Sarcasm spoiler alert: A former conference, for years a legend it its own mind and now gasping for life and relevancy with 2 schools, holds a "for-the-old-times" event in a once-proud and beautiful city (where I used to live) rendered irrelevant on any sort of big stage by crippling politics and poor governmental decisions. Just dandy.
Exactly - John is complaining (on his radio show) about how the Pac needs to do something "bold and different" instead of scheduling their event in Vegas when the Big 12 and Mountain West are there. Hello - why would we not want to be there, to be able to interact as much as possible with the league we're working with for the next 2 years, as well as the league we would love to become a part of? Plus, all the media people will be in town anyway - who wants to schedule another trip, (to Portland, no less), to talk to 2 football coaches and their players? H'es just whining because they didn't like his "let's go back to the good old days" idea...yeah, that all worked out great for the Cougs and the Beavs.
What the G5 schools (and many P4/P5 schools) need to avoid at all costs is financially overleveraging themselves. College football has become an arms race, and only very few schools (Texas, Alabama, ND, A&M, and a few others) are able to sustain today's level of spending. The worst case scenario would be spending money that doesn't materialize to the point that it sends their athletic departments into a death spiral, where draconian cuts result in lower revenues, causing more cuts.
Ultimately college sports are a financial behemoth because of football viewership, which itself is based on games that have meaningful rivalries rooted in tradition or regional identity. Realignment is throwing that all out the window, meaning the well of seemingly infinite CFB revenue is at great risk of drying up.
Spot on! It seems the conspiracists are killing the Golden Goose. Wreck those long time rivalries and the regional nature of sports (even the NFL relies on rivalries established by division alignments like the NFC North), and you will wreck your viewership. I watch the football games that are compelling to me for personal reasons, not just to watch. I bet most people are that way.
Aresco is an idiot and the only one showing "Darwinian" thinking. Just how is having access to only ONE CFP spot, and only getting less than $2 mil for that "staying in the game? News flash, the G5 is already OUT OF THE GAME. If he and the G5 commissioners can't see that, they're dumber than they sound.
I'd also challenge him that FCS programs are happy where they're at and so are their fans. Much happier than G5 programs and fans. It's actually still real college football, at least for now.
If FCS programs are happier than G5 programs, then how come we've seen 17 schools move from FCS to FBS since 2010 (a couple of them even after the NCAA raised the fee to do so from $5,000 to $5,000,000), but during the same period only one school has gone from FBS to FCS? (that was Idaho, and they only did it after the WAC fell apart and the MWC said it didn't want them)
That was before all this new crap went down. It was for a perceived jump in revenue under the old terms, and they were right at the time. The fact is, today, the G5 can make more overall revenue creating their own division. It's a matter of supply and demand. Take the G5, and ACC and Big 12, away from the SEC and Big 10, and forbid any of your new division from ever scheduling those 2 conferences, there is no longer enough content for ESPN, ABC, FOX, NBC, CBS to fill their schedules. SEC and Big 10 coaches don't want to be playing conference opponents every week. G5 Big 12 and ACC schools now control the networks. But back to your original question, those prior FCS programs wouldn't make those moves again today, if given the choice.
"The fact is, today, the G5 can make more overall revenue creating their own division."
Do you have something citing that? I have serious doubts.
As for your scheduling blockade, the G5/ACC/Big 12 could try to do that now without forming their own division. (they'd have to void a lot of existing contracts though, which would get costly). But that's the kind of leverage they could exert to try and get better financial terms out of the B1G/SEC. But since many of those "lower" level schools also want/need the payday and exposure that comes with playing the big guys, good luck getting everyone to adhere to it.
Yeah, before they new they'd have to pay NIL to all their players and also set aside more than $20 mil a year to their athletes now. Also before they knew percentage would be even less now from the NCAA CFP than it was then. If these new parameters were in place then, bet most wouldn't have even considered the move. Apples and oranges.
My understanding of the settlement, which isn't close to finalized yet, is that no one will *have* to play their players a certain amount, or anything. $20M is simply the max (and good luck to the schools/NCAA avoiding another antitrust lawsuit there). If the G5 can't afford that much, they can simply pay what they can afford (and again, paying nothing at all might is likely an option too).
Agreed... high level "college" football (not sure college has anything to do with the P4 football programs any longer) takes a lot of dinero. The G5 schools are being squeezed out of the big paydays, which is the entire point of the B1G and SEC conspiracy with Big Media. $5M per year will never compete with $50M per year, let alone the wealthy NIL contributors in the P4 to pay the top players. G5 inclusion in the CFP is really a charade to keep the P2 schools out of court for anti-trust. Something dramatic will be required to save college football as we know it. My bet is on football AAA pro teams based on the B1G and SEC programs, which won't even belong to those schools any longer but instead will be "for profit" stepping stones to the NFL
I'm not sure how much this matters, but neither of this year's games are being played west of the Rockies (Pittsburgh and Houston), so not sure P12N has the ability to do that outside its traditional footprint. I like the thinking though.
