 1993...also, look at the acc- Conferences no longer consider lengthy travel trips a problem. It's all about tv ratings, ticket sales and "name" programs.

[CBedo]

Colorado should go to the WAC or the MWC. They don't have the facilities or the budget to compete year in and year out with most of the other Big 12 schools and definitely not the Pac 10 universities. Even their own alumni have proposed as much.

If I remember correctly, Texas threatened to go to the Big 10 or the Pac 10 when the Big 12 was formed. They actually got the Big 8 to raise their academic standards slightly, since Texas wouldn't drop theirs.

[ElKabong]

If memory serves ;)

In 1989-90, the SEC came to TEXAS, a&m and offered both. A&M in particular wanted to go. UT had reservations about the academics of certain U's athletic programs & cheating but leaned towards going....A LOT of politicians in Austin did ebverything they could to slow the movement.

The SEC didn't want to wait, they had a tv pact negotiation underway. They offered their 2nd choices- Ark and So Carolina.

After Ark announced in 1990 they were leaving, TEXAS and anm knew they had to bolt. The conf was lame, had been for 5-8 yrs as a viable conference...

1992- That's when the big8 called, asked for UT, A&M, TECH and either SMU or TCU. The big8 was a dead duck themselves. Smallish tv markets. Crappy facilities, substandard academically, the major sports usually had no more than 2 "very good" programs at any given time in the major sports. The SEC was expanding, the ACC just added Free Shoes and was looking to grow huge....the big8 was a turd waiting to float down the river as was the SWC.

Was all set, TEXAS, TECH, A&M, TCU were the 4 to go....enter Baylor grad Ann Richards. Said if UT and anm didn't take Baylor with them, she'd cut off the UT and anm systems' PUF fund...she didn't blink, so TCU gets screwed.

At the time she was doing this bullshit, the PAC 10 offered UT and (yes) Colorado. TEXAS at the time thought they'd be bettre off in the same conference as anm, decided against the pac10....anm meanwhile talked to the SEC, didn't go anywhere. By late 1992/ early 1993 us going to the big12 was a done deal.

You bring up a good point about the Bufs being lower profile....They would love to buy out Hawkins, apparently there's not enuff interest too do so. And their fans do seem to be bandwagoneers (as the other big8 folks told us they were). Yet the PAC wants them....who knows, maybe BYU would be a better choice, even Utah.

One thing's for sure...the b12's days as a major conference with national relevance $ wise are numbered.

[ElKabong]

oh, and bout the "academic standards"...when we joined, one of the conditions was reducing the "partial qualifiers". TEXAS wanted to do away w/ them altogether, as that was the SWC's requirement following all the probations of the 1980s...all the problem kids that were caught were partial qualifiers. Nebraska was especially pissed, Dr Tom in particular. If Switzer hadn't been run off, he woulda been pissed too. To this day the NU people don't like us for that.

Time to move on. It really is.

[Robert Goren]

Texas is not going to the big ten. If anyone from the big 12 goes to the big ten, It would be Missouri. The Big Ten is looking to expand and may do so in a few years. Rutgers is the one school mentioned which by far and away makes the most sense. If some leaves the big 12 (Baylor, maybe) SMU and its Dallas campus (and re-surging athletic program) would the most likely addition. JMO

[rastajenk]

I've seen Rutgers mentioned several times in Big 10 (11) discussions, but that does nothing for me. They expanded to Penn State to get eastern eyeballs, and now 15 years later I don't see Rutgers adding many more, and they certainly don't promise any kind of competitive balance or upgrade.

Missouri makes sense, adding St Louis and KC into the marketing and recruiting mix. Geographically, I like West Virginia, but nobody else seems to, probably due to some academic issues (although the best and brightest at Michigan seem to like their coaches).

But my pet idea, if I were College Football Czar, would be to lump the WAC and the Mountain West together, choose the 8 or ten programs most committed to football and make one conference out of it (and apply and receive BCS recognition), and take the others and make the geographical equivalent of the MAC, or Sun Belt, or Conference USA.

Definitely some major shuffling is in the cards. I have also heard it hinted that Big 10 expansion might not even be one team...three? Be interesting to see how it plays out.

[PhantomOnTour]

Like your idea of merging the best of the 2 conferences and forming one.

Great info here. Wasnt aware of all the team shuffling that went on and will go on in the future. Seems logical though as the super conference is the way to go. Once the teams are aligned in these mega conferences can a playoff be far off????

[ElKabong]

Texas is not going to the big ten. If anyone from the big 12 goes to the big ten, It would be Missouri. The Big Ten is looking to expand and may do so in a few years. Rutgers is the one school mentioned which by far and away makes the most sense. If some leaves the big 12 (Baylor, maybe) SMU and its Dallas campus (and re-surging athletic program) would the most likely addition. JMO


Maybe Mizzou, but the b10 would only add the Kansas City market if they did. Much of STL is big10 territory anyway since it's on Ill's border.

Once again, you have to rethink things today. It's no longer about geographical location. The ACC pitched that in the can long ago. It's all about tv ratings, butts in the seats, and a nationally prominent "name". TEXAS has all 3 of those over Mizzou in spades. Not even close.

I still believe ND will come to its senses and join the b10....after that, watch the PAC10 AGGRESSIVELY go after the 2 best U's they can find. The b10 and SEC already are bending them over when it comes to tv pacts. Their pact is up soon, so the next 18 months a lot is going to shake out.

