Conference Realignment & The ACC

[charleshustle]

This column is kinda long, but a pretty interesting read. The writer says he works in media and that TV is going to demand a lot of changes as it puts more money into college football including 4 16-team major conferences and an 8-team playoff. It also predicts that some current P5 schools will end up in G5 conferences and vice versa, based mostly on the size of the television markets they play in.

It has some bad news for the people in Lexington and some interesting predictions about who else might join the ACC.

http://www.thechaosindex.com/cest-la-tv-college-football-is-about-to-change-a-whole-lot-more-than-you-realize/

 

[zipp]

There's a lot there to buy into, but I think the author is right on a fundamental point...

Conference payouts among the member teams are not going to stay the same. How that changes is open to speculation--which the article is chock full of. (The author takes an organizational approach which may happen but is not essential on a grand scale.) And payouts between conferences will be continually tweaked to reward teams and conferences that perform and at the expense of those who do not.

This piece is limited to football which is only half of the picture. A similar analysis can and should be performed on basketball and should encompass the NCAA which siphons off way too much money in that sport alone.

But the article and author are dead on that money drives the bus on whatever changes lie ahead...

 

[gocds]

zipp's comments are pretty much on target. However, I have to wonder about a time frame for the writer's suppositions to "come true". I believe it's a stretch and the "money people" will run into conference and regional allegiances that will hook up in a log jam (legal) that will take years and years to straighten out. I'm 72 and I believe that I'll be concerned about other things when this all plays out and there is some serious longevity in my corner. Although I'm not in the business of making those type predictions.

GO CARDS - BEAT EVERYBODY!!! God Bless America!!!

 

[HedleyLamarr]

Money does drive the bus, but there are huge changes occurring in the TV and sports TV world. ESPN has been losing subscribers at an alarming rate, as people continue to cut the cord and find alternatives, such as streaming. The rapid rise of high speed internet, and ala carte TV viewing, changes the who, what and how of how the money is, and wil be made. Most of these conference realignment articles fail to appreciate the sea change that is going on in the media world.

 

[Mike'sMarbles]

Louisville needs to continue trying to compete at a high level and growing national perception/awareness.

Imagine if UK got demoted to C-USA, and there were a new rule that you could only play against P5 teams due to ESPN. We'd finally get paired up with a competitive program!

 

[zipp]

I'm rooting for gocards because things will happen sooner rather than later and he will live long and prosper.

 

[zipp]

Money does drive the bus, but there are huge changes occurring in the TV and sports TV world. ESPN has been losing subscribers at an alarming rate, as people continue to cut the cord and find alternatives, such as streaming. The rapid rise of high speed internet, and ala carte TV viewing, changes the who, what and how of how the money is, and wil be made. Most of these conference realignment articles fail to appreciate the sea change that is going on in the media world.

Not to veer off course, but I was remarking to my wife today while watching the ESPN baseball stream. A couple years ago, we were all b!tching about the poor quality of ESPN3. This weekend for all three games--and this is pretty typical nowadays--the quality of my "reception" was excellent. Almost no buffering and widescreen HD almost as good as TWC provides me with their equipment.

If we could just do something about having to watch a "Walking Dead" commercial 50 times while streaming a single broadcast.

 

[beantowncard]

Since when does Tennessee own a big chunk of the Louisville market? Most of the figures I've heard are about 60-40, UL-UK.
The other thing they don't take into account is viewership. NY seems like a monster market, but CFB ratings are not strong. It's a pro town. Atlanta is probably a bigger CFB market because the viewership is so high, even with the lower population. The dominant school in the NY market is probably Syracuse. Rutgers has less support, and UConn less still. Louisville is a huge college basketball market, and for that alone I think we are safe.
I've always liked the idea of promoting programs that perform and dropping programs to a lower division if they are not competitive over a period of , say, 5 years. Interesting article.

 

[Mike'sMarbles]

Having teams move up/down a level based on performance, I'm not sure how well that'd work in college.

In college, players aren't drafted, they are influenced to go to a school. One of the incentives is having a massive TV audience in a P5 league. If a team were demoted, they'd lose that recruiting ability and it'd make it many times more difficult for them to improve. Losing then becomes a vicious circle with few outs.

And then there's cheating. What kind of penalties would they have to put in place to stop cheating, when losing leads to demotion? Even a post-season ban wouldn't work because you essentially get that anyway if you get demoted. I guess they'd have to make all cheating penalties into demotions as well. But I think cheating would definitely skyrocket under that kind of system.

And in football especially, it's really hard to build from a loser to a winner. If you're at risk of going down a level, the pressure on new football coaches to win and win now becomes impossibly intense. There's no "give him 3 years to get his system in place and all his own players". It's win now or go to C-USA.

I don't know, maybe they could find solutions to everything, but it just seems like that kind of system would be a poor fit for this sport.

 

[CardsFirst]

Since when does Tennessee own a big chunk of the Louisville market? Most of the figures I've heard are about 60-40, UL-UK.
The other thing they don't take into account is viewership. NY seems like a monster market, but CFB ratings are not strong. It's a pro town. Atlanta is probably a bigger CFB market because the viewership is so high, even with the lower population. The dominant school in the NY market is probably Syracuse. Rutgers has less support, and UConn less still. Louisville is a huge college basketball market, and for that alone I think we are safe.
I've always liked the idea of promoting programs that perform and dropping programs to a lower division if they are not competitive over a period of , say, 5 years. Interesting article.

I caught that too.,I question his research when he says Louisville is part of the Tennessee market that is just not true. They will be sadly mistaken if they go forward on that assumption. He did slam sUcK but he didn't mention us don't know it that's good or bad.,

 

[Rollem Cards]

The bad part is, no matter how you do it, you will have "bottom feeders".

Whoever makes the "cut" will have to perform. In a perfect world everyone would be 6-6. But odds say you will have a group who are going to be the proverbial 5-7, or worse, every year. The bottom feeders.

Then the 10-2, 9-3, and even 8-4 "outsiders" will be screaming for their spots.

It's never ending.

 

[beantowncard]

The bad part is, no matter how you do it, you will have "bottom feeders".

Whoever makes the "cut" will have to perform. In a perfect world everyone would be 6-6. But odds say you will have a group who are going to be the proverbial 5-7, or worse, every year. The bottom feeders.

Then the 10-2, 9-3, and even 8-4 "outsiders" will be screaming for their spots.

It's never ending.

No different from the NFL. You know what you have to do to make the playoffs, and you win the games. Novel theory - play your way into the playoffs- no more opinions.

 

[wilkie01]

Differm folks have b

This column is kinda long, but a pretty interesting read. The writer says he works in media and that TV is going to demand a lot of changes as it puts more money into college football including 4 16-team major conferences and an 8-team playoff. It also predicts that some current P5 schools will end up in G5 conferences and vice versa, based mostly on the size of the television markets they play in.

It has some bad news for the people in Lexington and some interesting predictions about who else might join the ACC.

http://www.thechaosindex.com/cest-la-tv-college-football-is-about-to-change-a-whole-lot-more-than-you-realize/