As much as I hate it, the reality is that this is what everyone who isn't part of the Big Ten and SEC will have to do if they want to remain anywhere within shouting distance of those two. So yeah, I could learn to live with the Pacific Life 12 (or however many members they end up being). It's at least something close to the old name.
How long before the Big 12's equity partners demand that "underperforming assets" like Cincinnati, Houston, BYU, Iowa State, West Virginia are kicked out?
I wouldn't want to be Pitt, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Rutgers, Maryland, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska or Northwestern or any number of other bad teams if the Big Ten and SEC acquired "equity partners."
Bringing in PE would be something the conference would have to vote for by a very large majority (many votes of this nature require a 75% minimum to pass). Certainly the less valuable brands will only be in favor if there are ironclad protections that don't allow PE partners to push them out (or at minimum it would be very cost prohibitive for them to do so).
Any thoughts on the Univ of Oregon demanding an American flag on a construction crane be removed? Apparently company ignored them and U of O is incommunicado
Just like you're triggered by things that have no negative impact at all on your real life, if you had one instead of wasting your time shadow boxing at straw men while snorting Faux News talking points.
Stop calling them Big 10. Plain and simple it’s “the Conference that can’t count”. And yes it totally sucks that the PAC, 2 Northwest Schools, are going to Vegas. Liked the original hotel concept. That made a lot of sense or Seattle even where Cougs could have partially rubbed it in the Dawgs noses that they are still alive, with lots of money to boot.
Hate to be negative but after the riots and protests in Portland, it's not the same. Same with Seattle. I would never attend an event at a hotel in downtown Portland. Las Vegas is where the action is and fast becoming the sports capital of the nation.
Not sure why Aresco feels CFP access is all important to G5. This isn't the NCAA basketball tournament. When the ONE G5 school makes the playoff, it will be overmatched and embarrassed, and it will, after getting rolled by Georgia 48-6, remind everyone just how far away G5 is from P4. I WANT the G5 to break away and have its own playoff. I want OSU and WSU to get back to P4. If they do, they could certainly make the CFP at some point, but let's be honest: They would never win it. But if they are forced to stay G5 and win a championship, they will be viewed as true champions, just as the FCS winners are. I reject the popular argument that a G5 playoff would be like the NIT.
CFB has been Darwinian since Oklahoma and Georgia; others won the suit that took away the NCAA's football broadcast monopoly. Before then? George Gipp was far from the only guy being paid to play.
Travel concerns? Minnesota in the 1930s spent 8 days round trip traveling to Seattle to play Washington.
As Mike Aresco knows well there is nothing new under the Sun.
Here's a question for the Mailbag: Mike Aresco says G5 can't give up access to the College Football Playoff. Ultimately, will they have much of a choice? As things stand now, there's already a huge gap between colleges football's Haves and Have Nots: G5 schools aren't going to attract much top talent, and Power 5 schools are going to poach the talent they develop via the transfer portal. G5 teams will likely have to go undefeated to even be considered for the playoff, and I doubt any will have a realistic chance to win. Is it time to just acknowledge reality and split Division I into three divisions?
I think Aresco's case is that the G5 splitting off on its own would be giving the power conferences exactly what they want....to have the G5 gone and not have to worry about antitrust concerns over it (big difference when the G5 leave on their own accord versus P4 kicking them out). Doesn't sound like he's in any mood to play right into their hands. Plus, it's really just another way to say the G5 quit.
Sarcasm spoiler alert: A former conference, for years a legend it its own mind and now gasping for life and relevancy with 2 schools, holds a "for-the-old-times" event in a once-proud and beautiful city (where I used to live) rendered irrelevant on any sort of big stage by crippling politics and poor governmental decisions. Just dandy.
Will it include an A's game?
Spot on buddy
Exactly - John is complaining (on his radio show) about how the Pac needs to do something "bold and different" instead of scheduling their event in Vegas when the Big 12 and Mountain West are there. Hello - why would we not want to be there, to be able to interact as much as possible with the league we're working with for the next 2 years, as well as the league we would love to become a part of? Plus, all the media people will be in town anyway - who wants to schedule another trip, (to Portland, no less), to talk to 2 football coaches and their players? H'es just whining because they didn't like his "let's go back to the good old days" idea...yeah, that all worked out great for the Cougs and the Beavs.
I can hear you.
