ISU and PAC12 Attendance and merger idea

[Boxerdaddy]

I wanted to do some comparisons on attendance numbers, just as one metric and it really surprised me. First, this is a small sample size, just the 2019 year. But a combined Big12/Pac12 minus Tex/Ok, would have ISU second in average attendance. This is both encouraging and scary. Encouraging that we stack up better than any other university than Washington. But scary because, even if we would merge, what would the payouts be? Or does attendance not matter? If you take away the TV money, what else is the driving factor as to the "value" a school brings to the conference?

That being said, I couldn't put this together and not throw in a crazy idea. So here goes:

This would be a merger of sorts, but involves poaching some schools from the AAC.
Goals:
4 timezones, so many possibilities for TV slots
Florida and Texas recruiting areas. (I think TCU and Baylor would be hard sells for the PAC12, but added Houston which is a huge market. Adding the PAC12's access to Texas is a big FU to Texas that I am 100% behind. Adding Cincinnati is a selfish one to keep access to the Ohio recruiting area and give travel partners to WVU and the 2 florida schools. UCF and USF are traditional "commuter" schools, but have had success and have HUGE enrollments and are growing)

Ideally, it would be nice to cut down to 20 teams, but this gives you two 12 team leagues essentially. You could easily split this into larger groups, but at first I was trying to get to twenty which is why they're grouped into groups of 4.

Challenges:
No AAU for many schools. Does this matter?
ISU is second largest for attendance, how much could a league like this get compared to ACC/B1G/SEC.

Thoughts?

EAST
WVU
Cincinnati
UCF
USF

CENTRAL
ISU
KU
OK St.
KSU

SOUTH
Baylor
Houston
Texas Tech
TCU

MOUNTAIN
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
Utah

CALIFORNIA
CAL
Stanford
UCLA
USC

NORTHWEST
Oregon
Oregon St.
Washington
Wash St

 

[JM4CY]

I wanted to do some comparisons on attendance numbers, just as one metric and it really surprised me. First, this is a small sample size, just the 2019 year. But a combined Big12/Pac12 minus Tex/Ok, would have ISU second in average attendance. This is both encouraging and scary. Encouraging that we stack up better than any other university than Washington. But scary because, even if we would merge, what would the payouts be? Or does attendance not matter? If you take away the TV money, what else is the driving factor as to the "value" a school brings to the conference?

That being said, I couldn't put this together and not throw in a crazy idea. So here goes:

This would be a merger of sorts, but involves poaching some schools from the AAC.
Goals:
4 timezones, so many possibilities for TV slots
Florida and Texas recruiting areas. (I think TCU and Baylor would be hard sells for the PAC12, but added Houston which is a huge market. Adding the PAC12's access to Texas is a big FU to Texas that I am 100% behind. Adding Cincinnati is a selfish one to keep access to the Ohio recruiting area and give travel partners to WVU and the 2 florida schools. UCF and USF are traditional "commuter" schools, but have had success and have HUGE enrollments and are growing)

Ideally, it would be nice to cut down to 20 teams, but this gives you two 12 team leagues essentially. You could easily split this into larger groups, but at first I was trying to get to twenty which is why they're grouped into groups of 4.

Challenges:
No AAU for many schools. Does this matter?
ISU is second largest for attendance, how much could a league like this get compared to ACC/B1G/SEC.

Thoughts?

EAST
WVU
Cincinnati
UCF
USF

CENTRAL
ISU
KU
OK St.
KSU

SOUTH
Baylor
Houston
Texas Tech
TCU

MOUNTAIN
Arizona
Arizona State
Colorado
Utah

CALIFORNIA
CAL
Stanford
UCLA
USC

NORTHWEST
Oregon
Oregon St.
Washington
Wash St


View attachment 87880

 

[Boxerdaddy]

Amazing insight.

 

[JM4CY]

Amazing insight.

How the hell would you decide a champ?

 

[Boxerdaddy]

How the hell would you decide a champ?

