Midnight Maize: Pac 10 Expansion

Showing posts with label Pac 10 Expansion. Show all posts

Conference Realignment: Texas A&M

9:26 AM

Once again, Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com has important news on conference expansion, namely that Texas A&M now intends to join the SEC. Assuming this is true*, this has the potential to completely change the conference realignment picture. Previous reports had indicated that the remaining five Big 12 invitees would announce that they too were joining the Pac 10, possibly as early as next week. Should Texas A&M decide to break ranks and join the SEC, then it becomes an open question as to what Texas and Oklahoma will do.

First of all, it is important to note that Texas A&M going to the SEC does not necessarily kill the Pac 10 deal. The Pac 10 would simply replace Texas A&M's invitation with Utah, a deal that would still be appealing financially while allowing Texas and Oklahoma to be in the same conference. At the same time, it should also be noted that by losing Texas A&M for Utah, the difference financially between the Big Ten and Pac 10 grows, and Texas' incentive to go to the Pac 10 to maintain traditional rivalries drops. Meanwhile, should Texas A&M be able to move to the SEC, it could well signify that the Texas legislature does not intend to intervene too much in conference realignment.

Also important is that Oklahoma and the SEC have a mutual interest as well, and it seems likely that if Oklahoma manages to dissociate from Oklahoma State, then they will join the SEC. Should Oklahoma manage to do this, then the Pac 10 invitation to Oklahoma State would almost certainly be revoked, as Oklahoma State does not bring in anything close to the amount of money as Oklahoma would.

This all leaves Texas in an interesting position. Texas could still easily go to the Pac 10, but recent events have made it somewhat more likely that the Big Ten would be a viable option from a political standpoint. And if the Big Ten is politically viable, then it is quite likely that Texas will go there, as the Big Ten has a superior financial situation and the academic benefits of the CIC. And if Texas goes to the Big Ten, this greatly increases the chances that the Big Ten could get Notre Dame. And as I have stated previously, this is likely the best case scenario for the Big Ten. In fact, it would not be surprising if the Big Ten and SEC were working together to destabilize Pac 10 expansion, as it would allow both conferences to profit as the SEC would almost certainly get Texas A&M and Oklahoma, while the Big Ten would get Texas, rather than let those three schools go to the Pac 10.

*It should be noted that, as a writer for Texas' Rivals site and the Texas beat writer for the Dallas Morning News, Brown's sources are most likely coming from Texas and not Texas A&M. As such, these reports may well be secondhand and not necessarily accurate. Nevertheless, he's been much more accurate than most on this topic and deserves the benefit of the doubt.

UPDATE: Texas A&M's Rivals affiliate is now reporting that Texas A&M turned down the Pac 10's offer. The article is behind a paywall, but the information is in the header. Conflicting reports from others, as summarized by the Dallas Morning News.

UPDATE 2: Per Chip Brown's Twitter: Texas A&M refutes his report. The original source came from outside Texas A&M.

UPDATE 3: Orangebloods.com now reports that Texas is willing to stay in the Big 12 and will commit to the conference as early as today. His track record, however, is not looking as good recently.

UPDATE 4: ESPN has a conflicting report stating that Texas to Pac 10 is imminent.

Conference Realignment: Colorado

8:03 AM

Seth9 , Posted in Conference Realignment , Pac 10 Expansion , 0 Comments

According to numerous reports (they can be summarized here), Colorado already has a Pac 10 invite in hand and may officially accept the invitation as early as today. I previously analyzed this move here. I'll try to get another update up this evening.

UPDATE: Boulder's newspaper, the Daily Camera, reports that the official announcement will be made on Friday at 11 AM MST (1 PM EST).

UPDATE 2: Pac 10 just announced that it's official.

Conference Realignment is OFFICIALLY On

3:15 PM

Seth9 , Posted in Big Ten Expansion , Conference Realignment , Pac 10 Expansion , 0 Comments

According to Chip Brown of Orangebloods.com, the Omaha World Herald, SportsCenter, and others, Nebraska is going to leave the Big 12 for the Big Ten on Friday. Meanwhile Chip Brown has also stated that six Big 12 schools, (not including Baylor) are likely to accept the Pac 10's invitation very soon. Meanwhile, Missouri is not being invited at this time, as the Big Ten has apparently decided that they think they can do better. Summary of today's events can be found here.

