If the TV folks want to grow the SEC and Big10 and eventually pay full fare in the 2030's for new schools, there is nothing Yormark can do. Yormark might be good, but he's not a miracle worker.
Realignment Megathread (All The Moves)
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There isn’t motivation imo. It’s beyond a long shot.
The only incentive would be if BY has some magic and can bridge the gap with the media deal and playoff payout. Just don’t treat them like Texas and OU.
Maybe this is why BY requested there be a look in clause in a couple of years to change the playoff payouts? It’s not going to happen but it was the first time I had ever seen a national media member actually say it out loud and Pate is one of more tuned in members of the media.
I have to imagine that Yormark would get in Amazon, Netflix, and others involved. the Money is ALWAYS there.
This has still been the biggest surprise to me. If you are the university president of say Illinois or Purdue or basically any original Big 10 school not named Ohio St, what is your motivation for all of this? I guess the easy answer is money but even that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't think it flows back much to university salaries except the AD and coaches. It helps build some nice athletics facilities but it has to stretch your donor base for non-athletic things.
Is there anybody these university presidents can look in the eye and say the conference expansion and realignment has made things better for: students, faculty, alumni, student-athletes, fans, taxpayers? The only ones I can think of are ADs and coaches. Maybe your football players but almost none of your other student-athletes. I honestly can't quite make out what is driving university presidents/board of regents to make these decisions assuming they are the final decider.
Right, the only way Yormark can grow the B12 to his liking with schools that the ESPN/SEC and Fox/B10 may covet, would be with the engagement of a new CFB production entrant like Amazon.
Hope like hell this plays out. The ESPN and Fox stranglehold on the sports badly needs to be broken up. The recent fiasco with the CFP TV contract extension clearly proved that.
Honestly I think your question is kinda backwards, the only group this actually hurts are student athletes with the crazy travel. It gets offset by NIL and amazing facilities but still hurts. For everyone else it’s a plus or neutral.
Only other group would be the fans that really want to attend every away game but that is a very very small group and is offset by the alums that live in the new realignment areas.
Really, your sense is most students/alums/fans are happy or neutral about this? I've got a lot of in-laws that are Illinois grads/fans and I can tell you they'd much rather be playing Iowa, Wisconsin, and Indiana this next season than Oregon, Rutgers, and Nebraska. I don't think it's just whether they want to travel there but the rivalries/history and that they're much more likely to know or work with fans of those schools.
Then winning the Big 10 and going to the Rose Bowl was always going to be a tall order for some schools but winning the Big 10 feels almost impossible now. The expanded playoff changes that a little and I get there's mixed feelings on that and things needed to modernize some. But it just feels like such a weird way to set up a sports league.
I think a lot of folks are still in the mindset of about 2010. They just see bigger money, and don't recognize anything else as really changing much. So they think they are safe.
What they don't see is that this is a paradigm shift happening - the whole model is being overthrown. Revenue sharing with players, NIL, the NCAA dissolving, streaming, the expanded CFP.
The only folks that are safe are the big brands and the TV guys, and even they will have to watch the accounting for a bit.
Yeah no one has talked about that aspect. It has almost been totally forgotten. It was talked about with the pac 4 expansion but was not needed/activated. But just because it wasnt used in that instance does not mean it cant in the next.
Supposedly the B12 contract allows for a new media partner to come on if the B12 expands and one or both of the current media partners decline to pay them full share.
This would open the door to add a new partner, especially if that company just wants to dip their toe in the market to start. Think 1 game per week or similar to start. Amazon, Apple, Even CBS or CW.
You have to believe Yormark is working all these angles preparing for the ACC implosion.
Kinda of like winning your division in the NFL. It means something but what you want is to make the show (playoffs).
The 2028 CFP lookin provisions need to include engaging another TV partner in the CFP TV deal. In order to best engage a new B12 TV partner and max out payouts from them, that new TV partner needs regular season conference inventory for all 4 time zones (which the B12 now has) and they need access to some games in the CFP (which ESPN will desperately try to block).
Illinois couldn’t make it to the big ten title game playing in the west division, they shouldn’t be concerned about winning the big ten. They have one big ten championship in 34 years.
Sure they would rather play Wisconsin and Indiana as border states but they play them next year. They rarely played Indiana in the old set up anyways.
This also heavily depends on age. If you’re an older fan you probably dislike it more. In part because you don’t like change in general but also because you got used to the way it was. They have played Nebraska just as many times the last decade as they played Iowa and Wisconsin and more than Indiana. So if your on the younger side your used to playing them.
The travel to the west coast teams will suck and yeah they feel like a super bizzare pick but very few people I’ve met complain about Rutgers or Nebraska anymore.
It's hard to know how it plays out, but I do think there's a pretty big difference between a 14-team league with 2 divisions and an 18-team league with no divisions. Sure, you can adjust to playing Nebraska instead of Indiana, but the adjustments next year are on a whole different level.
Whether they got there, winning the Big 10 west was something to aim for. Sure it was often weak, but for most of the teams in the west there were many more Oct and Nov games that influenced getting to the title game than there is likely to be going forward.
Talking through this, I think there might be a pretty big difference in perception on this between Big 10 east and west schools. I'll grant there's certainly some amount of just hate change component, but to go from a sport that was incredibly regional and based on rivalries to something where a battle for a conference championship bid could likely be between two teams on opposite coasts is a pretty big change. Even pro sports have regional divisions, it's just so bizarre to me for college football to not have them.
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't that one Illinois "championship" like a four or five way tie too?
Honestly the last paragraph is a very valid point. Most of the East schools are super happy not to be in that division anymore. The East also has Rutgers, Maryland and Penn State so 3/4 newest teams. Probably shirts perception a bit.
Just to be clear I don’t think fans are excited about the pacific schools joining. No one is saying “man I’m finally glad we get to play on the west coast” but honestly it’s not a huge deal. I could also be biased because MSU and Michigan have already had series with Washington and Oregon so it’s not that crazy to me.
Kurt Kittner and the Illini won it outright in 2001. I honestly would have guessed it was the year they went to the Rose Bowl. But nope.
Remember you are talking to a fanbase that still can’t get over not playing Kansas State one time in 200 years..3 years from now.
Yeah, and I don't think some variety is all bad. I'll admit I found the the Big 12 10 team round robin +Iowa super limiting to creating any new and interesting matchups.
I just think these new conference schedules are setting things up for a lot of checked out fans in Oct/Nov.
Not with the expanded playoffs, it should provide more engagement and opportunities to get one of the 3/4 bids when before there was only 1 maybe 2.
