Shifting Winds of NCAA Conferences

[SpringStein]

I’ve been surprised that those of you who follow college football more closely than I do (sorry, I live in Colorado ) haven't posted about all the changes.

Are we down to two super conferences? Is that good for college football as a whole?
Will CU end up back in the Big 12 or whatever it’s called? Will that make a difference in their recruiting?

 

[Mingo]

The haves are getting fewer and the have nots are growing bigger. That can't be good. It is a pick'em to say the NIL situation or the major conferences - and major TV contracts - are going to be concentrated into either the SEC or the B1G.

1) There are no rules for NIL - so it has brought team booster money - a way to launder payments to the athletes. Now the TV exposure goes with it.

2) Recruiting will follow - as the athletes will go where they get more money and more exposure.

3) B1G members are looking at $60 million a year under TV and cable deals - delivered by Fox and ESPN (who are cherry picking the conference members) - while last year CU made $24 million in the PAC12 which still had USC and UCLA in the deal.

4) Ironically - the B1G and the SEC still need teams from Pac12, Big12 and ACC - as well as others to fill out their schedules. Those may be guaranteed wins if the recruiting follows suit - like everyone believes it will.

5) Eventually - someone will decide teams like Vanderbilt - MS. St etc don't really belong in the big conferences and they will fall out and the media market forces will replace them with larger market teams.

6) This will probably leave the outsider conferences eventually out of the national title game.

 

[iknowftbll]

This is a big part of why I've always felt the NFL is infinitely superior to NCAA. I realize both need each other, but strictly from a fan perspective the NCAA can't even hold the NFL's jock strap. That the Cincinnati Bengals, a smallish market team that was not even in the playoffs and not even over .500 in 2020 would reach the Super Bowl in the 2021 season is evidence of that. As a Broncos fan this gives me a lot of hope: the team was 7-10 in 2021 and all they need is to flip that record and they can in theory reach the Super Bowl.

In the NCAA a team's record in one season affects their standing in the subsequent season. By standing I mean ranking. And the NCAA's preferred customers always get taken care of. These conference realignments are asinine and a big part of why I will never be able to be as big a fan of the NCAA as I am the NFL. (I'm sure this breaks the NCAA's heart! )

 

[femurov]

The haves are getting fewer and the have nots are growing bigger. That can't be good. It is a pick'em to say the NIL situation or the major conferences - and major TV contracts - are going to be concentrated into either the SEC or the B1G.

1) There are no rules for NIL - so it has brought team booster money - a way to launder payments to the athletes. Now the TV exposure goes with it.

2) Recruiting will follow - as the athletes will go where they get more money and more exposure.

3) B1G members are looking at $60 million a year under TV and cable deals - delivered by Fox and ESPN (who are cherry picking the conference members) - while last year CU made $24 million in the PAC12 which still had USC and UCLA in the deal.

4) Ironically - the B1G and the SEC still need teams from Pac12, Big12 and ACC - as well as others to fill out their schedules. Those may be guaranteed wins if the recruiting follows suit - like everyone believes it will.

5) Eventually - someone will decide teams like Vanderbilt - MS. St etc don't really belong in the big conferences and they will fall out and the media market forces will replace them with larger market teams.

6) This will probably leave the outsider conferences eventually out of the national title game.

3) I heard Big Ten teams may make closer to $100 mil per year, but it may have been speculation for when they sign their next TV deal, which is coming up in a year or so, I think.

 

[femurov]

Yeah... 2023 and it could be a total of $1 billion dollars.

 

[femurov]

I’ve been surprised that those of you who follow college football more closely than I do (sorry, I live in Colorado ) haven't posted about all the changes.

Are we down to two super conferences? Is that good for college football as a whole?
Will CU end up back in the Big 12 or whatever it’s called? Will that make a difference in their recruiting?

I think we will eventually be down to 2 super conferences. Maybe 3 or 4, but there aren't many non SEC or Big 10 teams left that would be able to compete with those guys consistently. Rumors are flying around that Clemson, UNC, UVA and someone else (maybe Florida State or Miami) are thinking about going SEC. Big 10 is still trying to grab a few more teams. Notre Dame is the big catch for them. Maybe OK State, as well? If that happens, these 2 conferences are going to be impossible to compete against on the field and in recruiting soon after.

I honestly don't know if this is good for college football or not. I heard some guy on the radio speculating that if the SEC and Big 10 get to 20 teams each, they may just kick everyone else out of D1 and seriously rearrange the lower level playoffs. I think he was just spitting out nonsense, since I don't know how that would work out with bowl games and such, but times are definitely a-changin'.

 

[CEH]

The haves are getting fewer and the have nots are growing bigger. That can't be good. It is a pick'em to say the NIL situation or the major conferences - and major TV contracts - are going to be concentrated into either the SEC or the B1G.

1) There are no rules for NIL - so it has brought team booster money - a way to launder payments to the athletes. Now the TV exposure goes with it.

2) Recruiting will follow - as the athletes will go where they get more money and more exposure.

3) B1G members are looking at $60 million a year under TV and cable deals - delivered by Fox and ESPN (who are cherry picking the conference members) - while last year CU made $24 million in the PAC12 which still had USC and UCLA in the deal.

4) Ironically - the B1G and the SEC still need teams from Pac12, Big12 and ACC - as well as others to fill out their schedules. Those may be guaranteed wins if the recruiting follows suit - like everyone believes it will.

5) Eventually - someone will decide teams like Vanderbilt - MS. St etc don't really belong in the big conferences and they will fall out and the media market forces will replace them with larger market teams.

6) This will probably leave the outsider conferences eventually out of the national title game.

isn’t the haves getting bigger and the have nots getting smaller?

CU falls into the have nots

 

[Mingo]

isn’t the haves getting bigger and the have nots getting smaller?

CU falls into the have nots

Chris - I said (unartfully) fewer - meaning fewer teams are getting richer in this scheme and more teams are getting less money.

 

[cdumler7]

Joel Klatt commented that this could be the end of the NCAA and make this more into a true business rather than college sports. My bigger worry is for all other sports other than football that is at these schools. Are they going to have to make cuts because of travel expenses? What happens to scholarships with the NIL deals being handed out? Definitely a very uncertain time for college sports. I worry the short-term gain for players could in the long run destroy what has been built. We shall see.

 

[Mountain Bronco]

Joel Klatt commented that this could be the end of the NCAA and make this more into a true business rather than college sports. My bigger worry is for all other sports other than football that is at these schools. Are they going to have to make cuts because of travel expenses? What happens to scholarships with the NIL deals being handed out? Definitely a very uncertain time for college sports. I worry the short-term gain for players could in the long run destroy what has been built. We shall see.

Legit concerns. There are so many collegiate athletes that aren't DI football or BB players and I do worry about their futures. For so many kids that is a way through college and one heck of a life experience. It seems like nobody pays any attention to that fact.

 

[LGM]

Greed

 

[cdumler7]

Legit concerns. There are so many collegiate athletes that aren't DI football or BB players and I do worry about their futures. For so many kids that is a way through college and one heck of a life experience. It seems like nobody pays any attention to that fact.

Exactly! Kind of like when the NFL put in the rookie wage scale thinking it would try to balance out veterans throughout the roster getting more money. All it ended up doing is shifting that money towards the top tier players even more.