Obviously, these moves, assuming they go forward, will reshape college athletics as we know it. Furthermore, they are not necessarily the last moves that occur during this phase of conference realignment. I will cover these moves and their ramifications in more detail if and when they become official. For now, however, I will summarize the winners and losers from the aforementioned moves:

Winners

Pac 10: The Pac 10 will capture two top level football programs and they project that each school in this arrangement will receive $20 million a year, which is comparable to the Big Ten and SEC.
Big Ten: The Big Ten gets a top flight football program to strengthen its football conference and network, while leaving itself plenty of room to maneuver.
Nebraska: Their revenue is about to nearly double and they get to join a stable conference.
Colorado: Colorado gets to join a conference that they greatly prefer to the Big 12.
Texas Tech: Texas Tech also finds a home, thanks to Texas state politics.
The Big East and Mountain West: Both conferences get to pick at the scraps of the Big 12, which could get the Mountain West a BCS bid and revenue and save the Big East.

Losers

Kansas, Kansas State, Baylor, Iowa State, and Missouri: These schools are left twisting in the wind hoping for mercy. This is especially crushing for Missouri, who openly courted was anticipating a Big Ten invite (which they shouldn't have, if they were using their brains).
SEC: The SEC loses the A-list of their expansion targets, as expanding their geographic footprint becomes much more difficult and they lose out on the Texas market. If the SEC decides to expand, they'll have to raid the ACC or the Big East.
Boise State: A Mountain West invite just became a lot less likely.

Expansion Notes: 6/8/10 UPDATED 6/9/10

4:39 PM

Seth9 , Posted in Big Ten Expansion , Conference Realignment , Pac 10 Expansion , 0 Comments

Expansion rumors have run rampant the past couple days. There has been a lot of speculation on whether the Big Ten is going to invite Nebraska and Missouri this week, the specifics of the deadline given to Missouri and Nebraska, whether the Big Ten intended to wait for Notre Dame before inviting anyone, and whether a 15-person bloc in the Texas state legislature, combined with lobbyists, could replace Colorado with Baylor in the list of Pac 10 invitees.

If this report from Orangebloods.com is correct, the answer to the last question on the list is no. Orangebloods.com, who broke the story on the Pac 10's plan to invite six Big 12 schools, is now reporting that C0lorado is going to make a major announcement tomorrow after a special meeting of the regents today, and that the announcement will likely be that Colorado will be accepting an invitation to the Big 12. Assuming that this is true, then it is an excellent move by both Colorado and the Pac 10. It would preemptively kill any chance of Baylor gaining sufficient momentum to replace Colorado on the list of Pac 10 invitees, something that the Pac 10 would be very hesitant to do even if it was the only way to get Texas, and changes the debate in the Texas state legislature from whether or not to push for Baylor to replace Colorado to whether or not to damage the three public schools in the Big 12 by forcing them to stay for Baylor's sake.* It also puts a lot of strain on the Big 12 as it loses a major television market, which could lead the other Big 12 schools that are sitting on the fence to decide to leave. And even if the other Big 12 schools decide to stay put, then they can go to their Plan B and invite Utah, thus expanding to 12 teams. Or they can do what the Big Ten does now and have 11 teams.

Of course, this all could be completely off base. It may well be that the announcement has nothing to do with athletics at all. Or maybe the Big Ten invited Colorado. OK, probably not that last bit.

*There is a third option, namely attempting to get all the Texas schools into the SEC. However, Texas is guaranteed to balk at that so it is almost certainly not realistic.

UPDATE: The Denver Post has reported that Colorado has yet to be invited, so this is completely premature. Nevertheless, I still think it makes sense to invite Colorado regardless in order to preempt the Baylor issue.

UPDATE 2: The Omaha World-Herald has reported that Nebraska may join the Big Ten as early as Friday, citing sources from other Big 12 schools. Nebraska has yet to confirm this and the paper in question hasn't exactly been great in its expansion coverage, but then again they're primary job is covering Nebraska. Take it for what it's worth.

