Bigs"R"Us
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Post by Bigs"R"Us on Aug 7, 2023 19:12:24 GMT -5
One issue with Gonzaga is the willingness to send all our other sports that far.
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CTHoya08
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Post by CTHoya08 on Aug 7, 2023 19:43:19 GMT -5
Just to pile on to my other “wait and see” posts, and with the caveat that I haven’t really followed college football closely since moving back to New England in 2012 after four years in SEC country . . .
As of today, D1 football is basically divided into three tiers. There’s the power-conference FBS schools at the top, then the FBS schools in the also-ran conferences, and then FCS. (Some of the bottom programs in the top leagues are, of course, held up by their league’s reputation rather than their own merit—more on that below.) We’re witnessing a consolidation of those power-conference schools into fewer leagues, with some potentially being relegated to “also-ran FBS” status when they get left out. There’s also talk of more consolidation in the future, likely with the SEC and Big Ten going after the top programs in the ACC, which could lead to the collapse of that league. There’s also the possibility of a national “super league” of sorts coming into existence someday. Under either scenario, it seems likely that in the near- or mid-term, the musical chairs will stop with somewhere between 60-75 FBS teams having a seat at the table (to mix metaphors), with the rest related to also-ran status.
My prediction is that if and when that happens, the football programs that are on the outside looking in will inhabit a space that is (in both perceived prestige and recruiting/on-field product) lower than the current FBS have-nots. In other words, they start to look a bit more like today’s FCS than yesteryear’s CUSA. And who’s to say that, upon a breakaway/super league situation, the NCAA itself doesn’t reclassify the subdivisions of D1 to reflect this new reality?
What all of this is getting at is that the rump of the ACC might be a good addition to the Big East, re-forming the football version of the league at the whatever-we’re-now-calling-lower-FBS level. UConn is already doomed to land at that level, and it might not be as big a stretch for one or more of the current FCS programs in the league to move up if the other programs are moving down. Add five schools and you’re at 16 for hoops, with at least 6 (and maybe as high as 9?) for football. In this scenario, there’s probably less flight risk than there has been in decades, because the big boys have decided who is in and who is out, once and for all.
So who would be that rump ACC? I’d have to think that the top targets for the Big Ten and SEC would be UVA, UNC, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State, and Miami. Maybe NC State and Virginia Tech as part of a package if the state politicians get involved. So that leaves a bunch of our old conference mates, but also potentially Duke and Wake. And finally, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a “super league” that would allow the biggest of the programs to unshackle themselves from traditional conferences and dump the dead weight (from a football perspective). That might mean schools like Vanderbilt and Northwestern shaking loose.
Now of course, whatever is left of the ACC might find it more attractive to add a couple of other leftovers rather than dissolving and limping back to the Big East with a mea culpa. But I’d rather wait and find out than add Dayton and SLU just for the sake of adding more teams.
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Bigs"R"Us
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Post by Bigs"R"Us on Aug 7, 2023 20:05:50 GMT -5
ACC discusses adding Cal & Stanford. Crazy travel.
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Aug 7, 2023 20:44:50 GMT -5
How about we find a way to co-exist with the ACC rather than talk of one conference raiding the other. Haven't thought this through thoroughly but how about committing to 2-3 interleague game as part of the OOC schedule each year and, perhaps, schedule a game between the conference champions at the end of the season? Under this or a similar arrangement it might increase the value of each conference's next TV contract without facing the almost impossible task of an ACC team extricating itself from the almost monumental task of exit.
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Post by professorhoya on Aug 7, 2023 21:34:50 GMT -5
How about we find a way to co-exist with the ACC rather than talk of one conference raiding the other. Haven't thought this through thoroughly but how about committing to 2-3 interleague game as part of the OOC schedule each year and, perhaps, schedule a game between the conference champions at the end of the season? Under this or a similar arrangement it might increase the value of each conference's next TV contract without facing the almost impossible task of an ACC team extricating itself from the almost monumental task of exit. No thanks. ACC/ESPN raided us once (Syracuse, Pitt, Miami, va tech etc) and tried to destroy the Big East. Hope they fall apart.