What the G5 schools (and many P4/P5 schools) need to avoid at all costs is financially overleveraging themselves. College football has become an arms race, and only very few schools (Texas, Alabama, ND, A&M, and a few others) are able to sustain today's level of spending. The worst case scenario would be spending money that doesn't materialize to the point that it sends their athletic departments into a death spiral, where draconian cuts result in lower revenues, causing more cuts.
Ultimately college sports are a financial behemoth because of football viewership, which itself is based on games that have meaningful rivalries rooted in tradition or regional identity. Realignment is throwing that all out the window, meaning the well of seemingly infinite CFB revenue is at great risk of drying up.
Spot on! It seems the conspiracists are killing the Golden Goose. Wreck those long time rivalries and the regional nature of sports (even the NFL relies on rivalries established by division alignments like the NFC North), and you will wreck your viewership. I watch the football games that are compelling to me for personal reasons, not just to watch. I bet most people are that way.
Alaska govt I’m a nutshell too. Your intuition and observations are very well founded.
Aresco is an idiot and the only one showing "Darwinian" thinking. Just how is having access to only ONE CFP spot, and only getting less than $2 mil for that "staying in the game? News flash, the G5 is already OUT OF THE GAME. If he and the G5 commissioners can't see that, they're dumber than they sound.
I'd also challenge him that FCS programs are happy where they're at and so are their fans. Much happier than G5 programs and fans. It's actually still real college football, at least for now.
If FCS programs are happier than G5 programs, then how come we've seen 17 schools move from FCS to FBS since 2010 (a couple of them even after the NCAA raised the fee to do so from $5,000 to $5,000,000), but during the same period only one school has gone from FBS to FCS? (that was Idaho, and they only did it after the WAC fell apart and the MWC said it didn't want them)
That was before all this new crap went down. It was for a perceived jump in revenue under the old terms, and they were right at the time. The fact is, today, the G5 can make more overall revenue creating their own division. It's a matter of supply and demand. Take the G5, and ACC and Big 12, away from the SEC and Big 10, and forbid any of your new division from ever scheduling those 2 conferences, there is no longer enough content for ESPN, ABC, FOX, NBC, CBS to fill their schedules. SEC and Big 10 coaches don't want to be playing conference opponents every week. G5 Big 12 and ACC schools now control the networks. But back to your original question, those prior FCS programs wouldn't make those moves again today, if given the choice.
"The fact is, today, the G5 can make more overall revenue creating their own division."
Do you have something citing that? I have serious doubts.
As for your scheduling blockade, the G5/ACC/Big 12 could try to do that now without forming their own division. (they'd have to void a lot of existing contracts though, which would get costly). But that's the kind of leverage they could exert to try and get better financial terms out of the B1G/SEC. But since many of those "lower" level schools also want/need the payday and exposure that comes with playing the big guys, good luck getting everyone to adhere to it.
Could a "scheduling blockade" bring an anti-trust problem?
If FCS fans are so "happy with where they're at," then why are so many FCS programs moving to FBS?
Sam Houston. James Madison. Delaware. Old Dominion. Appalachian State. Charlotte. Coastal Carolina. Georgia Southern. Georgia State. Jacksonville State. Kennesaw State. Liberty. UMass. Missouri State. South Alabama. Texas State. Western Kentucky.
All moved up to FBS from FCS within the past decade or so.
Yeah, before they new they'd have to pay NIL to all their players and also set aside more than $20 mil a year to their athletes now. Also before they knew percentage would be even less now from the NCAA CFP than it was then. If these new parameters were in place then, bet most wouldn't have even considered the move. Apples and oranges.
None of those schools is going to be paying anywhere close to $20 million in MIL money.
You said FCS fans were happy where they were. Clearly, they weren't.
My understanding of the settlement, which isn't close to finalized yet, is that no one will *have* to play their players a certain amount, or anything. $20M is simply the max (and good luck to the schools/NCAA avoiding another antitrust lawsuit there). If the G5 can't afford that much, they can simply pay what they can afford (and again, paying nothing at all might is likely an option too).
Agreed... high level "college" football (not sure college has anything to do with the P4 football programs any longer) takes a lot of dinero. The G5 schools are being squeezed out of the big paydays, which is the entire point of the B1G and SEC conspiracy with Big Media. $5M per year will never compete with $50M per year, let alone the wealthy NIL contributors in the P4 to pay the top players. G5 inclusion in the CFP is really a charade to keep the P2 schools out of court for anti-trust. Something dramatic will be required to save college football as we know it. My bet is on football AAA pro teams based on the B1G and SEC programs, which won't even belong to those schools any longer but instead will be "for profit" stepping stones to the NFL
I see Netflix is shopping for a partner to produce NFL games on Christmas Day. Any chance Pac-12 network would be able to handle something like that?
