Conference Expansion: USC and UCLA to the Big Ten?

[Rafi]

They already do - Berkley and Stanford are about 350 miles from Los Angeles

LA to Rutgers is 8 times that distance.

[Sco Deac]

The SEC is the SEC and it's hard to match up with the teams they roll out, but it's weird to me that the Big 10 as a whole has publicly established itself as so clearly a tier above the ACC in football.

They have Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State, all very famous. Wisconsin and Iowa are solid, as is Michigan State lately, but I don't think many consider those programs college football blue bloods or anything. Then there's a whole lot of Indiana, Minnesota, Illinois, Maryland, Rutgers, Purdue, Nebraska, Northwestern. How the deuce did this conference vault itself to where it's seen as *obviously* the 2nd of the "Big 2" conferences? Is it just off the national strength of Ohio State and the Ohio State/Michigan rivalry? Certainly not saying ACC football is better, but it's interesting to look at how many of the Big 10 schools are pretty mediocre at football.

Are those estimates before OU and Texas announced they are leaving the Big 12?

It's pretty clear the Big 12 is hosed going forward, as the Big 12 lags behind all other conferences in the media markets as confirmed by the former head of FOX Sports:

Bob Thompson, the former president of Fox Sports Networks, told me on Tuesday that a potential Pac-12 partnership with the ACC captures TV markets that include 27.7 million households. By comparison, the Big 12 television markets have only 14 million households.

“If you put the geography aside, the ACC markets are just better,” Thompson said.

There are 10 ACC markets with more than 1 million television households each. They are: New York, Boston, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Tampa, Miami, Orlando, Charlotte, Pittsburgh and Raleigh. The Big 12 footprint has only four TV markets (Dallas, Washington, D.C., Houston and St. Louis) with more than a million households.
https://www.johncanzano.com/p/canzan...elf-back?sd=pf
Here is the link:

Pilchard's post seems to answer Say Hey's question perhaps unintentionally. Ignore conference names and think about the networks. It isn't that the Big 10 has emerged as the clear second best well above the ACC, Pac 10, and Big 12. The Big 10 just happens to have been the best Fox property and league Fox backed. It is also about eyes on TV sets/subscribers to cable packages. The Big 10 schools are big schools, with large alumni bases, in populous states. These are the factors that attracted Fox to backing them. Fox didn't have the access it wanted to the ACC, so the ACC is left to play second fiddle in the ESPN empire.

[thatguy2016]

LA to Rutgers is 8 times that distance.

LA to Rutgers is a ridiculous ask for a student-athlete, particularly one playing a midweek game. There is absolutely zero question about that.

LA to Pullman, WA is shorter...but it is a ridiculous ask for a student-athlete, particularly one playing a midweek game. Same goes for Chestnut Hill-Miami, or Lincoln, NE to State College, PA.

I guess the point here is that this travel is making a charade of the student-athlete experience, but to be honest, we're already making a charade of the student-athlete experience.

[PhDeac]

They already do - Berkley and Stanford are about 350 miles from Los Angeles

LOL.

Are those estimates before OU and Texas announced they are leaving the Big 12?

It's pretty clear the Big 12 is hosed going forward, as the Big 12 lags behind all other conferences in the media markets as confirmed by the former head of FOX Sports:

Bob Thompson, the former president of Fox Sports Networks, told me on Tuesday that a potential Pac-12 partnership with the ACC captures TV markets that include 27.7 million households. By comparison, the Big 12 television markets have only 14 million households.

“If you put the geography aside, the ACC markets are just better,” Thompson said.

There are 10 ACC markets with more than 1 million television households each. They are: New York, Boston, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Tampa, Miami, Orlando, Charlotte, Pittsburgh and Raleigh. The Big 12 footprint has only four TV markets (Dallas, Washington, D.C., Houston and St. Louis) with more than a million households.
https://www.johncanzano.com/p/canzan...elf-back?sd=pf
Here is the link:

It's laughable to count Tampa and Orlando as ACC markets.

LA to Rutgers is a ridiculous ask for a student-athlete, particularly one playing a midweek game. There is absolutely zero question about that.

LA to Pullman, WA is shorter...but it is a ridiculous ask for a student-athlete, particularly one playing a midweek game. Same goes for Chestnut Hill-Miami, or Lincoln, NE to State College, PA.

I guess the point here is that this travel is making a charade of the student-athlete experience, but to be honest, we're already making a charade of the student-athlete experience.

Yes. This is a good point.

[Pilchard]

It's more laughable to count DC as a Big 12 market; West Virginia has no following or presence in DC. At least it's a guarantee that Orlando and Tampa local stations will always air FSU football games when there are regional options; in DC, they would always pick up the ACC game that would be up against a Big 12 game involving WV.

Any way you slice it, the ACC has better and bigger markets than the Big 12.

[Rafi]

LA to Rutgers is a ridiculous ask for a student-athlete, particularly one playing a midweek game. There is absolutely zero question about that.

LA to Pullman, WA is shorter...but it is a ridiculous ask for a student-athlete, particularly one playing a midweek game. Same goes for Chestnut Hill-Miami, or Lincoln, NE to State College, PA.

