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Realignment talk not going away


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6 hours ago, Jabberwocky said:

Things getting weird on Twitter. San Fransisco reporter now chirping about CalFord...

 

Even if they had the money there is zero reason to waste two spots on Oregon State and Washington State when you can peel some ACC schools in a few years.

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1 hour ago, DFW Horn said:

Not much to think about.

Do OSU and Wazzu have an offer from the MWC? If so, they'd better take it.

I think once Washington State and Oregon State work out the PAC 12 exit money windfall they’ll be in the Mountain West. Pretty decent conference. Not Power 4, but there should be some fun games to watch. 
 

Did the PAC 8 that left forfeit their shares to the PAC Network? 

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4 hours ago, DFW Horn said:

Not much to think about.

Do OSU and Wazzu have an offer from the MWC? If so, they'd better take it.

They'll have offers from both the MWC and AAC; that's the decision. (I hope to god they take the MWC, but some sports personalities have already been suggesting they should take the AAC).

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46 minutes ago, LTbear said:

They'll have offers from both the MWC and AAC; that's the decision. (I hope to god they take the MWC, but some sports personalities have already been suggesting they should take the AAC).

Dellenger claims the TV payout in the AAC is $8 or 9 million and of course owned by ESPN. MWC payout is $5 or 6 million and owned by CBS Sports/Fox. 
 

If ESPN wants the Cougars and Beavers in the AAC, they’ll be in the AAC. I hope it doesn’t happen. Another bizarre geographic fit and long flights for student athletes in non-revenue sports. 

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3 hours ago, Jabberwocky said:

Was about to post this. I have no idea what is going on, but I do not believe it was ever reported that the Big 12 had "conversations" with those schools. 

Hopefully it means CalFord is going to the Mountain West.

At one point it was reported that all the Pac 10 had conversations.  Doesn't mean any of it was more than quick informational calls.

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19 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Dellenger claims the TV payout in the AAC is $8 or 9 million and of course owned by ESPN. MWC payout is $5 or 6 million and owned by CBS Sports/Fox. 
 

If ESPN wants the Cougars and Beavers in the AAC, they’ll be in the AAC. I hope it doesn’t happen. Another bizarre geographic fit and long flights for student athletes in non-revenue sports. 

For the sake of argument, a good portion of that extra AAC money will be eaten up by the ridiculous travel (UW estimated an additional $10m per year for their B1G travel). 

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1 minute ago, LTbear said:

For the sake of argument, a good portion of that extra AAC money will be eaten up by the ridiculous travel (UW estimated an additional $10m per year for their B1G travel). 

Correct. I do think ESPN is going to want WSU and OSU in the AAC so they can gobble up the PAC Network. 

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7 minutes ago, Jabberwocky said:

Overall. So, they are looking to add about 2 MM per team per year, or maybe 30 MM divided up between 3 or 4 schools.

Weren't they talking about giving some performance based payouts at one point but no one wanted to give up money to pay for it?

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47 minutes ago, gatormarc said:

Weren't they talking about giving some performance based payouts at one point but no one wanted to give up money to pay for it?

That has to do with CFP payout distribution, but perhaps that also includes reserving a portion of the conference media rights distribution for CFP inclusion and success.

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10 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Did the PAC 8 that left forfeit their shares to the PAC Network? 

It's pretty clear that Assets like the PAC12 network and the rights to the PAC12 Logo belong to the remaining schools. There are claims that the PAC12 has a $40mill reserve AND deferred payments from networks and merchandising companies. Some claim that the remaining schools get that money. There's NO way the departing schools are going to let there 12th of any money they helped earn go to the PAC2. 

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not sure if this showed up here...

ACC expansion: Stanford and Cal (and SMU, really?) would add nothing to a proud conference

Quote

It’s Stanford’s fault it’s so easy for me to explain to all of you why it’s such a terrible idea for the Atlantic Coast Conference to consider adding the Cardinal, California Golden Bears and – maybe, for some unfathomable reason, the SMU Mustangs – because Google was conceived on the “The Farm” by a couple of the many brilliant minds that have studied on that lovely campus.

And, man, is Google handy in explaining how nondescript their revenue sports programs – the programs the ACC might drag all the way from the Pacific Coast – have been through most of the past several decades.

I don’t need to have handy the Stanford or Cal football and basketball media guides to examine their records and attendance and (lack of) achievements. Google does that all for me, with a few typed words and the simple push of a button.

Thanks, Stanford!

