Oklahoma and Texas joining SEC

[LadyStanley]

What's next for SEC football scheduling with Oklahoma, Texas officially joining in 2024?

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he hopes a new scheduling format is decided before the league's spring meetings.

sports.yahoo.com

Leaving Big12.

Click to read more...

 

[KevFu]

I hate they're they're joining the SEC, but it's good that they negotiated an earlier exit instead of a fourth lame-duck season.

I wish the NCAA had been forward thinking before the TV rights court case, made a plan for the NCAA to sell as much content as possible and give everyone an equitable share of revenue.

Conferences used to be teams that SHOULD be playing each other in every sport, every year. And now they're "TV inventory packages" to sell to TV. So it makes no financial sense to have multiple teams in the same market, even though those rivals should be playing each other, in everything, every year.

 

[KevFu]

Hey, wait a minute... what people dislike about conference realignment is actually a great argument for the pro realignment and why the MLB style IS in fact better...

The college conferences are trying to add markets to their TV packages and spread appeal to multiple regions... "Radical Realignment" is like making the Southwest Conference, which had eight Texas schools and Arkansas, and broke up because the TV appeal was limited! It made more financial sense for the SWC to break up and for the Big 8, SEC, Conference USA, WAC, Sun Belt, American, etc, etc, to add members from Texas!

 

[PCSPounder]

Hey, wait a minute... what people dislike about conference realignment is actually a great argument for the pro realignment and why the MLB style IS in fact better...

The college conferences are trying to add markets to their TV packages and spread appeal to multiple regions... "Radical Realignment" is like making the Southwest Conference, which had eight Texas schools and Arkansas, and broke up because the TV appeal was limited! It made more financial sense for the SWC to break up and for the Big 8, SEC, Conference USA, WAC, Sun Belt, American, etc, etc, to add members from Texas!

Are you seeing conferences tapping into Texas because of markets…

…or recruiting?

(Or, in the case of the WAC, survival)

Boise State gets more viewership than most of the schools in question, but can’t get a sniff from a bigger conference.

But here’s the thought that I find interesting… the emerging argument that schools in the Pac (the conference formerly known as the Pac-12) could get $0 on their next contract and still lose money if they jumped to any conference besides the B1G. Reason: just associating with Stanford means hundreds of millions of dollars more in research per year (unless you’re Oregon).

 

[KevFu]

Are you seeing conferences tapping into Texas because of markets…

…or recruiting?

(Or, in the case of the WAC, survival)

Boise State gets more viewership than most of the schools in question, but can’t get a sniff from a bigger conference.

But here’s the thought that I find interesting… the emerging argument that schools in the Pac (the conference formerly known as the Pac-12) could get $0 on their next contract and still lose money if they jumped to any conference besides the B1G. Reason: just associating with Stanford means hundreds of millions of dollars more in research per year (unless you’re Oregon).

You're totally right about recruiting territory being a big factor. The whole conference can recruit a region when they can guarantee that athlete a chance to play in front of friends and family in conference (Conferences now are really too big to guarantee it every year, the 16-team SEC is going to get ONE trip to Texas and ONE trip to A&M in a four-year span in football).


But to further tie my long-held opinions into the convo, it's all about BRANDS. The Texas market is big, and the Texas brand is big in that market. Just taking a team because they're in the market isn't a great idea (i.e. Fordham in New York City or Rice in Houston).

In hockey, the fan bases all want to see long-tenured, big market brands. The STH said they want everyone to visit once a year so Crosby/Ovechkin come to town once a year each; but they have very little to no interest in the newer and smaller brands.

Which is why pro leagues having conferences be equal representation of small and large markets, old and new brands, is the best for everyone.

You can see the massive financial disparity in MLB's divisions. The AL East is rich and the AL Central is poor. The number of people in the TV markets of the AL East is like 72 million and the number of people in the AL Central's is like 22 million.