COLUMN: What happens to Iowa State if the Big 12 implodes?

Die4Cy

Well-Known Member
Jan 2, 2010
14,972
15,857
113
Hope and pray for the Big 10. Otherwise Pac. People keep talking about playing late night games on the coast. Well, firstly, most of our conference games will be with Okie State, KSU, Tech, etc.. Those west coast teams have to come here too. So when it's all said and done, there may be two games a year where we are playing late at night. I mean we get 6 home games. Some of our road games will be against the Midwest part of the Pac anyway.

We will at some point be put in the place of having to decide between accepting a PAC offer on the table, and pursuing a B1G offer that ISU thinks is attainable but may not come on our time frame.

At stake will be hundreds of millions of dollars for ISU athletics. What does JP do?
 
Last edited:

Chitowncy

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
Jan 14, 2009
2,292
1,572
113
Ames
We will at some point be put in the place of having to decide between accepting a PAC offer on the table, and pursuing a B1G offer that ISU thinks is attainable but may not come on our time frame.

If it comes down to that scenario, sign me up for a PAC offer. A bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush, right? I love the idea of the Big Ten as a landing place as well, and that would be a better fit on so many levels than the PAC, but I'm not sure how realistic it is.

Fascinating time. Hope the Big Ten powers that be see all the positive things about ISU that we all see.
 

jcyclonee

Well-Known Member
Apr 12, 2006
23,262
26,176
113
Minneapolis
I'm not sure of that. I'd like to believe you're right, but there was a ton of pissing and moaning on this board when ISU had games moved to ESPNPlus last year and it appears Cyclones.TV never really got the numbers they wanted. Seems like a whole bunch of people wouldn't sign up - and that's of a subset of population of our fans who go to "CycloneFanatic". What do the non-"fanatics" do? We like to believe we have a large and growing fan base, but where are the actual numbers? There's a whole bunch of cheap skates on this board who won't even sign up to support the site.

Prove me wrong everyone, prove me wrong! When the time comes to sign-up for those streaming services everyone needs to do so in the new world to show the interest ISU truly generates.
A lot of ISU fans won't sign up for a streaming service but more would sign up than Rutgers. That being said, Rutgers sets the bar pretty low.
 

Win5002

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
2,608
-2,212
63


I would like nothing better than for that to be the case BUT if the B1G takes KU I bet there is a better chance they add Colorado also as a bridge to the 4-6 most valuable PAC properties they want(although I'm not sure KU & Colorado as a pair add the kind of money the B1G needs, except KU basketball is valuable and adds a lot of content for BTN). The B1G absolutely needs more recruiting grounds and adding KU and ISU or even KU and Col. doesn't do that. The ACC might be available after a while but is messy short term and the PAC's deal is up soon and there is a history with Rose Bowl rivalries.

For ISU to get into the B1G, I think the best chance is the NIL blows up the current model and some schools decide to drop down a level such as Vandy, BC, WF, Stanford, Cal, WSU, Or. St. maybe even a Northwestern. Essentially, then you have 60-64 break off to form a new league with the SEC essentially being one conference and the B1G(focused more on AAU schools the other) and somehow ISU slides in at one of the last few spots. My fear though is they try and ratchet down the number like 48 or less to say 56.

It is scary when Saban said at SEC media days a fr. QB who hasn't played a down has 1M in NIL money lined up. Even if ISU can get a spot can they really compete? Time will tell.
 

cyfan92

Well-Known Member
Sep 20, 2011
8,225
13,096
113
Augusta National Golf Club
If it comes down to that scenario, sign me up for a PAC offer. A bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush, right? I love the idea of the Big Ten as a landing place as well, and that would be a better fit on so many levels than the PAC, but I'm not sure how realistic it is.

Fascinating time. Hope the Big Ten powers that be see all the positive things about ISU that we all see.


" ESPN+ will have the right to stream one nonconference football game and two nonconference men's basketball games per SEC school each season. All told, ESPN+ will carry up to 14 nonconference football games and up to 20 nonconference men's basketball games annually. "
 

AuH2O

Well-Known Member
Sep 7, 2013
13,003
20,971
113
I think the bad take this is common is "no team that delivers less than $55-60 mil is going to be added, as that's the per team payout.

That's a per team payout, meaning approximately half the teams in the Big 10 and SEC don't deliver that. If there is any sort of selective, break away that only includes 30 or so teams, conference affiliations aren't going to mean squat. That means every non-blueblood would be in high risk of being relegated to a have-nots league.

That $55-60 mil value thinking makes sense from the conference and schools' perspectives. But guess what? They make almost ALL their money from media rights. And the media companies don't get to worry about per team revenue, they have to think about total revenue. So they are writing the checks, meaning the media companies are the ones that actually have the power. Not the SEC and Big 10.

Let's say Disney (ABC, Disney+, ESPN) is going to buy the rights to all the games for whatever big boy league there is. While 12 games per week in a blueblood only league might be highly profitable on a per game basis, as long as a game is reasonably profitable due to subscriptions and ad revenue, they will want that too. So is ISU-Oklahoma State as profitable as Florida-Georgia? Of course not. But ISU-Okie Light is profitable to show, so they are going to want that inventory. Does having ISU-Okie State relegated to a league of have-nots probably flip it to be unprofitable? Probably.

So Disney would much rather have a 60 team league with a bunch of games that have a range of profitability (as long as they ARE profitable) rather than only having a 24 team league with high profit margin per game. They get the best of both worlds in a bigger league.

There will be incredible pressure from the guys writing the checks (media) that as many teams as possible are included in a breakaway league as long as they can make a profit on showing that teams games.
 

Cyclonefan710

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Oct 19, 2012
1,231
314
83
I think the bad take this is common is "no team that delivers less than $55-60 mil is going to be added, as that's the per team payout.