So that stuff would get figured out, but how is that different than a twenty team league? I'm assuming they'd split it up into two divisions. I'm sure there's a creative way to play everyone in your pod, all of another pod and half of another. Gives you 9 conference games.

Questions I am really interested in are what metrics decide a teams value? It can't be just attendance based on the numbers that I see. Unless ISU is really more valuable than USC, Oregon, etc. which I'm not sure i'd believe.

Thoughts on the 4 time zones and the opportunities that creates?

 

[ISUCyclones2015]

6 pods sounds like insanity

 

[RustShack]

Tv money is the only money at matters. Or in the future streaming money, but either way eyes from home is what matters.

I wish it were the good old days, where location, rivalries, academics, and product on the field mattered.

Now it’s money and only money.

 

[Cyched]

So that stuff would get figured out, but how is that different than a twenty team league? I'm assuming they'd split it up into two divisions. I'm sure there's a creative way to play everyone in your pod, all of another pod and half of another. Gives you 9 conference games.

Questions I am really interested in are what metrics decide a teams value? It can't be just attendance based on the numbers that I see. Unless ISU is really more valuable than USC, Oregon, etc. which I'm not sure i'd believe.

Thoughts on the 4 time zones and the opportunities that creates?

What's your idea on scheduling with this? Play everyone in your pod, then some kind of rotation?

Thing is, if we end up with some Pac merger I'd like to be able to play the west coast schools more than once every few years. Otherwise it doesn't feel like much of a conference.

Neat idea though.

 

[Boxerdaddy]

6 pods sounds like insanity

As mentioned this could get changed to larger groups. But if you had pods, you'd be guaranteed to play each team in the conference at least every 5 years, and usually more with at least 2 games a year not dedicated to a specific pod. If any conference goes to 20+ They're going to have to deal with the same thing. And maybe at that point they'd only need to determine the top 2, meaning 2 "championship" games. If we have 4 super conferences, would the NCAA or whomever is running it allow for a semi and then a real championship?

 

[Boxerdaddy]

Tv money is the only money at matters. Or in the future streaming money, but either way eyes from home is what matters.

I wish it were the good old days, where location, rivalries, academics, and product on the field mattered.

Now it’s money and only money.

I get that TV money is the only thing that matters but what determines that? You can't just look at the current contracts. What is ISU's value vs Oregon or USC? I get they're in bigger markets, but they aren't pulling the NFL numbers. How is that metric determined? Does USC and Oregon draw higher number of streaming eyes? If so, why are their attendance numbers lower? Honest question, I have not seen any data on that.

 

[Boxerdaddy]

What's your idea on scheduling with this? Play everyone in your pod, then some kind of rotation?

Thing is, if we end up with some Pac merger I'd like to be able to play the west coast schools more than once every few years. Otherwise it doesn't feel like much of a conference.

Neat idea though.

Isn't that what the B1G schools are feeling like now? If the B1G expands and adds us, what about that scheduling? Same thing or no? Seriously asking. I'm a big fan of inclusion in the B1G but it just occurred to me that scheduling could be inconvenient. Thoughts?

 

[cytor]

After ISU, who comes in 2nd in this scenario?

 

[Cyched]

Isn't that what the B1G schools are feeling like now? If the B1G expands and adds us, what about that scheduling? Same thing or no? Seriously asking. I'm a big fan of inclusion in the B1G but it just occurred to me that scheduling could be inconvenient. Thoughts?

Huh?

I asked what the idea for scheduling is with 6 pods. Play your pod mates and rotate the others?

Think a conference size above 16 isn't ideal.

 

[2speedy1]

Why not 4 pods of 6, rather than 6 pods of 4.
I dont see the point of making more than 4 pods, just adding teams to the 4 pods. I dont see where it says a pod can only have 4 teams.

 

[19clone91]

Iowa State had the 21st highest attendance in country in 2019, 20th highest attendance percentage from stadium size, has the 33rd biggest FBS enrollment, and the 36th biggest stadium. But somehow TV contracts think we are still worthless. Shows you what 100+ years of bad football can do.

