Great question. I think it is also worth noting that only a handful of P5 athletic departments do not rely on a subsidy from the rest of the university. We talk about P5 programs as if they are all equal. They aren’t. So even if a magic wand was waved and UH was in the different conference, financial woes would ease but wouldn’t disappear with their current rate of spending.
There will be the threat of a lawsuit. The league bylaws allow for members to leave with certain penalties applied under that process. And there is plenty of precedent to boot. So no amount of legal action from Baylor is going to stop someone from leaving.
So you are saying that coaches of some existing P5 schools do not want to add new schools because they are afraid to compete with new schools for recruits and afraid to compete with the new schools on the field.
Well those coaches need to grow a pair.
You left out one really big subject. Money Money Money! If the networks were willing to give the B12 the contractual agreement of $25M per new school, the B12 would have added 4 new schools. Money trumps any concerns the coaches have about competition.
P5 conferences are going to entertain expansion but they are first going to consult with the networks to see if adding certain schools will be monetarily beneficial to that conference. When the PAC12 and networks contract negotiations start, the PAC12 will ask the networks of the value of some new schools to their conference.
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I handicapped the possibilities of UH conference affiliation a few mmonths ago in another post. After some reflection, I’ve updated the probabilities. If I am thinking of a ten year time frame:
-Staying in the current form of the AAC or some hybridized version of the AAC and a dissolved Big 12 (90% chance). I would put the chances of the Big 12 staying together at about 50/50.
-PAC 12 expands and takes Houston (8% chance).
-ACC expands and takes Houston (2% chance).
The ACC has more mouths to feed right now than any other conference since they are giving ND a full share of the ACC network. I doubt ND will join the ACC as a full member any time soon since they are already receiving some of the perks of full membership. And as long as that arrangement exists, I don’t see the ACC expanding.
-Big 12 (in its current form) expands and takes Houston (0% chance).
-SEC or Big 10 taking Houston (0% chance).
Next round of realignment will be a 64 team P4. Everybody left out will forever, at least in my lifetime, be relegated to G5 status, G5 playoff, etc etc. Our only shot is an expanded PAC.
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Right if we don’t get in next time we are thru, play G5 playoff or drop to FCS or even close program down if we don’t make it in next realignment
I would vote for playing G5. Would never support shutting down the program. But, if they shut it down, they would not need any support anyway.
Nothing wrong with being the best at whatever level we would play at. I imagine that the non-football sports would still have opportunities to compete at the highest levels.
We don’t have enough fan support to keep program viable at lower level football unless they drastically reduced expenditures to the bare minimum which I assume they would. I just don’t think I would be interested if we are not able to compete at the highest levels
The facts are we do not know what the next expansion will bring.
At this point all P5 are a possibility including the S.E.C. & I do not mean the Securities and exchange commission. There are no rules set in stone for inclusions or not.This argument comes back every quarter or so. The only reality is that money talks & everything else is hot air.
The only way we get a P5 invite is if any of the conferences think we can move the needle for them in their next tv contract.
“I wish we had some insight into why the SWC added us and more importantly UT supported it.”
Around 1970, when Royal and UT were on top of the college football world, Royal (as UT’s AD) made the call to the University of Houston to invite them into the Southwest Conference. U of H was the most integrated college football team in state history. Texas had barely begun the process.
IMO, Royal invited UH out of his totally unique sense of fair play. By tying UT in Austin in 1968, and establishing themselves as a perennially ranked team, UH deserved to be in the SWC. They were an independent at the time, and were having a hard time filling out future schedules as they became recognized as a football power.
U of H would turn out to be a real pain in UT’s side in the 70’s and into the 80’s. Like OU except more so, they accentuated UT’s lack of black players by simply having way more of them. They had guys like Lombardi Award winning DL Wilson Whitley, that might otherwise have been Horns if not for UH gaining entrance into the SWC.
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also try this on this board.
So you can’t rule out UH being in the Sun Belt, SWAC or Division III either, huh?
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G5 playoff = Div. II
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Those coaches need to grow a pair?
It’s not about needing ‘to grow a pair.’ It’s human nature to desire an easier route to something as opposed to the more difficult one. It’s also human nature to feel somewhat threatened when someone else wants something you already have. Don’t give me this, ‘well, bring it on’ so as to convey you’d not only be up for the challenge, but welcome it as well.
Open your eyes! The bigger conferences don’t need Houston, so why should they want to empower us??? It’s not the smartest of mindsets to adopt in business. It’s not about being scared and needing ‘to grow a pair’ as much as it is about putting your own maximum potential to win at risk! It’s not that hard to figure out.
Again, if adding a school like a Houston would help to legitimize a P5 conference or the members within that conference, I could see how adding Houston would be plausible.
But it doesn’t.
U of H brings little to no value (and certainly not monetarily) to a conference other than being a viable representative on the field of play for that conference. But the P5 conferences don’t need another one of those because they already have that! It’s part of what makes being in a P5 what it is – a POWER conference! The P5s don’t need to get more powerful. They already are! So, why wake the ‘sleeping giants’ of the world?
Having said all that, I certainly think the P5s would be more in favor or replacing members of their existing conference for others, but that’s not a feasible solution, either – which is why I think the only way a school like a Houston gets invited to the party is if a large P5/G5 contingent bands together and branches out on its own to form one large coalition as with the aforementioned 64-school group we very well could see in the future.
Until that happens, enjoy the status quo. At the end of the day, destinations take care of themselves as long as the results are there.
That’s not what the two research firms hired by the Big 12 a couple of years ago said, just the opposite, in fact. UH and BYU were considered the two most valuable schools to add. It didn’t happen because of some political fallout with BYU and also the networks not wanting to pay more.
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Exactly! The networks didn’t want to pay more because it wasn’t worth it to them to pay more. Thus, the value wasn’t there.
At any rate, the current institutions would still have to vote in favor of inclusion.
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Evidently the other conferences don’t see the value in the Houston market that some think is there.
UH will not know its value until 2023 when conferences and networks start renegotiating contracts. During this time is when conference realignment/expansion should occur. Every G5 team is doing what it can to be prepared for that year in hopes for an invite.
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Thats right. ESPN knew long time viability of Big 12 wasnt good, so why pay? …OU, Kansas and Texas refuse to extend GOR…Only a matter of time before OU and Kansas fly the coop to the BIG, and rejoin Nebraska. What Texas does next is anyone’s guess, but once OU bails, they are out the door too, with a perfectly justifiable reason for leaving. After BIG makes their move, then we’ll see what PAC does.
People here talking like the Big 12 is going to stay the same are wrong, because it wont. OU has made that clear from their actions.
Houston is plenty attractive to some leagues ( PAC 12, ACC) and not so attractive to others (SEC, Big 12) so it depends who is doing the courting.
I expect to be a PAC 12 member by 2024, and so does our AD…
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