So Dabo goes public

[WoadBlue]

in his expectation that we will see a 'super' division.

"I think there's going to be a complete blowup ... especially in football, and there needs to be," Swinney told ESPN. "I think eventually there will be some type of break and another division. Right now, you got everybody in one group, and it's not feasible. Alabama has different problems than Middle Tennessee, but we're trying to make them all the same and it's just not. I think you'll have 40 or 50 teams and a commissioner and here are the rules."

It seems that Dabo thinks that such a plan may be the only way to prevent total professionalization of Major College Football (and if it that comes for football, then basketball will be right behind).

The growing number of Big Ten and SEC fans who assert that this is indeed coming invariably see it as coming with those two leagues, the ultra super rich, left controlling things. They do not envision one group under one umbrella with one commissioner. And that makes sense. The BT and SEC have amassed such wealth and power that the odds of either giving up even a bit of it for the good of the game are none and next to none. Each surely assumes that it will control roughly half of such a new super division of Major College (revenue) Sports.

 

[Archer2]

All this money being generated by college football/basketball, and yet Fox reported yesterday that the average cost of college tuition is up 158% in the last 20 years alone. Ridiculous! WTF is all that money going? College sports is in serious trouble. The damn cart is leading the horse. The problem is that universities are addicted to all that revenue and would be hard pressed to function without it. We have managed to completely screw up our higher education system. Add “wokeness” to the equation and I’m not sure it’s salvageable.

 

[WoadBlue]

All this money being generated by college football/basketball, and yet Fox reported yesterday that the average cost of college tuition is up 158% in the last 20 years alone. Ridiculous! WTF is all that money going? College sports is in serious trouble. The damn cart is leading the horse. The problem is that universities are addicted to all that revenue and would be hard pressed to function without it. We have managed to completely screw up our higher education system. Add “wokeness” to the equation and I’m not sure it’s salvageable.

As you stress with the horrific increase in tuition, it is far from just college sports in trouble.

I think you are exactly right that we have rulers over academia who worship money and the power it brings. When those who have huge money or who have some power desire more money and power, they best get what they want with the least pushback by using a smokescreen or two. 'Wokeness' is a great smokescreen not just for such academics but also those in media and entertainment, as well as jurisprudence and electoral politics.

We may well not like the thought at all, but Wag the Dog tells a great truth, one that was in place long before politicians began talking about 'fake news.' Big Government and Big Media have been in bed with one another, and they do not intend to confess and make penance.

 

[heelfan1961]

Assuming every college continues playing sports at some level say we make that top league but none of the other in state schools do, why would very many of their fans watch us play. It just seems ludicrous to think very many fans of the other left out schools would bother to watch those 40 to 50 schools if their teams have nothing to do with them. They'll be watching their teams and the schools in their division.

 

[WoadBlue]

Assuming every college continues playing sports at some level say we make that top league but none of the other in state schools do, why would very many of their fans watch us play. It just seems ludicrous to think very many fans of the other left out schools would bother to watch those 40 to 50 schools if their teams have nothing to do with them. They'll be watching their teams and the schools in their division.

Your question comes from a common sense perspective, but it fails address some basic issues. Let's use Wake as an example because Wake is the least valuable school in any P5.

Why am I confident of Wake's lack of value? It is the smallest school in any P5; it is an elite private school; it is 1 of 4 P5 schools in a mid-sized state that has both the NFL and NBA; it has the least football and basketball history of those 4 P5 schools in its state, and it has the smallest average attendance of those 4 P5 schools in its state. All that adds up to marking Wake as a liability with no upside. And if Wake were to be downgraded out of major conference membership, its fans not watching UNC games ever again would mean zilch to UNC.

To come at that point from another league, one that was killed by conference realignment, the downgrading of Rice and SMU did not in any sense harm the audiences for other teams in TX that made the cut to remain in a Major/Power conference.

Because MCFB controls its own post-season, it has never suffered the huge influx of teams that belong in D2 moving up to grab the cash cow that we've seen in basketball. But because MCFB money is so big we have seen a large number of programs that belong in 1AA (FCS) move up to 1A (FBS) to try to get a piece of the cash cow. That has led more and more people - fans of the sport as well as people working for networks that broadcast games and people that work for athletics departments and conference offices - to think about maximizing the sport's value at least for 'their' teams and conferences. That can much easier, obviously, if the number of teams and conferences playing in the 'top division' is just right. Too many teams and leagues (say, 120 teams in 12 conferences) reduces revenue, and too few (say, 40 teams in 2 leagues) can lead to large numbers of TV fans falling away.

My warning to those who advocate for what Dabo seems to think is inevitable is that it better have at least 4 conferences and 60 members, with teams from every region in the lower 48. The P5, as it would be after the arranged changes, could serve as that new division that Dabo envisions, even if it is larger than 40 members.

I think better than that grouping would be to add also the AAC for certain and possibly the MWC and Sunbelt.

What I now think probable that I did not think possible even a couple years ago is that both the SEC and BT would expand to as many as 24 members in order to control roughly half the money that this new division would produce. The '40' that Dabo threw out may be in reference to that.

 

[DSouthr]

I don't agree with dabo, we don't need to have a level of division between power schools and the less than. What we so desperately need for both revenue sports is a governing body that actually does their job, equally govern a set of rules for all.

I honestly have no idea what the NCAA does anymore, what value do they bring to either of the revenue sports? Why does the NCAA get to keep the lion share of the March Madness funds? Why does football programs get to keep lion share of the bowl monies but the NCAA gets it for basketball? Makes no sense? I do not see any value the NCAA now brings to it's member schools, all they seem to do now days is take in money and give themselves raises for doing a piss poor job.