I guess the point here is that this travel is making a charade of the student-athlete experience, but to be honest, we're already making a charade of the student-athlete experience.

I agree with your point, in general. But all of these examples are half the distance, one way, of LA to Rutgers.

[thatguy2016]

I agree with your point, in general. But all of these examples are half the distance, one way, of LA to Rutgers.

yes, of course

More than 10 years ago, when Louisiana Tech was in the WAC, they flew 4,000+ miles to play at Hawaii on a Thursday night, then flew 2,400+ miles to play San Jose St on a Saturday.

[nomadic]

LA to Rutgers is a ridiculous ask for a student-athlete, particularly one playing a midweek game. There is absolutely zero question about that.

LA to Pullman, WA is shorter...but it is a ridiculous ask for a student-athlete, particularly one playing a midweek game. Same goes for Chestnut Hill-Miami, or Lincoln, NE to State College, PA.

I guess the point here is that this travel is making a charade of the student-athlete experience, but to be honest, we're already making a charade of the student-athlete experience.

The Pac-12 does a good job, at least in basketball, regionalizing your road trip. If you play in Pullman on Thursday, you're likely in Seattle on Saturday. It's one of the few things they do well.

[PhDeac]

nomadic, what are your thoughts on this as a Pac-12 guy? How do you see this breakup going? What is the future for schools like Washington State and Oregon State?

[nomadic]

nomadic, what are your thoughts on this as a Pac-12 guy? How do you see this breakup going? What is the future for schools like Washington State and Oregon State?

It sucks for Washington State and Oregon State. When they list schools moving to the Big 12 or anywhere else, they are never mentioned. Unless lawmakers pull a Virginia and make UO/UW stay in the same conference, they will end up in a conference with a bunch of Mtn West schools. The worst for both of them is being along for the ride and at the mercy of whatever happens to the conference. Sound familiar? Larry Scott screwed the conference during his reign with their poorly run Pac-12 network and the Pac-12 presidents did it to themselves by not voting to expand the playoff. They are going to scramble and try to create some super conference with the Big 12 or ACC and will likely fall short. I look forward to watching WSU play games against SDSU on the CBSSports Network in 2024. I think the best case scenario for the conference is a Big 12 merger.

[Pilchard]

Wazzu and the Beavers are in the same boat as WF. The only hope them is for their current conference to remain in tact. If it becomes every school for itself, all of those schools are in trouble.

[WakeFanAdam]

nomadic, what are your thoughts on this as a Pac-12 guy? How do you see this breakup going? What is the future for schools like Washington State and Oregon State?

If the big 12 gets who they want from the PAC the only logical option for the leftover schools is the Mountain West conference, isn’t it?

[nomadic]

Yep.

[Say Hey Deac]

Pilchard's post seems to answer Say Hey's question perhaps unintentionally. Ignore conference names and think about the networks. It isn't that the Big 10 has emerged as the clear second best well above the ACC, Pac 10, and Big 12. The Big 10 just happens to have been the best Fox property and league Fox backed. It is also about eyes on TV sets/subscribers to cable packages. The Big 10 schools are big schools, with large alumni bases, in populous states. These are the factors that attracted Fox to backing them. Fox didn't have the access it wanted to the ACC, so the ACC is left to play second fiddle in the ESPN empire.

Totally get all that, it’s just bizarre to see how we’re apparently going to create 2 “super conferences” of college football programs that include a whoooooole lot of not very good football programs from the Big 10.

[BiffTannen]

I mean, the ACC could offer ND a billion dollars or something like that.

[PhDeac]

Totally get all that, it’s just bizarre to see how we’re apparently going to create 2 “super conferences” of college football programs that include a whoooooole lot of not very good football programs from the Big 10.

And SEC. Both conferences have a lot of dead weight for a Super League.

[JKW385]

And SEC. Both conferences have a lot of dead weight for a Super League.

If we are really going to have a super league - there are a lot of teams in Big10 and SEC that are dead weight and need to go- assuming this is a football only discussion. Minnesota, NW, Indiana, Purdue, Rutgers and maybe even Nebraska doesn’t make the cut- they haven’t been relevant for 2 decades. In the SEC- Vandy, MS State, maybe Kentucky, SC, or Mizzou. A step further - if Oregon isn’t deserving of a membership, is Wisconsin, Iowa, Arkansas, Ole Miss, or even Tennessee at this point?

I’m with fine with being in a conference with those schools if the picks of the litter get cherry picked and Clemson, FSU, Miami, UNC, and UVA move on- I get it.

I just don’t want to be in the AAC 2.0 or a glorified Southern Conference - we’ve all put way too much in LOWF sports for 70 years for that to happen.

[Ball State Deac]

LA to Rutgers is 8 times that distance.

Not on the Big monorail. It transcends time.

[BarcaDeac]

I don’t think I’ve ever watched BTN unless our Indiana game was on it. Do they ever have good games? Seems like they’re usually on Fox.

[Ball State Deac]

I don’t think I’ve ever watched BTN unless our Indiana game was on it. Do they ever have good games? Seems like they’re usually on Fox.

The BTN is far and away the best conference network.