The BigXII shot itself in the foot yesterday with the round-robin setup. 4 of the 5 P5 conferences have a championship game. The higher seed in each of those games got into the playoffs...whether those are the 4 top teams or not. I don't think FSU or OSU are a top 4 team...but that's for another thread.
The Big12 is going to be relying on the lower seed to win one of these championship games from her on out if they choose not to have a B12 CCG. IMO, that isn't a good way to get your conference represented in the playoffs...
The round-robin is cute...but until they expand to 8 teams. The B12 could find themselves in this situation more often than Not.
The Baylor vs KSU was the championship argument is flawed as is the B12 could have had 2 teams in the playoffs...
So....to get the B12 back to....12 teams, what two teams would you add?
If you go to 16 schools, and have pods, it makes sense to have a semi final round to the conference championship. It’s another way to add revenue, and to create more 16 team conferences. It also wouldn’t surprise me if that move makes
The B1G go to 16, 18, or even 20.. depending on what conference they want to poach. More realignment is around the corner, and the Big12 or PAC will
fall into a merger… unless the BIG goes big and raids the ACC who has 10 years in their shitty media rights deal that I’m sure they would love to dissolve and move on(well besides the schools who might be left out making even less). [Reply]
Originally Posted by BWillie:
CFB gonna turn into Nascar
Well it's crazy how dominant the SEC is. 12 of the last 16 national championships - and it's not one dominant program, it's 5 different teams.
Even as a fan of an SEC school I don't think the SEC running everything is good for football or college athletics as a whole. Things were better when there was some balance and competition between the major conferences, but now there are really only 3 or 4 major conferences anyway. [Reply]
When all is said and done, the Big Ten is poised to become the first college conference to eclipse the $1 billion mark for media rights annually. Negotiations are expected to continue through this month; a final deal could come in late summer.
The separation from the SEC & B1G is getting wider for the rest.
When all is said and done, the Big Ten is poised to become the first college conference to eclipse the $1 billion mark for media rights annually. Negotiations are expected to continue through this month; a final deal could come in late summer.
The separation from the SEC & B1G is getting wider for the rest.
The SEC has media rights contracts and membership locked in place, with Texas and Oklahoma set to join in 2025. Meanwhile, the Big Ten is wrapping up its media deals right now — deals that depend on knowing the makeup of the conference.
Could something materialize in the next 12-18 months that sets the West Coast quartet on course to leave the Pac-12? Sure. But we are fairly confident that any current chatter is mere speculation.
And keep this in mind: It all starts with USC.
The Bruins aren’t going anywhere without the Trojans — and maybe not even with the Trojans — and the Pacific Northwest schools have little value to the Big Ten or SEC as stand-alone entities.
If you’re the SEC or Big Ten, an expansion to the West Coast only makes economic and competitive sense if the Southern California media market is included in the deal. That means USC.
At the same time, the Pac-12 with USC is a vastly better fit for the Ducks and Huskies than the Big Ten or SEC without USC.
Were those schools to become disconnected from California, the repercussions would be damaging on multiple fronts, not the least of which is the academic affiliation with Stanford, Cal, UCLA and USC.
Originally Posted by :
With Texas and Oklahoma eyeing a move to the SEC, the landscape of college football has begun to shift: The SEC becomes more powerful than it already was, the Big 12 shrinks to just eight teams and the Pac-12 becomes a bit less relevant out on the West Coast. So where does USC, once a football powerhouse, belong in the bigger picture as it looks to climb back to the top?
The Pac-12 has two major problems. The first is that the College Football Playoff committee doesn’t believe the conference is competitive enough to send teams to the playoff. Since the introduction of the CFP and its committee, the Pac-12 has been an afterthought, with only two teams — Oregon in 2015 and Washington in 2017 — landing a playoff berth in its seven seasons. Because of its weaker competition, a Pac-12 team almost has to go undefeated in order to earn a top four seed.
The second problem is that national interest in the Pac-12 is low compared to the SEC and the Big 10. Around three quarters of the U.S. population lives in the Eastern and Central time zones, meaning that a large chunk of fans aren’t staying awake to watch a game that kicks off at 7 p.m. PT; a USC game in the Pac-12 Network’s nighttime slot won’t end until 1 a.m. in New York. This means less television revenue.
Matter: Big 12 survived another wave of realignment, but can it last?
By
Dave Matter
College sports' favorite punchline of a conference acted swiftly in adding BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF when the SEC hijacked valuable assets Oklahoma, Texas.
Originally Posted by :
Here’s something you don’t read every day:
Well done, Big 12 Conference!
As we come up on July 1, the 10-year anniversary of Missouri’s first day in the Southeastern Conference, this summer also marks a decade’s worth of countless Big 12 obituaries written to memorialize the “dying” league as four members fled for greener and more secure pastures.
But here we are in 2022, and after another wave of realignment, the Big 12 still is standing — or at least some fairly recognizable version.
