A new look at conf realignment

[Shrmdougluvr]

This exercise, while fun, is a fools errand (no offense). Current conference revenues are most directly impacted positively by geographic reach. All the SEC needs to do is take on A&M, and they get the benefit of the Texas market. The conferences are not going to do anything that harms football revenue (let alone the political issues of say "big brothers" UF and FSU, allowing "little brothers" UCF and USF into the club). Its akin to cutting off their noses in spite of their faces.

 

[Hoo's That]

The Grapes of Wrath Conference

• Oklahoma
• Texas Tech
• Air Force
• Colorado State
• Colorado
• Arizona
• Arizona State
• BYU
• Utah
• UCLA

This was the most difficult conference to put together. My first and overarching theme was contracting conferences geographically because of the new world we’re living in. This conference is the most geographically disparate, but I think it could be a fun one.

The biggest problem for me here was separating two great college rivalries: Oklahoma-Ok. State, and UCLA-USC. With that said, all teams will have three OOC games a year and could certainly keep those games on the schedule each year. It also allows them to have a game very close to home that would offset the travel that UCLA and Oklahoma would have to make going to each other each year.

Oklahoma should be pleased overall though as they have a veritable cakewalk to the playoff each year.

The Surfer & Logger Conference

• USC
• Fresno St.
• Stanford
• Cal
• Nevada
• Oregon
• Oregon St.
• Washington
• Washington St.
• Boise St.

One of the fun parts of this exercise was seeing the new kind of rivalries that could pop up. I love that Boise State, Fresno State, and Nevada each have a chance to play teams that would rarely play them at home let alone on the road.

I would 100% stay up until 2 in the morning for Fresno State vs. Cal for instance.

---

So there you have it, the ultimate conference realignment that will never happen, but probably should. Teams would save money on travel and be more engaged because they are playing almost always against teams in their region. I know personally I would much rather play Penn State each year than Wake Forest. Maybe that’s just me.

You switched out UCLA for Fresno? No one on the West coast would even consider this. If there's any school that understands agriculture in that grouping, it's Fresno. UCLA is a strong non-rev school and would eat those others alive. They'd end up having a shite-ton of non-rev OOC games to get good competition.

 

[nzm136]

This exercise, while fun, is a fools errand (no offense). Current conference revenues are most directly impacted positively by geographic reach. All the SEC needs to do is take on A&M, and they get the benefit of the Texas market. The conferences are not going to do anything that harms football revenue (let alone the political issues of say "big brothers" UF and FSU, allowing "little brothers" UCF and USF into the club). Its akin to cutting off their noses in spite of their faces.

Markets are irrelevant for payouts (ignoring ancillary benefits, like recruiting). Fan support is what matters. Like every other product on the planet, price is the result of the intersection of supply and demand, and revenue (R) is the product of price (P) and quantity (Q). The surrounding geographic area isn’t a factor into the equation - unless you want to argue that certain fans are more affluent than others due to cost of living differences, but the impact of those variances is tiny.

I know deals are negotiated on market levels (carriage rates for a media market), but they’re ultimately the result of weighted averages of fan interest. (Cable providers care about their product price elasticities, which is 100% derived from the network mix that they offer and the packages by which they offer them. Networks derive their values from a combination of fan mix and fan interest - for the purpose of being commanding carriage fees - and fan interest - readiewers - and fan demographics for the purpose of advertising. A school’s value is based on its ability to fill those needs, which has nothing to do with location - at least not directly).

ATM added value to the SEC because they have an absurd number of fans who are fanatical, and the bring other soft benefits as well (like recruiting).

Slimming down to 65 eliminates a lot of the dead weight (USF, ECU,Tulsa, etc.), and tighter geographic alignment leads to more compelling storylines and associated fan interest (and therefore value).

The real issue IMHO, is that there isn’t a strong central body to coordinate, so there is an incredible collective action problem that hurts most (maybe all) schools.

 

[TexanMark]

Too many teams in that model from Forde.

Idiotic to believe we should be playing football with the likes of UMass in conference. No problems playing them ooc.

Round it down to 80 teams. There are about 80 teams nationally that can draw 30K legit fans to games.

Do either 8 leagues of 10 teams or 4 leagues of 20. If you went big... make 5 pods of 4. Play everyone in your pod every year. Rotate the other four pods every two years. You would play every team twice every 8 years.

This would give you a 9 game conference schedule. 3 OOC games. Downside is Clemson, FSU, Notre Dame won't be estatic that some long term OOC rivals might be problematic to schedule.

My ACC big plan would be to take the best of the Big 12. Why 5 pods vs 4 pods? Geography is easier but the other plan works too if we dropout either ND or WVU and add another TX team.

BC
Cuse
Pitt
Miami (or ND)

FSU
ND (or Miami)
Ville
Wake

UNC
Duke
Clemson
Ga Tech

UVA
VA Tech
NC State
WVU (or UCF)

Texas
Oklahoma
TCU (or Baylor)
Oklahoma St (or Houston)

 

[MSOrange]

Too many teams in that model from Forde.

Idiotic to believe we should be playing football with the likes of UMass in conference. No problems playing them ooc.

Round it down to 80 teams. There are about 80 teams nationally that can draw 30K legit fans to games.

Do either 8 leagues of 10 teams or 4 leagues of 20. If you went big... make 5 pods of 4. Play everyone in your pod every year. Rotate the other four pods every two years. You would play every team twice every 8 years.

This would give you a 9 game conference schedule. 3 OOC games. Downside is Clemson, FSU, Notre Dame won't be estatic that some long term OOC rivals might be problematic to schedule.

My ACC big plan would be to take the best of the Big 12. Why 5 pods vs 4 pods? Geography is easier but the other plan works too if we dropout either ND or WVU and add another TX team.

BC
Cuse
Pitt
Miami (or ND)

FSU
ND (or Miami)
Ville
Wake

UNC
Duke
Clemson
Ga Tech

UVA
VA Tech
NC State
WVU (or UCF)

Texas
Oklahoma
TCU (or Baylor)
Oklahoma St (or Houston)

Uh oh someone is going to get riled up with that UMass comment

 

[A Clockwork Orange]

You switched out UCLA for Fresno? No one on the West coast would even consider this. If there's any school that understands agriculture in that grouping, it's Fresno. UCLA is a strong non-rev school and would eat those others alive. They'd end up having a shite-ton of non-rev OOC games to get good competition.

Just to be clear the overriding factor was distance. The distance between Fresno and Oklahoma is greater than UCLA and Oklahoma. This is not intended to be a solution as there is zero chance any of it would ever happen so I'm not too concerned if the UCLA fanbase would be hypothetically outraged by a completely hypothetical conference realignment.

 

[syrBossHogg]

If only Notre Dame's campus and Penn St's campus could swap places.