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Post by johnnysnowplow on Aug 8, 2023 6:42:12 GMT -5
That history includes ghucking us in pursuit of easy money - with them we are in “fool me once” territory, while Gonzaga remains “clean” in that regard. And the whole rivalry thing is dwindling rapidly as the key players fade away, so not sure that holds much weight. As for travel, whatever - Omaha to Spokane v Omaha to Provy is a wash and the rest is just a matter of a few minutes or maybe an hour on a plane. I for one would rather go to Spokane in winter than Lower Canada, but whatevs. I don’t want either, so just tossing ideas around. I hear you about not trusting them/wanting to extend a lifeline. But I think people really underestimate the significance of time zones when they look at these things from a geographical perspective. Having one team on Pacific when the rest of the league is on Eastern or Central is not good. It’s one thing for football, where you’re talking just half of the teams making a big trip, and always on a weekend. But it’s really doing the rest of the teams a disservice to subject them to a six-hour flight and jet lag midweek. You’re both kind of missing the bigger point here. Which program is more marketable even if their on-court product slips? Which programs gets us more money in a TV deal? Which program has history and rivalries that TV networks can sell to consumers? Which program will sell more tickets at MSG? Don’t fool yourselves into thinking this is about anything other than money for the BE as well, even if it’s not football money. It’s a business, and like it or not, the Syracuse brand is good for the business of college basketball. If Gonzaga tanks after Few leaves, there’s no history, there’s no rivalries, there’s no brand, there’s no one buying tickets at MSG, there’s no major draw for the TV execs. In conjunction with all the logistical headaches and whatnot, there’s just a lot of risk to be weighed in adding Gonzaga.
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kghoya
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Post by kghoya on Aug 8, 2023 6:52:30 GMT -5
I hear you about not trusting them/wanting to extend a lifeline. But I think people really underestimate the significance of time zones when they look at these things from a geographical perspective. Having one team on Pacific when the rest of the league is on Eastern or Central is not good. It’s one thing for football, where you’re talking just half of the teams making a big trip, and always on a weekend. But it’s really doing the rest of the teams a disservice to subject them to a six-hour flight and jet lag midweek. You’re both kind of missing the bigger point here. Which program is more marketable even if their on-court product slips? Which programs gets us more money in a TV deal? Which program has history and rivalries that TV networks can sell to consumers? Which program will sell more tickets at MSG? Don’t fool yourselves into thinking this is about anything other than money for the BE as well, even if it’s not football money. It’s a business, and like it or not, the Syracuse brand is good for the business of college basketball. If Gonzaga tanks after Few leaves, there’s no history, there’s no rivalries, there’s no brand, there’s no one buying tickets at MSG, there’s no major draw for the TV execs. In conjunction with all the logistical headaches and whatnot, there’s just a lot of risk to be weighed in adding Gonzaga. I think Gonzaga has bought themselves years of grace in the event that they take a dip. I mean look at how Georgetown is still viewed as a thing at times despite the recent historic lows and overall meh of the last decade.
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MCIGuy
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Post by MCIGuy on Aug 8, 2023 7:30:21 GMT -5
Can’t add Gonzaga without adding a couple of more west coast schools, perhaps Catholic institutions.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Aug 8, 2023 8:55:41 GMT -5
Just to pile on to my other “wait and see” posts, and with the caveat that I haven’t really followed college football closely since moving back to New England in 2012 after four years in SEC country . . . As of today, D1 football is basically divided into three tiers. There’s the power-conference FBS schools at the top, then the FBS schools in the also-ran conferences, and then FCS. (Some of the bottom programs in the top leagues are, of course, held up by their league’s reputation rather than their own merit—more on that below.) We’re witnessing a consolidation of those power-conference schools into fewer leagues, with some potentially being relegated to “also-ran FBS” status when they get left out. There’s also talk of more consolidation in the future, likely with the SEC and Big Ten going after the top programs in the ACC, which could lead to the collapse of that league. There’s also the possibility of a national “super league” of sorts coming into existence someday. Under either scenario, it seems likely that in the near- or mid-term, the musical chairs will stop with somewhere between 60-75 FBS teams having a seat at the table (to mix metaphors), with the rest related to also-ran status. My prediction is that if and when that happens, the football programs that are on the outside looking in will inhabit a space that is (in both perceived prestige and recruiting/on-field product) lower than the current FBS have-nots. In other words, they start to look a bit more like today’s FCS than yesteryear’s CUSA. And who’s to say that, upon a breakaway/super league situation, the NCAA itself doesn’t reclassify the subdivisions of D1 to reflect this new reality? What all of this is getting at is that the rump of the ACC might be a good addition to the Big East, re-forming the football version of the league at the whatever-we’re-now-calling-lower-FBS level. UConn is already doomed to land at that level, and it might not be as big a stretch for one or more of the current FCS programs in the league to move up if the other programs are moving down. Add five schools and you’re at 16 for hoops, with at least 6 (and maybe as high as 9?) for football. In this scenario, there’s probably less flight risk than there has been in decades, because the big boys have decided