Expansion Notes: 6/6/10

11:02 AM

Seth9 , Posted in Big Ten Expansion , Conference Realignment , Pac 10 Expansion , 0 Comments

For the next few weeks, I will be posting on conference expansion/realignment news as quickly as I can process it. I will not be writing posts in series on this topic, as I have in the past, for a while as it would be impractical.

At this point, making sense of conference realignment is highly difficult. It seems clear that the Pac 10, Big Ten, and Big 12 are about to make some major decisions. Forces that previously operated outside the public eye, most notably the Pac 10 office and Texas state politicians, are now in the open, while others are still working behind the scenes. As such, very little about the situation is clear.

To begin with, we do know the following:

The Pac 10 currently intends to invite Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech into their conference. Texas Tech was likely included to appease the Texas state legislature, just as Oklahoma State was included to appease the Oklahoma state legislature.
There is a bloc of 15 members of the Texas state legislature that intends to demand that Baylor be substituted for Colorado in this invitation.
The Pac 10 commissioner has stated that the Pac 10's options are merging with the Big 12, inviting the six aforementioned Big 12 schools, inviting Colorado and Utah, and staying where they are.
A deadline to decide whether or not to leave the conference has been given to Nebraska and Missouri. Some reports put this deadline at Friday. Others put it a week from this Friday.
The Pac 10 believes that their current expansion plan will net the conference $240 million a year in TV revenue, which is comparable to the Big Ten's net revenue.
The Big Ten is also making overtures to Texas.

Also worth looking at are the opinions of the various fanbases with regards to what they think their school with regards to conference realignment:

Texas A&M fans believe that their school would rather go to the SEC than the Big Ten. This has been echoed elsewhere.
Missouri and Nebraska fans believe that their respective schools want to go to the Big Ten.
Texas fans believe that Texas wants the Big 12 to remain intact, as has been echoed by their athletic director. However, they are split over whether Texas would prefer going to the Big Ten or Pac 10 if given the choice.
Kansas fans believe that the Kansas state legislature has hitched Kansas State to Kansas with regards to conference affiliation. They do not know if this will still be the case if the Big 12 collapses.

And of course, there are a large number of unknown factors in this situation. The immediately pertinent among these are:

Whether the Big Ten intends to invite Nebraska and/or Missouri.
What the nature of the deadline imposed on Nebraska and Missouri actually is. If the other ten Big 12 schools all prefer to keep the conference intact, then they are likely trying to force Nebraska and Missouri to make a decision quickly in the hopes that they will not be able to negotiate a deal with the Big Ten before the deadline. If the schools believe that there's a fair chance they would not be invited, then they would be more likely to stay with the Big 12. On the other hand, it could be a threat made by Texas alone to Nebraska backed up by the threat of leaving the conference if they don't make a decision on their timetable.
How much power does the Baylor bloc in the Texas state legislature actually have. On the one hand 15 legislators in a House of 150 isn't necessarily a gamebreaker at first glance, but if they are either in a disproportionately powerful position with respect to realignment or if the legislature as a whole is buckling on the issue, then they can become a major force.
Have all of the Pac 10 schools signed onto the plan to invite the six Big 12 schools.

Now, there is not a whole lot that can be immediately inferred from the available information. One thing that is clear though, is that Baylor will almost certainly not be invited to the Pac 10, regardless of what the Texas legislature wants. First of all, Baylor is a highly religious, right-wing institution that Pac 10 schools like Stanford and Cal-Berkeley would not be comfortable with. Second of all, the Pac 10 commissioner appears to have ruled out inviting BYU in favor of Utah, despite the fact that BYU has a much larger fanbase and a longer and stronger athletic tradition. The likely reason for this is BYU's religious affiliation. Finally, even without the religion issues, substituting Baylor for Colorado dramatically reduces the potential profit the Pac 10 could make from expansion. The reason for this is that the expansion plan with Colorado would increase the number of television viewers per school in the Pac 10. Substituting Baylor for Colorado would cause this number to decrease. This is important because viewers per school is one of the most important metrics to consider when forming a conference network (the other is ad revenue).

