I get A&M...but I think Mizzou is a huge stretch in the SEC. Mizzou is, to me, a classic example of what you lament about a school that will make tons of money in the SEC, but makes no sense otherwise. With you entirely on the Big East. You're losing interest in the Big 12 now because of Ia State, Kansas, and K State, who've all been there since the inception of the conference?
Missouri is at least fairly geographically close to some of the SEC. It's not like the SEC went out and got a school on the west coast or something. I never warmed up to the Big 12 from the beginning, and now that the Aggies are gone I have even less interest in the Big 12, and I'm not even an Aggie.
The Aggies leave the Big 12 and join the SEC and you are professing your love for the SEC and disinterest in the Big 12 as a result. But you are not an Aggie fan? Why do I feel like this is one of those "I'm an independent that always votes Democrat" things?
Oh, I'm a big fan of the Aggies this year, but I'm not an Aggie. I never went to A&M. Now that A&M is representing the state of Texas in the SEC, I'm pulling for them every week. I generally pull for most of the old SWC teams. After the SWC was destroyed I started watching a lot more SEC football, and now that we have a team from Texas in the SEC, it now feels like my home conference.
Mizzou makes as much sense in the SEC as Nebraska does in the Big 10. It's not ideal, but it's passable. It's the bellybutton of America. They can go anywhere and they'll always be an outlier based on the way the conferences are carved up. If they felt they had to stay near the Kansas and Iowa schools their entire existence just to have it "make sense" that would suck. Mizzou not in the SEC = Missourri Mizzou in the SEC = Mizzurah That's the only difference I see And yeah, don't hold your breath on UH. Deloss Dodds has to retire or UT has to leave the conference. If they go to 16, the Texas schools may band together to include another state school to increase their collective voting power. But that day is far off.
Eh..not to me. When I think SEC, I think SEC Guy types. I think Tuscaloosa, Gainesville and Baton Rouge....not Columbia, Missouri or the St. Louis media market. Maybe that's just me, but it seems like a huge reach culturally to me.
I think UConn and Cinci will follow them shortly. The ACC needs to prepare for more upheaval. USF is finally going to get left behind.
What makes you say that? I know there were rumors of FSU & Miami moving, possibly to the Big 12, but I thought those had died down over this past year?
Personally, I think the ACC has made it self as strong as ever. Still behind the SEC and Big 12 in football but definitely the #1 basketball conference once these moves are complete. Adding Pitt, Syracuse, and Louisville while only losing Maryland, IMO, makes them much stronger. The Big East is done as a football conference and pretty much done as the basketball power. They can officially be called a mid-major now.
The ACC is only as strong as that $50 million buyout provision is. Maryland and FSU voted no to it....if Maryland is able to whittle that buyout down, then FSU is arguably the biggest "free agent" on the market. And if FSU goes, that would be the end of the ACC as a football conference, I think.
http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsport...les-contract-suit-against-departing-maryland/ The ACC looked to have fortified its respective realignment defenses earlier this year when the league agreed to raise its exit fee to $50 million. Only two programs voted against the raise at the time: Florida State and Maryland. FSU was at the center of Big 12 expansion rumors at the time, and Maryland announced last week that it is leaving for the Big Ten. Now the question is will the Terps pay the $52 million, or will it be negotiated down to a (perhaps significantly) smaller number? According to a report from the Duke Chronicle, the ACC is still planning to collect every last cent of that new buyout. The conference filed a contract suit against Maryland in the North Carolina state court in Greensboro on Monday, a state court clerk confirmed to the paper. “We continue to extend our best wishes to the University of Maryland; however, there is the expectation that Maryland will fulfill its exit fee obligation,” Commissioner John Swofford said in a statement. “On Friday, the ACC Council of Presidents made the unanimous decision to file legal action to ensure the enforcement of this obligation.” The Big East filed similar suits against departing members over the past year — most notably against West Virginia — before the conference eventually settled in those cases. Then again, the Big East exit fee was $5 million at the time; the ACC and Maryland are dealing with much greater numbers. The possibility of a countersuit and the process by which this lawsuit is resolved are details that are still to be determined. Given the amount of money at stake, they may not be for some time.
I am by no means an expert on the law, but I find it hard to believe that members can trap a school in their conference by raising fees to leave without that school's acceptance and no option to avoid it. As I've said before, why didn't all the non UT/OU schools in the Big12 just vote to raise the exit fees to $10 billion to ensure that UT and OU (or A&M/etc) couldn't go anywhere?