who is in and who is out, once and for all. So who would be that rump ACC? I’d have to think that the top targets for the Big Ten and SEC would be UVA, UNC, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State, and Miami. Maybe NC State and Virginia Tech as part of a package if the state politicians get involved. So that leaves a bunch of our old conference mates, but also potentially Duke and Wake. And finally, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a “super league” that would allow the biggest of the programs to unshackle themselves from traditional conferences and dump the dead weight (from a football perspective). That might mean schools like Vanderbilt and Northwestern shaking loose.Now of course, whatever is left of the ACC might find it more attractive to add a couple of other leftovers rather than dissolving and limping back to the Big East with a mea culpa. But I’d rather wait and find out than add Dayton and SLU just for the sake of adding more teams. The bolded part of your post is actually a great point. It aligns directly with an article I read in the Athletic yesterday about Rutgers and the dire situation they are facing, even having already re-aligned to one of the future "super-conferences." theathletic.com/4748780/2023/08/07/big-ten-realignment-rutgers/It's behind a paywall so I won't C&P the entire article. But some of the most important nuggets are damning and illustrate that some of the "dead weight" as you put it are finding it hard, even potentially unsustainable, to keep up even with the big TV dollars coming in. Rutgers’ time in the Big Ten has been a competitive and financial nightmare, compounded by a few salacious scandals. Entering its 10th season in the conference, the football team has gone 13-66 in league play. Meanwhile, despite astronomical increases in shared Big Ten revenue, the athletic department has racked up more than $250 million in debt, according to financial documents obtained by The Athletic and first reported by NorthJersey.com.Football carries the most prominence, but nearly all of Rutgers’ programs have struggled. Over the last six Directors’ Cup standings, Rutgers has finished last among Big Ten teams four times. A year after posting one of its best showings in decades (48th, 10th among Big Ten schools), Rutgers fell to 130th nationally this past school year, the third time in six years (not including 2019-20, when there were no final standings) that the school finished in the 100s.Of the Big Ten’s 13 public universities, nine athletics departments receive minimal or no funding from the university, state or from student fees. However, over eight years of data, Rutgers has received nearly $240.8 million in direct university or state funding or from student fees. Maryland ($128.3 million), Illinois ($55.9 million) and Minnesota ($20 million) are the other three Big Ten schools receiving funding from those sources over that eight-year period. Minnesota’s athletic department gave back more than $2.3 million, Illinois’ gave more than $1.3 million and Maryland’s gave $620,000 to their respective universities. Rutgers has transferred back zero.
“The Board of Governors and the Board of Trustees know exactly what’s going on,” Killingsworth, the Rutgers professor, says. “The question (for them) is not, ‘Why are we spending so much of this effing money?’ The question is, ‘How can we spend more? What else do you need? We’ll give it to you.’”
Beginning in 2020, Rutgers athletics has reported more than $69.8 million in combined losses to the NCAA, per financial forms obtained by The Athletic via state open-records laws. A NorthJersey.com investigation in 2021 documented $265 million in total debt.
Before it became a fully vested Big Ten member in 2020, Rutgers borrowed $48 million from the league against future earnings. The payback schedule remains undetermined as university brass works with new Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti on a workable solution.
“There was a lot of propaganda about how the Big Ten was going to be our financial salvation that was going to make everything right,” Killingsworth says, “which even at the time, if you had a brain and a pencil and paper, and you could do basic math, the net increase in income, between leaving the Big East and arriving in the Big Ten, would not be enough to make up the deficit. And they just ignored that. They fell for their own propaganda.”Hard to fathom how a school like Rutgers, which is so far in debt, will continue to essentially "pay to play" in the Big Ten. And it's not far-fetched to envision a scenario where a number of schools like the ones you mentioned will come to the same conclusion over the next few years.
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kghoya
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Post by kghoya on Aug 8, 2023 10:30:46 GMT -5
Can’t add Gonzaga without adding a couple of more west coast schools, perhaps Catholic institutions. If the ACC is thinking about adding Cal, Stanford, etc, then it makes sense to add the Zags. They already have one non football member.
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hoyaboya
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Post by hoyaboya on Aug 8, 2023 11:05:47 GMT -5
Can’t add Gonzaga without adding a couple of more west coast schools, perhaps Catholic institutions. If the ACC is thinking about adding Cal, Stanford, etc, then it makes sense to add the Zags. They already have one non football member. Yeah, Gonzaga is a pipe dream for the Big East for this reason. It makes far less sense, from Gonzaga's standpoint, to join the Big East than it does to join the Big 12, Pac 12, or ACC.
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kghoya
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Post by kghoya on Aug 8, 2023 11:25:48 GMT -5
If the ACC is thinking about adding Cal, Stanford, etc, then it makes sense to add the Zags. They already have one non football member. Yeah, Gonzaga is a pipe dream for the Big East for this reason. It makes far less sense, from Gonzaga's standpoint, to join the Big East than it does to join the Big 12, Pac 12, or ACC. Well you can't just add Gonzaga. They need to come with some friends. It seems like the ACC is considering going west so might as well kick the tires on the Zags.