Finally, if I had to guess, I would say that the Big Ten intends to invite Nebraska into the conference, but not Missouri. In my opinion, Nebraska is a good candidate by any metric, whereas Missouri is not. Furthermore, taking Nebraska would destroy the Big 12 (this thought has been echoed by the Texas athletic director), allowing the Big Ten to try to get better targets in the Big 12 (such as Texas) before settling for Missouri if necessary. In the meantime, guessing beyond this is relatively pointless, considering that things are now happening very quickly and anything true today could change tomorrow.

Big Ten Pac 10 Expansion and the New World Order: Part 1

7:39 PM

Seth9 , Posted in Conference Realignment , Pac 10 Expansion , 0 Comments

This is Part 1 of a multi-part series (length TBD) regarding the Pac 10’s impending invitations to six Big 12 schools and the potential effects of this invitation on conference realignment in general.

A couple of days ago, OrangeBloods.com reported that the Pac 10 is going to invite six Big 12 schools to join the conference, namely Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech. Several sources including the Colorado athletic director, Texas A&M athletic department, and most importantly the Washington athletic director have confirmed this. This move has put the Big 12, as well as the rest of the FBS conferences, into a state of disarray, with a lot of rumors flying and a dearth of hard facts.

What we do know is that the Big 12 is in trouble. Most of the Big 12 schools appear to be willing to leave the conference for greener pastures and the only schools that aren’t are schools like Kansas and Iowa State who would be hard-pressed to find a home in another BCS conference. We also know that both the Big Ten and Pac 10 want Texas, as indicated by the Big Ten’s communications with Texas as shown by the communications unearthed by the Columbus Dispatch.

With little information publicly available, I can only speculate on what’s actually going on with the major players in conference realignment. However, using that information and some simple, logical assumptions about the primary motivations of the various players involved (i.e. make as much money as possible while maintaining beloved traditions and their own standards), I can paint a picture of what may be happening.

First of all, based on the email unearthed by the Dispatch, it seems clear that Texas anticipates major political difficulties in attempting to change conferences without finding Texas Tech a home (the same applies to Texas A&M too, FWIW). Based on the general opinion of their fanbases, Oklahoma and Kansas appear to have similar problems with Oklahoma State and Kansas State, respectively. From this, it seems that the likely motives of the Pac 10, namely to get Texas into the conference and get the necessary ingredients for a strong and successful television network.

The key piece of this expansion plan is clearly Texas, which would deliver a huge fanbase and a very strong athletic program. Texas fans have indicated, by a relatively narrow margin, that if they had to change conferences, they would go to the Pac 10 over the Big Ten. However, the Big Ten can offer Texas more TV revenue than the Big Ten and admission to the CIC, which would, in theory, greatly increase the amount of research money that Texas gets from the federal government and other sources. The Pac 10 almost certainly cannot match the Big Ten’s academic and financial advantages, but their actions show that they intend to counter these by offering athletic and political incentives. From an athletic standpoint, the Pac 10 is offering six Big 12 schools, including Texas’ main rivals, Oklahoma and Texas A&M, and Texas Tech, another biannual road game within easy driving distance. Meanwhile, the invitation to Texas Tech is helpful because it removes a major political obstacle in changing conferences by ensuring that Texas Tech has a home. Meanwhile, they ensure that Oklahoma, another relatively valuable team, can come to the Pac 10 by inviting Oklahoma State and round off the move by inviting Colorado to get to sixteen teams.

Also important is that this move allows for the creation of a very strong Pac 10 Network. If the teams accept the invitation, The Texas, Colorado, and Oklahoma networks will be added to the Pac 10 footprint, and the network could easily spread to basic cable throughout the west. Meanwhile, the conference would also add two top tier football programs in Texas and Oklahoma, as well as a good program in Texas A&M and newly strong programs in Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. The overall strength of these teams will allow for numerous compelling games on the Pac 10 Network, meaning that in addition to a very large population base, the network would be able to get a ton of ad revenue.

Part 2 will cover the potential responses by the Big Ten and the SEC to this move by the Pac 10.