If (when) the B12 collapses you will see a move to 4 power conferences of 16 members each. That does not mean the B12 teams will be redistributed to other conferences. It does mean that some of the B12 may be dropped from the power conferences and a very few g5s will have a chance to be promoted. OU and UT are safe, OSU, KU, and TT are probably safe. WVU is a maybe safe. K st, Baylor, TCU, and Iowa St are at risk of being replaced in the Power conferences.
Why do think TT is safe vs TCU or other schools?
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TT is a large state university while TCU and Baylor are small private church schools. K St doesnât have the academic chops and Iowa St is just too far. I believe that UH and TT will be invited to the PAC. TCU would be a good fit except they are a church school and the PAC does not want church schools.
Kansas is safe too. Their basketball program is too strong. You figure most years youâre getting 4 credits from their basketball program. Thatâs $24M. Theyâll earn their keep and theyâre AAU.
I donât know how tied at the hip OU and OSU really are in the Oklahoma legislature and how strict the SEC policy is about adding schools in states where the SEC already has a presence, but I have felt that OU and UH would be good adds for the SEC. It locks down SE Texas and brings in the Dallas market even more with Oklahoma along with the state of Oklahoma.
You could have four pods: UH, OU, AR, A&M; Mizzou, TN, Vanderbilt, KY; Bama, Auburn, Ole Miss, Miss St; GA, FL, SC, LSU. Iâm sure the power conference could ram through semi-finals for the pod champions and conference title games.
Play a nine game conference schedule; your pod and two schools from the other pods, rotating every two years. You play home and home with every school in conference every four years.
Probably never happen, but itâs nice to dream.
There are a lot of fanciful scenarios being thrown around on this thread that have zero chance of ever happening. I think this podcast hits the nail on the head about conference expansion, especially how expansion is influenced by a network.
Ridiculous. While Iâm not optimistic about our inclusion into P5 as currently structured, what this nut is proposing totally ignores important players in the conversation: university presidents/boards of regents.
The SWC could have been the SEC but instead, they all chose to tear each other down, mostly UT bc they wanted an easy road every year, instead of having to fight for it.
Having to fight for it, makes a good conference. UT will always work against having a good conference, thus cutting their nose off to spite their face.
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Thatâs where an entitled mentality always gets you. Itâs a campus culture there, deeper than any one coach or program.
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I think as much as UT may be blamed for the demise of the SWC, the other programs cannot be given a pass. Add to that the structural weaknesses of the SWC (4 small private programs!), and really in the TV era it was almost inevitable the SWC would fail. I donât see how it could ever be a serious competitor to the SEC.
This article written in 1974 is almost prophetic about the weaknesses in, and the future of the SWC.
UTs main role in killing the SWC was to take only 4 programs to the Big 12, even though the Big 8 wanted all 8 SWC programs.
I donât really understand why UT would do that, when really having more Texas programs in the Big 12 (or would it be known as the Big 16?) would give UT even more power.
Presidents vote on expansion, yes. But its the conference commisioners who make the proposals for the presidents to vote on. If you are any conference commsioner other than Bob Bowlsby, that means you have to factor in the impact a new schools would have on your TV network. And no conference commisioner is going to propose a scenario to the league presidents in which the per-school share of revenue would drop. Mike Slive, former SEC commsioner, was instrumental in pitching the SEC presidents on A&M and Mizzou. And it all had to do with launching a conference network. The same goes with Jim Delaney and the Big 10 when they added Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers. Presidents voted for their inclusion because, among other things, they knew the incremental league revenue would exceed the amount of money those schools would be due as their share of the league revenue. In other words, the first rule of expansion is: Everyone thatâs currently in the conferences gets richer. And with a conference network, your business model doesnât include adding schools in your current footprint because the amount of subscriber fees the league network generates doesnât increase enough to compensate for that new memberâs share of the overall league revenue.
Can I just say that the key here is âin the TV eraâ? Oklahoma sued for the right to control their own TV appearances, but what they got is every schoolâs right to be held hostage by the whims of TV networks.