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MCIGuy
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Post by MCIGuy on Aug 8, 2023 12:06:22 GMT -5
If the ACC is thinking about adding Cal, Stanford, etc, then it makes sense to add the Zags. They already have one non football member. Yeah, Gonzaga is a pipe dream for the Big East for this reason. It makes far less sense, from Gonzaga's standpoint, to join the Big East than it does to join the Big 12, Pac 12, or ACC. Gonzaga plays Zero D1 football. The only conference considering doing a hybrid membership was the Big 12 and it abandoned that idea quickly because in the end football drives it more than the sport which it wa claiming months ago as its primary vehicle : basketball. Gonzaga is not joining any D1 football conference. Additionally I am pretty certain Gonzaga would not want to be surrounded by behemoth state universities in any conference it would hypothetically join anyway. Therefore the Big East would be a better fit. If Gonzaga was willing to dismiss travel costs to play regularly on the east coast, it would find a more fitting home in the Big East with other private Catholic schools not named Norte Dame, rather than in the ACC.
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MCIGuy
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Post by MCIGuy on Aug 8, 2023 12:13:17 GMT -5
Yeah, Gonzaga is a pipe dream for the Big East for this reason. It makes far less sense, from Gonzaga's standpoint, to join the Big East than it does to join the Big 12, Pac 12, or ACC. Well you can't just add Gonzaga. They need to come with some friends. It seems like the ACC is considering going west so might as well kick the tires on the Zags. Gonzaga already plays in a conference with at least one other Catholic school. If the BE was to think about inviting Gonzaga it might as well as invite other Catholic schools on that coast.
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Post by professorhoya on Aug 8, 2023 12:36:53 GMT -5
Gonzaga actually wants to come to the Big East believe it or not. That’s their number one choice.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Aug 8, 2023 13:36:56 GMT -5
Well you can't just add Gonzaga. They need to come with some friends. It seems like the ACC is considering going west so might as well kick the tires on the Zags. Gonzaga already plays in a conference with at least one other Catholic school. If the BE was to think about inviting Gonzaga it might as well as invite other Catholic schools on that coast. Who else? Therein lies the problem. St. Mary's is very good, but like Gonzaga/Few their success is largely Randy Bennett. Gonzaga has a top program now. As others have said, that is in significant part relate to Mark Few and his success, and it's unclear whether that success will continue when Few eventually retires (hopefully not any time soon if they did come to the Big East). The benefit of bringing in Gonzaga is that they are, and have been now for a while, an excellent basketball program. That's why they would bring value to the Big East. But, if you bring along with them other programs that simply don't reach those same levels, then the benefit of bringing in Gonzaga decreases. I am just not seeing obvious choices other than St. Mary's, as most of the other West Coast Catholic schools are bad at basketball, play in small venues, and have no tradition of success. And while I would happily take St. Mary's and Gonzaga today, that their success is so tied to single coaches, and not necessarily something that can be repeated when those coaches retire, still makes me a little nervous (and yes, I realize that people could say things like that about Georgetown given the last 10 years, but hopefully we are now beyond that phase). I also see little rush, unless we think Gonzaga is going to be taken by another conference. But, those conferences would all be football conferences, and I do not see why they would open their doors to non-football schools. There's little benefit to the Big 12/Big 10/ACC in doing that.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Aug 8, 2023 14:44:48 GMT -5
If it is just basketball AND soccer then you would have additionally Portland and Santa Clara AND cross country again Portland and Gonzaga. But in 20 years tackle football would be replaced by flag football, so what's the big deal on the football playing schools.
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jwp91
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Post by jwp91 on Aug 8, 2023 15:14:07 GMT -5
Never thought I would see the day that the PAC 12 disintegrated. So much for the Rose Bowl and the commitment to tradition when money talks.
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calhoya
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Post by calhoya on Aug 8, 2023 15:27:28 GMT -5
If it is just basketball AND soccer then you would have additionally Portland and Santa Clara AND cross country again Portland and Gonzaga. But in 20 years tackle football would be replaced by flag football, so what's the big deal on the football playing schools. By my recollection the West Coast Catholic schools other than Gonzaga include Seattle University, Portland, San Francisco, St. Mary's, Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount, and San Diego. Most play in small venues but at least San Francisco and St. Mary's have fielded good or decent basketball teams. Cannot really trash Loyola's program either since they trashed the Hoyas just last year in Jamaica. All that said I am not in favor of adding any schools to the BE right now but would prefer to sse how things play out with the ACC first.
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Post by professorhoya on Aug 8, 2023 16:26:29 GMT -5
There are two schools we are looking at. Gonzaga and a school from the ACC.
We aren’t looking to add any mediocre schools
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