There is the question of competence:

– Stanford owns only seven seasons of double-digit football wins in its history, with an average record of 7-5 (73-50) over the past 10 seasons. Cal has posted seven seasons with double-digit wins, also, but four of them were before 1950. Its record over the past decade is 49-66.

– Since 1980, such football icons as Bill Walsh (17-17-1 in his second stint as head coach, from 1992-94) and John Elway (15-18 in three seasons as regular starter, from 1980-82) failed to make Stanford a consistent winner. After a brilliant start to his time as head coach that included four major bowl appearances, David Shaw recently resigned after three losing seasons in a four-year stretch that saw the Cardinal go 14-28.

– Stanford has reached only one NCAA men’s basketball tournament in the past 15 seasons. There have been only five 20-win seasons since the great Mike Montgomery left the head coaching job to work in the NBA in 2004. Montgomery’s era accounted for 12 of Stanford’s 17 total NCAA Tournament appearances. California has been to the NCAAs six times in the past 20 years. Montgomery, who took the Cal job after the NBA experiment didn’t go great, was head coach for four of those. He was in charge for 20 of the two schools’ combined 36 NCAA Tournaments. The ACC has five members (North Carolina, Duke, Louisville, Syracuse, Notre Dame) with more NCAA appearances than Cal and Stanford combined.

There is the question of support:

– For the 2022 football season, Stanford drew an average of 29,965 fans to its home games, the 68th-ranked average in the NCAA FBS subdivision. And that’s with tickets available free to students who register in advance, online. Among the schools that drew better: Boise State, East Carolina, Fresno State and Navy. California’s average was not much better, the 59th-ranked total of 38,596.

– During the five-season period that preceded the pandemic, Stanford’s average attendance of 43,263 ranked 10th among the dozen teams in the Pac-12. Cal was No. 9, at 43,457.

– For last season’s “Big Game”, the annual rivalry between the Cardinal and Bears that once produced the unforgettable “the band is out on the field!” moment, there were more than 10,000 empty seats at California Memorial Stadium.

– For the 2022-23 men’s basketball season, Stanford drew an average of 3,518 fans to home games. That ranked No. 130 in Division I. That was worse than Wright State, Ball State, James Madison and Weber State. Three average Kentucky home games combined would exceed Stanford’s season attendance total. California drew an average of 2,155, which ranked 187th and was the worst of any school in a top-6 basketball conference, and a smidge behind Duquesne, Stony Brook and Kent State.

Google even served up the perfect anecdote to summarize all this, courtesy of Stanford alum Christian McCaffrey, who talked about the day he returned to his dorm after he’d almost singlehandedly destroyed the UCLA defense in a Pac-12 game at Stanford Stadium.

“I biked back to my dorm. I’m kind of on a high horse. I walk in, and six or seven people asked where I was!” McCaffrey told The Athletic. "I think I had something like 243 yards rushing, four touchdowns. And they didn’t know where I was!”

He had exactly 243 rushing yards and four touchdowns.

Google found me that, too.

Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports reports the ACC’s contract with ESPN would produce roughly $24 million for each new school added to the conference, and with Stanford, Cal and SMU all apparently willing to accept a greatly reduced share of revenue, the ACC could have an extra $30 million to distribute to members by expanding to include the three schools. David Glenn of the North Carolina Sports Network reports on Twitter there also could be a bump in the fees gathered by the ACC Network.

No matter how you slice that cash, though, unless it’s winner-take all for whichever team wins the ACC Championship in football, an average of slightly more than $2 million per full member is not going to counterbalance the mostly mediocre (or worse) football and basketball teams that would be sullying what has long been a proud league.

Even with recent Final Four appearances by Duke and North Carolina, the ACC has declined so badly in basketball it ranked seventh in the NET rankings, according to WarrenNolan.com. Imagine how much farther off the map the league would have fallen by adding the teams ranked 97 (Stanford), 209 (SMU) and 313 (Cal).

If the ACC feels it might one day need more members to survive the departures of a few schools, there always are plenty of those hanging around. There's a good chance that, by the time the ACC's grant of rights and contract with ESPN expires in 2036, these three schools will still be searching for a home as plush as the one the ACC can offer.

It might be worth going all the way to Tokyo if the ACC could find a couple of schools there with the tradition and support that would enhance the league’s membership. There’s no reason, though, to stop that recruiting trip in the Bay Area.

 

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14 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

I feel like all this Stanford/cal talk whether to big 12 or ACC has been from those schools sources trying to force it 

 

4 hours ago, Jabberwocky said:

Overall. So, they are looking to add about 2 MM per team per year, or maybe 30 MM divided up between 3 or 4 schools.