If Texas is tired of paying for our bills, someone should tell them about Vanderbilt who averaged 26k people per game in 2019, way below any Big 12 team, yes even Kansas. Mississippi, Mississippi St, and Arkansas arent much better right now.

Kansas averaged more people per game than Washington State, Oregon St, Duke, Vanderbilt, Rutgers, Boston College, and Wake Forest - all as the worst P5 team in maybe national history. Yet somehow the Big 12 has no fans and is worthless in TV money. I know attendance isnt everything but IMO it shows a certain value in the die hard fans who attend games.

 

[Boxerdaddy]

Huh?

I asked what the idea for scheduling is with 6 pods. Play your pod mates and rotate the others?

Think a conference size above 16 isn't ideal.

I agree completely, but isn't that what we're all headed for? Super conferences with less than ideal scheduling?
But yep if we had pods, play everyone in your pod then rotate the pods that you play, plus 2 other schools, more than likely also from the same pod, so that way the next year, you play the other two from that pod and all 4 from another (different) pod, along with your pod again.

Why not 4 pods of 6, rather than 6 pods of 4.
I dont see the point of making more than 4 pods, just adding teams to the 4 pods. I dont see where it says a pod can only have 4 teams.

Totally doable. I'm less worried about those mechanics as to the over viability of a conference like this. Split it any way they want, but i would hope you'd still get to play the schools close to you to maintain those rivalries, etc. I was originally trying to get to 20 teams, so pods of 4 made sense they way they were geographically.

 

[Boxerdaddy]

Iowa State had the 21st highest attendance in country in 2019, 20th highest attendance percentage from stadium size, has the 33rd biggest FBS enrollment, and the 36th biggest stadium. But somehow TV contracts think we are still worthless. Shows you what 100+ years of bad football can do.

If Texas is tired of paying for our bills, someone should tell them about Vanderbilt who averaged 26k people per game in 2019, way below any Big 12 team, yes even Kansas. Mississippi, Mississippi St, and Arkansas arent much better right now.

Kansas averaged more people per game than Washington State, Oregon St, Duke, Vanderbilt, Rutgers, Boston College, and Wake Forest - all as the worst P5 team in maybe national history. Yet somehow the Big 12 has no fans and is worthless in TV money. I know attendance isnt everything but IMO it shows a certain value in the die hard fans who attend games.

Amen. This is what I'm trying to figure out...what are we missing. The only thing we don't bring is TV markets. Which are still very important, but becoming less from what I'm reading. Engagement from ISU is high, that's what we bring. Not millions of subscribers that never watch a minute of our games. But TV markets maybe still trump everything. If so, that's why I added Houston and the Florida schools. What would the Pac12 network be able to get then, if paid by household subscriber. Assuming they can get it on the basic or part of a sports package with high take rate.

 

[Boxerdaddy]

Here's a map of what it would look like. Sorry no icons on the teams other than the P12 but you should be able to figure out which is which.

 

[Die4Cy]

Iowa State had the 21st highest attendance in country in 2019, 20th highest attendance percentage from stadium size, has the 33rd biggest FBS enrollment, and the 36th biggest stadium. But somehow TV contracts think we are still worthless. Shows you what 100+ years of bad football can do.

If Texas is tired of paying for our bills, someone should tell them about Vanderbilt who averaged 26k people per game in 2019, way below any Big 12 team, yes even Kansas. Mississippi, Mississippi St, and Arkansas arent much better right now.

Kansas averaged more people per game than Washington State, Oregon St, Duke, Vanderbilt, Rutgers, Boston College, and Wake Forest - all as the worst P5 team in maybe national history. Yet somehow the Big 12 has no fans and is worthless in TV money. I know attendance isnt everything but IMO it shows a certain value in the die hard fans who attend games.

I do believe that a super conference like the SEC, dependent upon potentially shrinking TV dollars, eventually comes around to those members who are rewarded handsomely for just being there and want some of their share to feed the bankable brands as well.

It probably won't happen for awhile, but now that UT-A is in there, the grumbling probably starts right away if history is any indication.

 

[RustShack]

We just need the P5 to merge together, then split teams up geographically.