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefoo...-with-10-amid-the-latest-round-of-realignment The Big 12 is suddenly an outlier in college athletics. In a couple of years it will be the smallest BCS conference. As it is, the Big 12 can't even count to 12 (teams). Superconferences loom. Conference networks surround it. With Louisville hooking up with the ACC, it looks like the realignment carousel is passing by the Big 12. Again. And things couldn't be better in the Pure Prairie League (plus West Virginia). That continues to be the opinion of Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby. “You and others may think I'm crazy,” he told CBSSports.com on Wednesday. “I think no one has proven to me that larger is better … If we had the opportunity geographically or financially for something that clearly moved the needle, we'd be on them.” There isn't that school out there at the moment. That includes Louisville which the league had vetted in the past. One industry source estimated Big 12 schools will be cashing checks for $30 million-plus in the first year of the playoff beginning in 2014. The total now stands at approximately $20 million per school. Beginning in 2014, the Big 12 will begin taking in $40 million per year from the alignment with the Sugar Bowl (previously Champions Bowl). There's your opportunity – as Bowlsby put it -- that moves the needle. Expansion in the form of a bowl game split between the Big 12 and SEC. A conference championship game doesn't make much financial sense. One media consultant says such a game would be worth only $700,000-$1 million a year per school. Not an insignificant amount but worth having to split with two more mouths to feed? Think of it in Powerball terms. It's easier to make more money if you and nine friends combined to buy tickets for Wednesday's drawing instead of 12. “I would be laughing,” said a source who has worked closely with the Big 12. “They're in great shape. If the TV deal was lousy, if in two or three years their network deal was coming up. But right now, the Big 12 has hit the lottery. They've got it perfect. Those guys have it on Easy Street.” Further reasons the Big 12 is in good shape: --Big 12 expansion rests, indirectly, on a perceived gentleman's agreement in the SEC. The league supposedly would not expand to states where there currently are teams. That seemingly takes Florida State, Clemson and Georgia Tech out of the mix. If the SEC honors that agreement, then the SEC might go N.C. State and/or Virginia Tech if Mike Slive feels like he has to respond to the Big Ten's recent moves. In that occurrence, Florida State, Clemson and Georgia Tech would be in play for the Big 12. Even then industry sources argue whether one or some combination of those schools brings pro rata – at least equal value – to the Big 12. --The Big Ten and SEC need inventory for their networks. That's part of what the Big Ten's expansion was about. The SEC has yet to play its hand in further expansion but is launching a lucrative network in approximately 15 months. The league may add a ninth conference game to add inventory for the network. There is no market for a Big 12 network. ESPN/Fox own all the games except for one (non-conference) game owned by each school. Schools choose how to monetize those contests via streaming, pay-per-view, etc. “You can't start a network with 10 games,” an industry source said. Especially with The Longhorn Network basically keeping Texas out of the mix. --The Big 12 can't lose any schools in next 13 years (see below) so a raid by another conference seems unlikely. Think of a law of diminishing returns. The ACC's 14 aren't going to be making as much as the Big 12's 10. The pecking order will remain the same: The Big Ten and SEC will be 1-2 in revenue in some order. The Big 12 and Pac-12 will be 3-4 in some order. The ACC will be the fifth major conference, still most vulnerable to being picked apart by one of the other four. That's what the Louisville move was about. It keeps the ACC whole for now, but what if Delany isn't done? “We've lost our moral compass and we've lost our financial compass. This is damage for damage's sake,” one BCS source said of the current round of shifting. “Invading a country that you need for your own security. No one is going to convince me that intercollegiate athletics is better if the Big East goes away or the ACC goes away.” --There is a growing vibe that the Big 12 has to do something. It could be the mom-and-pop surrounded by big box stores if you believe the future is superconferences. Florida State, Miami, Clemson and Virginia Tech are seemingly out there for the picking. The superconference carousel may come and go with the Big 12 staying at a nice, tidy 10. It already has a 13-year year contract with ESPN and Fox paying the league more than $1 billion. That coincides with a grant-of-rights that basically keeps any of the teams from leaving. If Texas and/or Oklahoma split for, say, the Pac-12 then the Big 12 would keep its TV rights. Conclusion: Texas/Oklahoma isn't leaving for the Pac-12. Further conclusion: Any league that includes those two schools remains worth keeping together. All this comes with a huge disclaimer: As long as there are lawyers, never say never. The ACC's $50 million exit fee wasn't a big enough impediment for Maryland. But the Big 12 -- for the moment -- is more than happy with 10. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>If you're a league that doesn't have (or isn't about to have) its own cable channel, bigger probably isn't better. The Big 12 proving that.</p>— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) <a href="https://twitter.com/Andy_Staples/status/273872864690724864" data-datetime="2012-11-28T19:35:53+00:00">November 28, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