Why not divide it only among the YES votes?

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I have been googling, trying to find revenue breakdowns for the conferences- annual revenue from each media channel, revenue (when applicable) from conference networks or other tier 3. It seems intentionally clouded. For example, the amount paid to the B12 by ESPN and Fox combined is known, but I can’t find the individual contributions. Presumably, ESPN and Fox wouldn’t collude to maintain secrecy, so my guess is the conference is clouding it. 
 
The B12 is not the only conference like this. I can find the ACC media revenue distribution, but not the discrete amount from the ACC network. 
 
God only knows how the PAC net is accounted for. 
 
Anyway, revenue ranks for colleges will grow to be reflective mainly of conference membership. The B10 and SEC get almost twice what the others get, and have the biggest attendances (presumably, greater ticket sales and merchandise sales). 
 
NIL and the transfer portal have degraded the traditional small program “cheat codes” (hire a great coach and pay what it takes to keep him, and pay great players under the table). These are pro teams in pro leagues. Unlike the NFL and MLB, there is nothing to prop up the poorer franchises, like a draft or revenue sharing. 

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1 hour ago, statsman said:

I have been googling, trying to find revenue breakdowns for the conferences- annual revenue from each media channel, revenue (when applicable) from conference networks or other tier 3. It seems intentionally clouded. For example, the amount paid to the B12 by ESPN and Fox combined is known, but I can’t find the individual contributions. Presumably, ESPN and Fox wouldn’t collude to maintain secrecy, so my guess is the conference is clouding it. 
 
The B12 is not the only conference like this. I can find the ACC media revenue distribution, but not the discrete amount from the ACC network. 
 
God only knows how the PAC net is accounted for. 
 
Anyway, revenue ranks for colleges will grow to be reflective mainly of conference membership. The B10 and SEC get almost twice what the others get, and have the biggest attendances (presumably, greater ticket sales and merchandise sales). 
 
NIL and the transfer portal have degraded the traditional small program “cheat codes” (hire a great coach and pay what it takes to keep him, and pay great players under the table). These are pro teams in pro leagues. Unlike the NFL and MLB, there is nothing to prop up the poorer franchises, like a draft or revenue sharing. 

That's because the PACN is the only one that is a stand alone entity, so you see it like a corp filing.    All revenue and all expenses, which inflates the Pac pay out numbers if a beat writer does revenue only.

  • The networks never release their right agreements, outside grandiose full contract amounts.   The details are kept secret as part of winning the deal.   
  • ACC Network is structured like the SEC Network.   These are rights deals, but they have bonuses that can be achieved by increased viewership.  The payout is included in their yearly releases, just all in, they don't break it out by tier.  Both have a gigantic about of inventory on the channels, like nearly 50%.   They probably account for a quarter to a third of revenue though.
  • The B12's deal is a bit less on revenue, but higher on exposure; e.g. they gave up cash for marketing.  They'll have more games on broadcast and less on what would go to a channel, in this case ESPN+.   ESPN is about 2/3rds of their media deal revenue.   Fox took less good football games, but added a lot of basketball.
  • The B1G's used to have an ownership component that paid out differently, but back in the pandemic they controlling interest for cash.   Then they put all of their rights into BTN until the mid 2030s and BTN now does their agreements.   Which basically means Fox does their agreements.   So they won't break out who pays what either, likely as part of the agreement.

At the end of the day, the Ohio State and Alabama's of the world aren't going to be more powerful due to media revenues.    The difference between the SEC and ACC in payouts, for Ohio State, for example, is like 10% of their full revenue.   The real question is can the top end of the B12/ACC keep up with the middle of the pack of the B1G/SEC.  

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12 hours ago, gatormarc said:

Always fun to see the old mascots that all had the sailor hats since one cartoonist went to every school and sold them all on sailor hats.

I always assumed that was a dutch oven on the mascot's head.  Because who doesn't want a bowl of delicious chili served out of a dutch oven that has been sitting on a steer's head for some reason?

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I was trying to look up which college venues prohibit mascots from carrying fake weapons. Pistol Pete, Raider Red and the Mountaineer aren't allowed to have their fake guns with them at some road games. All those mascots have at least two sets of guns. One set can fire blanks and another set is purely a prop. Well, the WVU Mountaineer's Musket can actually be loaded and you can kill stuff with it. The mascot got in trouble a few years ago for shooting a bear. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/west-virginia-mountaineer-mascot-reprimanded-after-he-kills-bear-with-school-issued-musket/

Edited by CustersDoctor
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34 minutes ago, 'stache said:

I wonder why Pistol Pete is the only one they used the current version and not retro.