I think a complete and total house cleaning is in order for the NCAA, fire them all, start with Emmert, do that today and college sports would be much better off. Replace them with people from OUTSIDE the sports world, not with people that have firm and long standing affiliations with particular programs or conferences.

 

[WoadBlue]

I don't agree with dabo, we don't need to have a level of division between power schools and the less than. What we so desperately need for both revenue sports is a governing body that actually does their job, equally govern a set of rules for all.

I honestly have no idea what the NCAA does anymore, what value do they bring to either of the revenue sports? Why does the NCAA get to keep the lion share of the March Madness funds? Why does football programs get to keep lion share of the bowl monies but the NCAA gets it for basketball? Makes no sense? I do not see any value the NCAA now brings to it's member schools, all they seem to do now days is take in money and give themselves raises for doing a piss poor job.

I think a complete and total house cleaning is in order for the NCAA, fire them all, start with Emmert, do that today and college sports would be much better off. Replace them with people from OUTSIDE the sports world, not with people that have firm and long standing affiliations with particular programs or conferences.

Whether 'we' need a new division is irrelevant. The matter is one of whether the super rich BT and SEC intend to push things to the point that we end with a new division. As things stand, they now not only have that much power, but they seem to be leaning that way.

Essentially, both the BT and the SEC (and ESPN, which now owns 100% of SEC TV rights) each see themselves as like a mini NFL. That means they see the ACC (as well as Pac and Big XII and AAC) not as friendly competitors within one system but as rival leagues that if allowed to thrive could harm them.

The NFL made war to destroy the AAFC and absorb from it what it wanted. The NFL also made war on the AFL and absorbed the entire league.

Jay Bilas is sharp, and a lawyer, and his response to the SEC plans to add Texas and Oklahoma was that the SEC and ACC should just merge. I think that was Bilas's way of stating publicly that the best outcome for all members of the ACC would be such a merge, because he knows enough economics to be certain that a 'couple' of (and that definitely can mean more than 2) ACC schools cannot add value to any truly 'Major' conference. Just as the best outcome for all members of the AFL was that the NFL merge as senior partner with the AFL. That was the only way that each AFL franchise could survive.

ESPN is not anything like it was when founded. Those who started it and ran it back then loved sports, especially college sports. They did not love money. They loved good quality sports programming. Today, ESPN loves money because Disney loves money. Everything else comes after the love of money. And Disney people know that they make a bigger profit if fewer schools are paid top dollar by being members of a Major conference. Fox, CBS, and NBC execs all know the same thing. And all worship money.

That means they are fully on the same page with the BT and SEC desires to each own and control everything they can.

The NCAA has no power to even stall any of that. And the US Congress would be laughed at behind the scenes by the networks if it tried to stop any of it. The market place has been turned loose to nurture monopolies in everything.

 

[Xlance]

Your question comes from a common sense perspective, but it fails address some basic issues. Let's use Wake as an example because Wake is the least valuable school in any P5.

Why am I confident of Wake's lack of value? It is the smallest school in any P5; it is an elite private school; it is 1 of 4 P5 schools in a mid-sized state that has both the NFL and NBA; it has the least football and basketball history of those 4 P5 schools in its state, and it has the smallest average attendance of those 4 P5 schools in its state. All that adds up to marking Wake as a liability with no upside. And if Wake were to be downgraded out of major conference membership, its fans not watching UNC games ever again would mean zilch to UNC.

To come at that point from another league, one that was killed by conference realignment, the downgrading of Rice and SMU did not in any sense harm the audiences for other teams in TX that made the cut to remain in a Major/Power conference.

Because MCFB controls its own post-season, it has never suffered the huge influx of teams that belong in D2 moving up to grab the cash cow that we've seen in basketball. But because MCFB money is so big we have seen a large number of programs that belong in 1AA (FCS) move up to 1A (FBS) to try to get a piece of the cash cow. That has led more and more people - fans of the sport as well as people working for networks that broadcast games and people that work for athletics departments and conference offices - to think about maximizing the sport's value at least for 'their' teams and conferences. That can much easier, obviously, if the number of teams and conferences playing in the 'top division' is just right. Too many teams and leagues (say, 120 teams in 12 conferences) reduces revenue, and too few (say, 40 teams in 2 leagues) can lead to large numbers of TV fans falling away.

My warning to those who advocate for what Dabo seems to think is inevitable is that it better have at least 4 conferences and 60 members, with teams from every region in the lower 48. The P5, as it would be after the arranged changes, could serve as that new division that Dabo envisions, even if it is larger than 40 members.

I think better than that grouping would be to add also the AAC for certain and possibly the MWC and Sunbelt.

What I now think probable that I did not think possible even a couple years ago is that both the SEC and BT would expand to as many as 24 members in order to control roughly half the money that this new division would produce. The '40' that Dabo threw out may be in reference to that.

It's obvious that Wake has no real value and really does an outstanding job within the ACC because they continue to try.
Duke on the other hand, has no football value and doesn't even pretend to try.
I would also suggest that Boston College has very little football value, but fortunately for them they are the dominant team in a vast wasteland, which makes them the defacto representative of a large TV market.
Some schools are going to get left out.

 

[JimmyinVA]

All this money being generated by college football/basketball, and yet Fox reported yesterday that the average cost of college tuition is up 158% in the last 20 years alone. Ridiculous! WTF is all that money going? College sports is in serious trouble. The damn cart is leading the horse. The problem is that universities are addicted to all that revenue and would be hard pressed to function without it. We have managed to completely screw up our higher education system. Add “wokeness” to the equation and I’m not sure it’s salvageable.

outstanding post archer. serious trouble indeed.