Also, forget about SMU. There's nothing "resurgent" about them. No one goes to their games, haven't since Doak Walker and Kyle Rote. When Craig James, Lance McIlhenny and Dickerson were there and ranked in the top 10, SMU fans at TX Stadium were outnumbered 5-1. Also, the AD back then (Russ Potts) gave away thousands of tix each non -marquis game just to get people in....none came back.

It's a dead program with no value.

[Robert Goren]

I haven't any contact with people who in Dallas for a long time. I know that 25 years ago there was big "old boys network" for SMU alums. That has to translate into money for Athletics. JMO

[ElKabong]

RG,

A lot of those guys have either died or were banished from associating with SMU athletics by either the university, or the ncaa. Some by both.

When the death penalty came around, their program was already dead. Even their hoops team folded (under Shumate) and they had a lot of success with Dave Bliss in the late 80s......Yes, THAT Dave Bliss :rolleyes:

When I grew up here (lived 10 minutes from SMU until 5th grade, we moved to FTW in 1967), DFW was a HS football area first, SWC football 2nd, Cowboys 3rd. That changed around 1968 or so when the Cowboys had a couple of really good yrs under their belt. After that, nothing else here stood a chance. It's the cowdogs all the time on tv and radio....makes me ill.

Has to be frustrating for SMU. They built a gorgeous stadium in 2000 and nobody goes. Smu spent many yrs detaching itself from the metroplex in the 1950s and 60s, it caught up to them. Their hoops is disappointing too. As a kid we used to sit in the bleachers for 50cents, saw some great basketball in the mid 1960s....but this area isn't big on hoops as opposed to football

[ElKabong]

here's a follow up post / link on that big10 guy's blog...check out the current tv $...pretty amamzing how horrible the Big East is in this regard.

http://frankthetank.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/big-ten-expansion-index-follow-up-1-superconferences-conference-tv-revenue-and-more-reasons-why-texas-to-the-big-ten-makes-sense/

2. Big Ten revenue is so incredibly and ridiculously FAR FAR FAR FAR ahead of the Big East and Big 12 that arguments such as ”Syracuse and Jim Boeheim love basketball in the Big East too much” or “Texas completely controls the Big 12″ are irrelevant – I made this point early in the original blog post, but it still comes up in message board discussions constantly. So, let’s make it perfectly clear why any Big East school and probably any Big 12 school would leave for the Big Ten. Here is the annual TV revenue for each conference as reported by ESPN’s Outside the Lines last month along with the average for each school:

Big Ten: $242 million ($22 million per school)
SEC: $205 million ($17.08 million per school)
Big 12: $78 million ($6.5 million per school)
ACC: $67 million ($5.58 million per school)
Pac-10: $58 million ($5.8 million per school)
Big East: $13 million for football/$20 million for basketball ($2.8 million per football school)

Take a look at those figures for a moment – every single Big Ten school makes almost twice as much TV revenue every year as the ENTIRE Big East football conference and even makes more than the entire Big East basketball contract (which that conference’s greatest strength). There is no rational president of a Big East university that is fulfilling his or her fiduciary responsibility to such university that would turn down an invitation from the Big Ten for any reason whatsoever (whether it’s what the basketball coach says or anything else). That’s not a personal knock on the Big East (as I’m also a law school alum of Big East member DePaul) but just a simple and glaring reality when you take two seconds to look at the numbers.

At the same time, Texas, which had a best case scenario of having the most nationally televised games and a BCS bowl appearance last year under the Big 12’s unequal revenue distribution formula, still made only $12 million in TV revenue compared to the $22 million that schools like Indiana and (gulp) Illinois received just for showing up. Every reasonable person knows that even the best programs go through hard times, so it’s not as if though you can count on the best case scenario every single year. Case in point is the Longhorns’ own rival of Oklahoma, who will receive significantly less money this year for a middling football season after being in the national championship game last year. Michigan was playing Ohio State for a national championship game berth in 2006, yet look at where the Wolverines are now. The recent competitive issues at Notre Dame are well-documented. That means that even a powerhouse school like Texas has to examine where it will be in the event of the worst case scenario when it’s in a conference with unequal revenue distribution, which is something that gives university presidents and athletic directors that have to worry about budgets and state legislatures cutting funding a whole lot of heartburn. This significant worry would immediately go away in the Big Ten – every school gets that $22 million per season whether they win multiple national championships or lose every single game.

[Robert Goren]

I have no doubt that any school in the country would move to the Big Ten if asked. It is the "if ask part" that people don't get. In Nebraska, the paper runs a story every year or so about Nebraska joining the Big Ten. It isn't happening. It not about Nebraska wanting to join, but about the Big Ten wanting them. Winning a lot of football games is not going get anyone into anything. It is about Media Markets and TV ratings. Even home attendence is not worth much. I just don't see how Texas and the Big Ten are a good fit. The SEC, maybe. JMO

[ElKabong]

TEXAS and the SEC is a horrible fit, culturally. A&M and the SEC, yes. But not TEXAS. (the big XXII is really a compromise for UT, A&M when you think about it)

On academics alone TEXAS wouldn't accept into the SEC. Also, Austin is as far away culturally from the deep south as you'll get east of San Francisco.

When you sit back and look at the cultural values of UT and most of the b10, it fits. That will come as a shock to someone from PA, OH, IL, WI if they don't have much experience with UT or Austin. But it's true.

But it's really going to be hard for UT to go to a conference and leave A&M behind. Austin (politicians) are really going to bark loud if UT tried to bolt alone.