 

IMG_2136.webp

The one they used for Tech doesn't really look that old to my ancient eyes. That logo looks like it was probably from the '80s or '90s.

Some version of Dirk West's classic Raider Red is really what they should've plugged in.

 dirkwest-ttu2-sm.jpg

 

Or this one from the 1950s that preceded RR.

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSe--kIvd3xOVZ0g7GLST4

 

When I searched vintage Texas Tech logo, I came across this awesome bomber-looking one I've never seen before that looks like it's from the '40s or maybe early '50s.

900_Row-One-Brand_1950_s-texas-tech-art-vintage.jpg

 

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31 minutes ago, CustersDoctor said:

I was trying to look up which college venues prohibit mascots from carrying fake weapons. Pistol Pete, Raider Red and the Mountaineer aren't allowed to have their fake guns with them at some road games. All those mascots have at least two sets of guns. One set can fire blanks and another set is purely a prop. Well, the WVU Mountaineer's Musket can actually be loaded and you can kill stuff with it. The mascot got in trouble a few years ago for shooting a bear. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/west-virginia-mountaineer-mascot-reprimanded-after-he-kills-bear-with-school-issued-musket/

I remember playing at SMU, I think it was the 7 TD game for Rashaun Woods. A student wrote an Op-Ed for the school paper, saying it was time for Pistol Pete to put his guns away. What a joke. 

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I don't think Pete has taken his guns on the road for many years. His big ass shotgun is to pump up the home crowd and still scares the shit out of us most times. I'm not sure if he's allowed to have his hand gun props for twirling on the road, but I think they are real guns capable of being used, so my guess is not.

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Raider Red does not take the shotguns on the road.  Those are only at home, and most of the time, it's a Saddle Tramp who shoots the blanks after a score rather than Red himself.  When I was in school we had two incidents with those shotguns.  One was the Saddle Tramp carrying them over to Red accidentally shot one while it was pointed down, leaving a burn mark in the astroturf.  The athletic facilities assistant AD, Ron Damron, completely lost his shit over that.  Then a couple of years later, he REALLY lost his shit when the dumbass who was responsible for the shotguns decided he wanted to impress his girlfriend and get a picture of him shooting the shotguns AFTER a game was over.  We all turned around when we heard them because that never happens after a game.  Damron and the campus police descended on him rather quickly.  It took a lot of pleading by the Saddle Tramp sponsor to the administration to allow them to continue the tradition and not have it banned because of the actions of one dumb kid.

Now if the big wooden pistols Red has as decoration are "banned", then that's just being stupid.  Those are just wood cutouts.

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2 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:

AAC seems like the better conference to be part of.....

 

Which do you think is best for those schools?

Seems like 2 different shit sandwiches.  At least the MWC is more regional, not that that makes any difference these days.

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I think the MWC makes more sense than the AAC.  With the loss of the 3 best schools, I'm not sure the AAC is better than the MWC in it's current form.  And it's way more travel, for what will not be a significant raise.

Oregon State and Wazzu in the MWC is a fairly entertaining league that I'll probably watch at midnight when I get home from the field.

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Yeah, travel would be the big difference, and having lost their top 3 programs, I'm not sure that the gap is much if anything anymore.

Seems like Stanford/Cal's options are ACC or bust (i.e., Indy), and it would have to be for all sports, because I doubt they would mesh with the private religious schools of the WCC, and I can't imagine the MWC letting them do everything except football, unless the networks want to try and make it worth their while.

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https://sports.yahoo.com/sources-acc-presidents-to-meet-on-conference-expansion-on-monday-night-173527541.html

Maybe they are getting ready for Tuesday:

 

"ACC presidents are scheduled to meet on a call Monday evening to discuss and potentially take action on expanding to add Cal, Stanford and SMU, sources tell Yahoo Sports.

Three weeks of deep exploration into the three-team expansion plan appears to be at its end, with a determination coming from the meeting or soon afterward. The league needs support from 12 of 15 members to pass the expansion proposal.

Over the last several days, momentum has been building in support of expansion — a change from 2 1/2 weeks ago. In a straw poll of presidents Aug. 9, an expansion vote fell at least one vote short of passing. There were four dissenters: Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina and NC State. Notre Dame receives a vote as the 15th member and supports expansion...."

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