I'm not sure how much this matters, but neither of this year's games are being played west of the Rockies (Pittsburgh and Houston), so not sure P12N has the ability to do that outside its traditional footprint. I like the thinking though.
The Big 12 is apparently more serious about both selling conference naming rights and PE investment.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5562395/2024/06/13/big-12-private-equity-naming-rights/
As much as I hate it, the reality is that this is what everyone who isn't part of the Big Ten and SEC will have to do if they want to remain anywhere within shouting distance of those two. So yeah, I could learn to live with the Pacific Life 12 (or however many members they end up being). It's at least something close to the old name.
How long before the Big 12's equity partners demand that "underperforming assets" like Cincinnati, Houston, BYU, Iowa State, West Virginia are kicked out?
I wouldn't want to be Pitt, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Rutgers, Maryland, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois, Nebraska or Northwestern or any number of other bad teams if the Big Ten and SEC acquired "equity partners."
Bringing in PE would be something the conference would have to vote for by a very large majority (many votes of this nature require a 75% minimum to pass). Certainly the less valuable brands will only be in favor if there are ironclad protections that don't allow PE partners to push them out (or at minimum it would be very cost prohibitive for them to do so).
More and more Lawsuits galore coming in the near future! Tell your kids in college to get a law degree with and emphasis in athletics!!
And more specifically antitrust law. Those have always been the type of cases that take many years to resolve, with tons of billable hours.
Jeez. The Pac12 should have hired Alesco instread of GK.
Any thoughts on the Univ of Oregon demanding an American flag on a construction crane be removed? Apparently company ignored them and U of O is incommunicado
They were out of rainbow 🌈 flags and they were triggered obviously by the transgender employment applicants lack of cultural diversity?
Just like you're triggered by things that have no negative impact at all on your real life, if you had one instead of wasting your time shadow boxing at straw men while snorting Faux News talking points.
LOL! The Thought Police are headed your way. 😍
Only in Eugene…
Or Seattle!
“Now realignment has become a complete mess”
Ya’ think?
Implosion is imminent…
GO DAWGS
Personally I think it’s great that Stanford, Cal and the others will be traveling regularly to play on the east coast.
The PAC-12 meeting should be held in downtown Portland, regardless of the mess that the local government has allowed it to become
Stop calling them Big 10. Plain and simple it’s “the Conference that can’t count”. And yes it totally sucks that the PAC, 2 Northwest Schools, are going to Vegas. Liked the original hotel concept. That made a lot of sense or Seattle even where Cougs could have partially rubbed it in the Dawgs noses that they are still alive, with lots of money to boot.
The Aresco interview was boring. He loved to talk about himself and his successes. He didn’t provide any new insight. He should stay retired.
Hate to be negative but after the riots and protests in Portland, it's not the same. Same with Seattle. I would never attend an event at a hotel in downtown Portland. Las Vegas is where the action is and fast becoming the sports capital of the nation.
Nothing wrong with these fine cities. Vegas is trash.
Seattle is fine; Portland has a ways to go.
Not sure why Aresco feels CFP access is all important to G5. This isn't the NCAA basketball tournament. When the ONE G5 school makes the playoff, it will be overmatched and embarrassed, and it will, after getting rolled by Georgia 48-6, remind everyone just how far away G5 is from P4. I WANT the G5 to break away and have its own playoff. I want OSU and WSU to get back to P4. If they do, they could certainly make the CFP at some point, but let's be honest: They would never win it. But if they are forced to stay G5 and win a championship, they will be viewed as true champions, just as the FCS winners are. I reject the popular argument that a G5 playoff would be like the NIT.
When has B1G business not been Darwinian?
CFB has been Darwinian since Oklahoma and Georgia; others won the suit that took away the NCAA's football broadcast monopoly. Before then? George Gipp was far from the only guy being paid to play.
Travel concerns? Minnesota in the 1930s spent 8 days round trip traveling to Seattle to play Washington.
As Mike Aresco knows well there is nothing new under the Sun.
Here's a question for the Mailbag: Mike Aresco says G5 can't give up access to the College Football Playoff. Ultimately, will they have much of a choice? As things stand now, there's already a huge gap between colleges football's Haves and Have Nots: G5 schools aren't going to attract much top talent, and Power 5 schools are going to poach the talent they develop via the transfer portal. G5 teams will likely have to go undefeated to even be considered for the playoff, and I doubt any will have a realistic chance to win. Is it time to just acknowledge reality and split Division I into three divisions?
I think Aresco's case is that the G5 splitting off on its own would be giving the power conferences exactly what they want....to have the G5 gone and not have to worry about antitrust concerns over it (big difference when the G5 leave on their own accord versus P4 kicking them out). Doesn't sound like he's in any mood to play right into their hands. Plus, it's really just another way to say the G5 quit.