That's a per team payout, meaning approximately half the teams in the Big 10 and SEC don't deliver that. If there is any sort of selective, break away that only includes 30 or so teams, conference affiliations aren't going to mean squat. That means every non-blueblood would be in high risk of being relegated to a have-nots league.

That $55-60 mil value thinking makes sense from the conference and schools' perspectives. But guess what? They make almost ALL their money from media rights. And the media companies don't get to worry about per team revenue, they have to think about total revenue. So they are writing the checks, meaning the media companies are the ones that actually have the power. Not the SEC and Big 10.

Let's say Disney (ABC, Disney+, ESPN) is going to buy the rights to all the games for whatever big boy league there is. While 12 games per week in a blueblood only league might be highly profitable on a per game basis, as long as a game is reasonably profitable due to subscriptions and ad revenue, they will want that too. So is ISU-Oklahoma State as profitable as Florida-Georgia? Of course not. But ISU-Okie Light is profitable to show, so they are going to want that inventory. Does having ISU-Okie State relegated to a league of have-nots probably flip it to be unprofitable? Probably.

So Disney would much rather have a 60 team league with a bunch of games that have a range of profitability (as long as they ARE profitable) rather than only having a 24 team league with high profit margin per game. They get the best of both worlds in a bigger league.

There will be incredible pressure from the guys writing the checks (media) that as many teams as possible are included in a breakaway league as long as they can make a profit on showing that teams games.

That logic is totally false lol
 
  • Agree
Reactions: deadeyededric

JHUNSY

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2013
5,307
3,107
113
Des Moines, IA
The issue with the "Does this school bring in $__? If not they're not a positive for the conference." is that it leaves out the fact that that these contracts include a hefty premium for the overall collective bundle.

If these schools were to go independent and seek out individual contracts with the networks, none of them will have that premium to offer.

So it's not exactly apples to apples.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Urbandale2013

AuH2O

Well-Known Member
Sep 7, 2013
13,003
20,971
113
That logic is totally false lol
I understand it's a mean, and not a median. But this is absolutely not false. If a media contract payout is $60 million per team, the average value the teams in that conference are perceived to deliver to the media companies is $60 million.

If the big 10 media package is worth $50 mil per team, or $700 mil total, the net value the media companies believe the teams deliver is equal to $700 mil.

That means some teams are worth well more (OSU, Michigan), some are worth well less (Rutgers, Maryland, Purdue), and others are somewhere in between.

So tell me, how many teams in the Big 10 deliver more than the per team value to the media companies, and how many deliver less?
 

awd4cy

Well-Known Member
Dec 29, 2010
27,990
19,611
113
Central Iowa
Pollard's best friend in the industry is the Oregon AD. Not enough people are talking about that.

If the remaining 8 Big 12 schools can add Oregon, Oregon St, Arizona, Arizona St, Colorado and Utah.. That's pretty good.
We would go there if it happened. There’s no way they would leave for the Big 12.
 

keepngoal

OKA: keepingoal
Staff member
Bookie
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Jun 20, 2006
39,426
24,746
113
what is the process for this?

TX and OU buy out the Big12 to leave for the SEC.
Remaining teams cash the check?
Do the remaining teams dissolve the B12, and get paid from the buyout?
Remaining teams are clear to enter into other conferences, per new agreement, without a buyout?
 

CascadeClone

Well-Known Member
Oct 24, 2009
10,887
13,973
113
We will at some point be put in the place of having to decide between accepting a PAC offer on the table, and pursuing a B1G offer that ISU thinks is attainable but may not come on our time frame.

At stake will be hundreds of millions of dollars for ISU athletics. What does JP do?

Try to do what some coaches do? No buyout if X comes calling. That's probably not a feasibly acceptable clause to add, but maybe ??
 

jcyclonee

Well-Known Member
Apr 12, 2006
23,262
26,176
113
Minneapolis
what is the process for this?

TX and OU buy out the Big12 to leave for the SEC.
Remaining teams cash the check?
Do the remaining teams dissolve the B12, and get paid from the buyout?
Remaining teams are clear to enter into other conferences, per new agreement, without a buyout?
In reality, the process is:

Texas, OU, and SEC sue to get out of the buyout.
The rest of the Big 12 countersues to enforce the buyout.
???
 

mkadl

Well-Known Member
Mar 17, 2006
2,134
928
113
Cornfield
So Disney would much rather have a 60 team league with a bunch of games that have a range of profitability (as long as they ARE profitable) rather than only having a 24 team league with high profit margin per game. They get the best of both worlds in a bigger league.

Lets have a 96 team league. Similar to Iowa High School football. 8 team districts reseeded every 4 years or so. It keeps regional rivalries. Top team in each district wins a playoff spot. 4 at large bids. Similar arrangements to basketball. That give the schools a chance to schedule some non district games also. Payouts would be distributed like basketball tournament revenues. Just for football of course.
 

keepngoal

OKA: keepingoal
Staff member
Bookie
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Jun 20, 2006
39,426
24,746
113
In reality, the process is:

Texas, OU, and SEC sue to get out of the buyout.
The rest of the Big 12 countersues to enforce the buyout.
???
then negotiated down.
when would the change of schedules take place? 22? 23? 24?
 

SCNCY

Well-Known Member
SuperFanatic
SuperFanatic T2
Sep 11, 2009
10,703
8,511
113
37
La Fox, IL
A lot of ISU fans won't sign up for a streaming service but more would sign up than Rutgers. That being said, Rutgers sets the bar pretty low.

I'd sign up for a streaming service if it mean all games would be on said streaming service. Even if I had to buy a separate ESPN and Fox sports streaming service for $10-15 each, I'd still do that over buying cable or Sling.