No, I’m not. And it’s real rich coming from you when you can’t even get behind a paywall and you’ve showed zero data yourself. However, have mastered the art of the gish gallop
What’s stopping the SEC or Big from doing what you say now? Oh that’s because they’d lose money on the deal from decreased competition and ESPN/CBs isn’t going to torpedo their other interests.
Posts I’ve read on this board since 2014 that I can bump
If you don’t believe me:
2014: SEC is going to break away in 4-5 years
2017: SEC is going to break away 2-3 years.
2020: SEC is going to break away in 2-3 years
2024: SEC is going to break away in 2-3 years
2026: SEC is going to break away in 2-3 years
Why hasn’t it happened? What’s stopped them? People in this thread including someone above you has predicted it that long.
Btw no one up north will care about some random Ole Miss and Texas A&M basketball game. Whatever future there is will include a tournament with an ACC hybrid Big 12 and Big East. The economics and politics won’t let it happen. Plus I sense we would be dealing with major Anti Trust laws if there’s actually politicians in place who care about that then.
I couldn’t give a crap about posts you can pull showing predictions that I didn’t make. And I was pretty sure the paywalled article was pointless and irrelevant stupidity you think matters but doesn’t - and I was correct. Here’s the four facts that matter:
1). Northeast markets dominate college basketball TV viewership
2) Big Ten and SEC schools dominate the top 10 in TV ratings
3). College basketball ratings have dropped off a cliff over the last 2-3 decades
4) Viewership is mostly regional.
Let me know which one of those you want to dispute if any. Because figuring out what those four pieces of data should tell you, I only see one conclusion - viewership overall has gotten so bad that a top viewership market and mediocre one have almost no gap. A good market is bad, a bad market is terrible. And the business either has rapidly declining value that can’t be salvaged - or major change is needed to salvage it.
When a business is at that point, there are two options:
1). Do something significant to rejuvenate the business
2). Choose to do nothing and invest nothing, just draw whatever profits out that you can until the business dies.
What should worry you about the SEC and Big Ten “not doing anything” ISN’T that they’d lose money. It’s that they don’t think it’s worth doing anything at all. Totally agree politics and legal hurdles are a MAJOR issue. They may be so major that doing anything isn’t possible or worth the effort. I think the “effort” is to slowly and “accidentally” kill competition by pulling any remaining teams from the ACC and Big 12 so those leagues effectively die, but in a way the big boys can claim wasn’t their fault. That makes guessing a timeline a fool’s errand. Hopefully that is indeed the strategy - because if it isn’t, it means they don’t care about basketball long term as a revenue driver.
Let me know if you dispute any of the four facts, or if you have a theory that actually explains ALL four. Because your “things are awesome just the way they are!” does not.