Just about a year ago, the SEC hijacked the Big 12’s two most valuable assets — Oklahoma and Texas — to eventually join the league and left behind a collection of perfectly good but hardly elite athletics programs across a 1,500-mile swath from Texas Tech to West Virginia. The remaining schools could have thrown a pity party. They could have split apart and scurried off to other leagues.
Instead, back in September, the Big 12 leftovers called a tried and true play from the conference realignment playbook:
They hijacked another conference.
This time, after years of flat-footed reactionary moves, the Big 12 was decisive and aggressive.
Last week, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston announced they will leave the American Athletic Conference for the Big 12 on July 1, 2023, when they will join fellow new member Brigham Young for competition in the expanded conference that fall. That will put the Big 12 at 14 schools for one, maybe two years depending on how soon Oklahoma and Texas can bolt for the SEC. That’s sure to make for a temporarily awkward arrangement.
Then again, in college sports, what isn’t temporary and awkward these days? Between realignment, the transfer portal and ever-changing name, image and likeness rules, the entire industry is a billion-dollar house of cards.
Leverage play?
But for once in what seems like forever, the Big 12 has leverage over the college sports world:
The conference has every incentive to hold Oklahoma and Texas captive for the exit fees that reportedly exceed $70 million for each school. The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman recently reported that 2024 is “a more realistic target date” for OU and Texas to join the SEC, presumably at a reduced ransom. Either way, the outgoing Sooners and Longhorns will spend at least one year with the new Big 12 members before trading blows with the Alabamas, Georgias and Floridas of the SEC.
Good luck, fellas.
Once OU and Texas are sipping sweet tea and navigating through the SEC kudzu, what to make of the new Big 12 once it’s actually back to 12 members?
The conference will lack curb appeal without the traditional powers from Norman and Austin, but from a football perspective, there’s still quality meat on the carcass: Dave Aranda won the Big 12 title in his second year at Baylor, going 12-2 last year, including a clean sweep of future and current SEC teams: OU, Texas and 10-win Ole Miss. Oklahoma State will stay relevant until Mike Gundy hangs up his holsters. The Cowboys have seven 10-win seasons over the past 12 years. Iowa State, Texas Christian, West Virginia, BYU, Cincinnati and Central Florida each have spent at least one week in the top 10 of the AP Top 25 since 2017.
Cincinnati is the heavyweight among the newcomers. The Bearcats are coming off their first College Football Playoff appearance and have managed to keep coach Luke Fickell away from Power Five suitors. It’s only June, but UC has the nation’s No 3-ranked recruiting class for 2023, bolstered by four four-star pledges.
Can Cincinnati graduate from Group of Five superpower to Power Five contender?
“We know we will have to step up in certain areas, and we’re starting to build that out in three-, five- and seven-year time frames,” Bearcats AD John Cunningham recently said. “Our goal is to compete on Day One, and that’s what we keep talking about in the campaign we launched. We will have to step up our fundraising, facilities and the indoor performance center we’re also building. It makes us look at what our coaches’ salaries are and that what we’re offering our student-athletes is on par with the Power Five.”
Other sports:
On the men’s basketball front, the Big 12 is adding a perennial Final Four contender in Houston and quality programs in Cincinnati and BYU. Don’t expect a major drop-off on the hardwood when OU and Texas depart.
For all the criticism the Big 12 has absorbed over the years — most of it well deserved when Colorado, Nebraska, Mizzou and Texas A&M scrammed when the league couldn’t save itself from itself — the Big 12 is coming off a sensational year outside of football, capturing eight NCAA team championships in men’s basketball (Kansas), softball (Oklahoma), gymnastics (Oklahoma), equestrian (Oklahoma State), men’s golf (Texas), men’s indoor track (Texas), rowing (Texas) and women’s tennis (Texas).
Texas and Oklahoma State joined OU in the Women’s College World Series. Oklahoma and Texas are playing in the College World Series.
(Remind me again why OU and Texas are in such a hurry to leave a conference they dominate for the SEC, where they’ll make more money but face stiffer competition. Just kidding. Of course, it’s the money.)
The Sooners and Horns will take their hardware down south in due time, but before then two pivotal decisions will ultimately shape the Big 12’s fitness for survival.
One, its current TV contact with Fox and ESPN expires in 2025. The Big 12’s inventory won’t be nearly as valuable without Oklahoma and Texas for its next media rights deal, potentially costing the rest of the league much-needed exposure and revenue. The league must squeeze the most out of its TV partners to stay competitive.
Two, the Big 12 needs to hire a bold, savvy commissioner to replace Bob Bowlsby, who’s stepping down this year. Bowlsby was hoodwinked when OU and Texas announced plans to leave the Big 12, but overall, he’s delivered much-needed stability and backbone in the wake of the Dan Beebe years.
For now, the Big 12, college sports’ favorite punching bag for the last decade, marches on with new members on the way, old members soon to leave and, like the rest of college sports, an uncertain future.
Lol. The Big 12 is irrelevant. I feel bad for Iowa State, though I know they will land in their feet as the only university anyone wants of these leftovers. [Reply]