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Well the schools may be held hostage by the networks, but those are among the haves are not likely to be complaining about it.
Itâs eithet that or go back to the past where OU, Alabama, UT, etc were subsidizing the Hofstras.
Kgwood, I think that was well stated on the current environment of colleges and TV networks. That is why I think UH would be a great fit for the PAC. The Texas market would open up to the PAC network and there will be a lot more eyeballs for the other networks that give to PAC.
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Thank Deloss Dodds and big money Texas boosters for that. They were upset in the early 80âs that they werenât at the top of the conference in football anymore and felt that the Conference was diluting the talent base with so many schools competing for the same recruits and the rampant cheating that they were all to willing to report (while doing the same behind closed doors). They felt that taking A&M and getting away from the other six would allow them to prosper and return to being perennial champions as theyâd have the pick of the litter when it came to recruiting.
In a way, they were sort of correct as Mack Brown was able to take them to a national title and Texas is rolling in dough. However, they also opened up the floodgates to a whole new set of programs that now had access to areas that were basically off limits during the SWC days. Now, Texas and A&M are back to struggling to get recruits and coaches while competing with a larger group of schools, A&M left in hopes of trying to find more success in the SEC (nope) and Texas is trying to move again in hopes of rekindling that magic.
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It would depend on how many cable providers in Texas are willing to carry the P12N at the conference state rate.
Does UH have the kind of following to make media providers in Austin, SAN Antonio, DFW etc want to carry the P12N?
Even if the P12N stays confined to the Greater Houston area, thatâs almost 1.5 million subscribers (I estimate) At $0.30 per month per subscriber, thatâs $6 million a year for the P12N!
Assuming that the remaining Texas providers can be prevailed upon to add the P12N at $0.1 per subscriber, and estimating 4 million subscribers, thatâs another $4.8 million per year.
All told in the worst case UH could bring $11 million annually to the P12N. In the best case it could be as much as $20 million annually!
These are potentially the same numbers UH could add to the ACCN.
The above estimates are very low. Current in state rates are $1.25 to $1.50 per month. The current out of state rate is $.20 to $.30 per month. Using out of state of $.20 and in state of $1.40 UH would add $20.7 Million per year to the PAC network. for the Houston area alone. The other Texas cable providers that carry the PAC will also have to increase their payments to the PAC becaus UH would be in state.
Oldtime Coog: So why do we have to wait several years for this to happen?
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OldtimeCoog, while I agree with you that the PACN will be able to charge $1.30 per subscriber in the greater Houston area, I am not so sure that theyâll be able charge anywhere near that much in other parts of Texas.
However, wven assuming $1.30 for the Greater Houston customers, you have $16 million from that alone. Even if the rest of Texas pays $0.30 ($1 less), we have another $14 million, that is a cool $30 million a year!
So why is it not happening? If the financial math appears to make so much sense, why is Pac not pulling the trigger? Canât blame UT for stopping Pac, so what business reasons could be stopping it?
That is the PAC network money. Adding UH right now (my preference) does not increase the payout by ESPN and Fox on the the primary media contract. That means that the other 12 schools in the PAC would have to accept less money per year from the primary media contract until the contract is renegotiated.
The PAC-12 paid out roughly 29.5 million dollars in FY2016. Most of that is TV money, but it also includes revenues that arenât derived from TV contracts like CFP revenue, NCAA tourney etc. That 29.5 million is still a high hurdle, even if UH has a large fan base outside of the Houston area.
And it should be noted that the PAC-12 is slightly different from the other leagues in that their network is actually 6 regional networks. The vibe Iâve been getting from the PAC12 members in the last few years is that they arenât happy with the distribution of their networks. Which mostly falls on Larry Scott. So I have a hard time picturing them expanding again while Larry Scott is their commissioner. The PAC 12 passed on OU and Okie State back in 2011. So I donât think they are in any rush to add more schools.