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Big Ten Internal Expansion List

From that fan experience perspective I'm not sure anyone would miss the ACC or should. Long story short yeah the travel is good but the overall win/loss frustration experience and everything that's come with that hasn't been too great.

Maybe a change in scenery would be best.
 
I know this won’t happen but I hope the ACC stays together for selfish reasons. I like the places I travel to for away games and I like the conference for all sports. I travel for work and I spend a lot of time in the Big 12 region and I hate the locations. I also don’t think the Big 12 is a better all sports conference than the ACC.

I think a lot of our problems have more to do with self inflicted problems from within than from our conference affiliation. I am pretty confident we have solved our football problem and women’s basketball and baseball are on solid ground. Obviously men’s basketball is in serious jeopardy and I don’t have the confidence that we made the right hire.
 
I get the feeling the the realignment carousel will never stop spinning. I really fear “relegation”- which just means the rich stay rich and the rest are forever….the rest. Why invest in facilities, NIL, coaches, and the rest if you are relegated- likely for a long time if not forever. Those that can afford to be on top will stay there and there is no upward mobility for a program like Louisville. We’ve spent almost 40 years building ourselves up. We’ve made the investments. Now we will be told to go down in class if we don’t meet some arbitrary standard that will be decided by others.
One possibility is that the conferences go supersized, then realize it’s unwieldy and too difficult for the nonrevenue sports in terms of travel, etc. then downsize and we go back to 8-10 team leagues, which is really where it ought to be.
 
College sports is pure entertainment. College football expansion is going to lessen the entertainment value. When you keep expanding the games start losing their entertainment value. Parity eventually will set in. The structure of the NFL allows-embraces parity. College sports TV executives hate parity. They have to have Alabama, Ohio St, Michigan, USC, FSU, Notre Dame, Penn St, Florida, LSU, OU, Texas and Georgia being great.

The move to the playoff in CFB started this new round of expansion. The SEC and Big Ten are trying to lock up as many spots as they can for their members. The days of 1-2-3 losses is coming for even the big boys. I think Notre Dame got a dose of it with 4 straight games against really good teams. You don’t expand and not have your brand teams not play against each other. Then the middle of the road teams get left behind with no shot of ever being great. At some point there are more teams like Vandy that bring no entertainment value.

I completely agree Louisville wants no part of the SEC. Big Ten while not happening wouldn’t be as bad. ACC or Big 12 is perfect as long as those conference have access to the playoff. Colorado is in a perfect spot with Deion and the Big 12 without Texas and OU. They could be a version of Louisville while in the Big East with Petrino. Good players want legit shots at playing for titles. Louisville had legit rosters in the Big East. Why because they had a good coach and won games players came knowing they could win and go to NFL.
 
One fundamental truth I can count on…

The federal government will always wanna tinker with irrelevant business besides what they need to do like balance a budget and control spending.

…Making issues like the nonprofit status of major universities fair game to noodle in. Once the haves in college athletics become so concentrated that they lose a majority in numbers or representation, they risk losing the millions they have carefully orchestrated for themselves.

My prediction is that their greed will lead them to overplay their hand. And it will unravel.

A contrarian is frequently reminded that the majority is usually wrong. Don’t blindly accept what you hear…
 
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One fundamental truth I can count on…

The federal government will always wanna tinker with irrelevant business besides what they need to do like balance a budget and control spending.

…Making issues like the nonprofit status of major universities fair game to noodle in. Once the haves in college athletics become so concentrated that they lose a majority in numbers or representation, they risk losing the millions they have carefully orchestrated for themselves.

My prediction is that their greed will lead them to overplay their hand. And it will unravel.

A contrarian is frequently reminded that the majority is usually wrong. Don’t blindly accept what you hear…
You see it all the time the bigger organizations become their issues become more complicated. Organizational alignment becomes more difficult. In my opinion the SEC-Big Ten shouldn’t expand further. The law of diminishing returns will kick in at some point.

The playoff if done correctly will generate all the money they need for their members. A mini version of the NFL. Sanky said it best money doesn’t lead it follows. Playoff success for any conference the result will generate money.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mayoman
One fundamental truth I can count on…

The federal government will always wanna tinker with irrelevant business besides what they need to do like balance a budget and control spending.

…Making issues like the nonprofit status of major universities fair game to noodle in. Once the haves in college athletics become so concentrated that they lose a majority in numbers or representation, they risk losing the millions they have carefully orchestrated for themselves.

My prediction is that their greed will lead them to overplay their hand. And it will unravel.

A contrarian is frequently reminded that the majority is usually wrong. Don’t blindly accept what you hear…
Not a crazy take at all
 
You see it all the time the bigger organizations become their issues become more complicated. Organizational alignment becomes more difficult. In my opinion the SEC-Big Ten shouldn’t expand further. The law of diminishing returns will kick in at some point.

The playoff if done correctly will generate all the money they need for their members. A mini version of the NFL. Sanky said it best money doesn’t lead it follows. Playoff success for any conference the result will generate money.
There's already evidence of this. A couple months back, the SEC openly declared they would invite two more members if they could cover their full shares of media revenue. LINK And to my knowledge, nothing ensued in the way of any response from ESPN.

Of course, you can read various things into that. Normally, developments like these are kept under lock and key until finalized. Why would the SEC need to leak the content of private negotiations to the media if they were receiving mutual interest from ESPN? And unless anyone heard otherwise, there was no response to this "news" from ESPN.

The big conferences have nothing to fear as far as outside attacks. Greed is what motivates them beyond a point of economic efficiency. That and they don't want to get into the more relevant issue of their own internal (in)equity, why/how a school like Vanderbilt receives the same share as Alabama and now Texas. None of that of course makes sense.

Hand wringers in this space--and there are many--take these developments as some sort of beginning of the end. True to form, I see very little of it that way...
 
There's already evidence of this. A couple months back, the SEC openly declared they would invite two more members if they could cover their full shares of media revenue. LINK And to my knowledge, nothing ensued in the way of any response from ESPN.

Of course, you can read various things into that. Normally, developments like these are kept under lock and key until finalized. Why would the SEC need to leak the content of private negotiations to the media if they were receiving mutual interest from ESPN? And unless anyone heard otherwise, there was no response to this "news" from ESPN.

The big conferences have nothing to fear as far as outside attacks. Greed is what motivates them beyond a point of economic efficiency. That and they don't want to get into the more relevant issue of their own internal (in)equity, why/how a school like Vanderbilt receives the same share as Alabama and now Texas. None of that of course makes sense.

Hand wringers in this space--and there are many--take these developments as some sort of beginning of the end. True to form, I see very little of it that way...
It’s not inequity, but maybe injustice.
 
All of this is inherent in the culture today; it has evolved to a level where most anything is possible.

College Sports has become as politicized as just about everything else in this country.

I must say that having the Brohm family back here in Louisville, and so influential in the future of UL football is strikingly refreshing, and frankly encouraging to me.

Fans need to be mindful that we are only in Jeff’s first year back.
 
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