Football Shouldn't Be Allowed to Mess Up Everybody Else

[hdhntr1]

I think the biggest problem with separating football out is that the biggest schools would take advantage of that to implement structures through which they benefit themselves the most. That's a real problem with what you and @HailToPurple describe.

That's the key financial purpose of the conference structure, to ensure that the economic benefits (money) are spread relatively equally across all members for the sports that bring the money into the conference.

Here's the issue: The moment you separate football, the football powers with huge attendance/viewership will create a league of 20-25 of themselves where they earn $150 million per school from TV money. Or maybe they take the 30-35 highest or some number. But how do we get a seat at that table? Why do we? 100+ years of Big Ten affiliation is why we have a seat here. Keeping the Big Ten strong (even if it goes national) has to be the only "national" objective of NU's AD.

Why would the biggest brands keep sharing the football TV money if they can keep a regional home for non-football sports without the conference structure and without sharing the money?

That's why I think any small school in the Big Ten or SEC (or even Big 12) would be hesitant to allow a football split off to happen. Nobody would benefit except Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Michigan, Florida, Penn State, etc. They'd be able to cut everyone else out in the sport that brings in most of the money.

I don't think that a school like Northwestern would get a seat at the table in such a world; we'd basically be relegated. Maybe they keep us around in non-football sports for that easy access to a big market like Chicago, but we'd be competing against far richer ADs and our boosters would have no incentive to try to keep up with that with just donations but no revenue stream.

Basically all the sports would lose funding and probably disappear

 

[HailToPurple]

Basically all the sports would lose funding and probably disappear

I don't know what would happen and neither do you. This is just a lot of conjecture on your part.

But what I do know is that right now players like Paige Sinicki from Oregon that I referenced in the initial post are being force to spend inordinate amounts of time traveling all the way across the country. And these proposed realignments would probably make that situation even worse for many non-football players.

I'm much more concerned about those players than whether NU would lose some money or not. For many people this is all about the money. Money, money, money. But for me it's not.

It's about fairness to all college athletes. And if any of our other coaches want to leave. Fine. Let them go. I'm much concerned about players like Paige and the thousands like her than I am about our current coaches.

 

[jne381]

I feel kind of bad of the athletes that didn't sign up for the additional travel, but after a few years, any of those kids will know what they are signing up for. I guess they could transfer to a more regional school, but I don't feel that is right since they already started their education, but it is what it is. I guess they could choose not to play and just be regular students.

 

[zeek55]

I don't know what would happen and neither do you. This is just a lot of conjecture on your part.

But what I do know is that right now players like Paige Sinicki from Oregon that I referenced in the initial post are being force to spend inordinate amounts of time traveling all the way across the country. And these proposed realignments would probably make that situation even worse for many non-football players.

I'm much more concerned about those players than whether NU would lose some money or not. For many people this is all about the money. Money, money, money. But for me it's not.

It's about fairness to all college athletes. And if any of our other coaches want to leave. Fine. Let them go. I'm much concerned about players like Paige and the thousands like her than I am about our current coaches.

I agree to the extent that yes current student athletes didn't sign up for this travel. On that point, yes they should be able to find accommodations that they prefer.

But within 3-4 years, virtually everyone in any Big Ten program will have signed up to be part of this.

Being a part of a national Big Ten that spans most of the major markets from the East Coast to the West Coast can offer a lot of opportunity to the student athletes, especially those that have significant NIL prospects. Yes the travel is a burden, but for many non-revenue sports there are creative scheduling ways (centralized tournaments and the like) to reduce that burden somewhat.

I just think it's a bit naive to think that the big programs will share money equally with the small programs if football (responsible for 80% of the conference's TV money) is able to separate from the conference structure. Heck, maybe even in the conference structure we're headed for an eventual split.

 

[NUCat320]

Related, today’s a big anniversary:

 

[HailToPurple]

Here is another article by a major sports writer on how big a disaster the new alignments will be.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/24/opin...nment-pac-12-acc-sec-big-12-leitch/index.html

And particularly with regard to non-football athletes he says this:

"It might not be a huge deal for Illinois football players to fly all the way out to Los Angeles for their one game a week, but it sure is for volleyball players or women’s soccer players or the swimming team. The travel budgets for non-revenue sports are already meager; expecting those teams to be able to afford constant cross-country mid-week trips is an unreasonable ask.

That’s not even accounting for how much in-class time these students—almost none of whom are training for any sort of career in professional athletics and are, in fact, in school to get a degree—miss with all this constant travel. (Softball players from Oregon and Arizona State, two of the schools leaving the Pac-12, have been consistently pointing this out.)

College football has long helped fund these smaller sports, but now it has grown into a behemoth that threatens to eat them entirely."

Some of you here seem to think that these conference changes are fine, or even a good thing. Or they are ineviatble so we should all just stop gripping and go with them. Fortunatley, there a lot of people who see them as the disaster they will be for many college athletes. So maybe there is some hope yet that things will go back to where they have been.

 

[zeek55]

Here is another article by a major sports writer on how big a disaster the new alignments will be.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/24/opin...nment-pac-12-acc-sec-big-12-leitch/index.html

And particularly with regard to non-football athletes he says this:

"It might not be a huge deal for Illinois football players to fly all the way out to Los Angeles for their one game a week, but it sure is for volleyball players or women’s soccer players or the swimming team. The travel budgets for non-revenue sports are already meager; expecting those teams to be able to afford constant cross-country mid-week trips is an unreasonable ask.

That’s not even accounting for how much in-class time these students—almost none of whom are training for any sort of career in professional athletics and are, in fact, in school to get a degree—miss with all this constant travel. (Softball players from Oregon and Arizona State, two of the schools leaving the Pac-12, have been consistently pointing this out.)

College football has long helped fund these smaller sports, but now it has grown into a behemoth that threatens to eat them entirely."

Some of you here seem to think that these conference changes are fine, or even a good thing. Or they are ineviatble so we should all just stop gripping and go with them. Fortunatley, there a lot of people who see them as the disaster they will be for many college athletes. So maybe there is some hope yet that things will go back to where they have been.

It's not about whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

It's just a reality of the globalization of technology and media distribution. There is likely no world in which regionalized conferences work from a media standpoint in 10 or 15 years. Where is the money to make all this work?

Everything will be fine as the sport professionalizes/nationalizes, it will just be a lot more clear in 10 or 15 years when it's obvious that this was the only way for cfb to work in a pay 2 play/NIL world where streaming is the primary source of income and that requires viewership across the country.

At some level, the Pac-12 was killed due to many factors, but some of which were not in its control: Lack of relevance nationally forcing them into the "Pac-12 After Dark" as their primary window which further caused a downward spiral of relevance and media value.

 

[NUCat320]

At some level, the Pac-12 was killed due to many factors, but some of which were not in its control: Lack of relevance nationally forcing them into the "Pac-12 After Dark" as their primary window which further caused a downward spiral of relevance and media value.

Also, greed.

I forget where it was reported, but ESPN offered $30m/school/year for football, PAC-## countered with $50m, and — poof — no further negotiations.

At least Seattle is easy to get to, I guess; and Eugene is easier than State College 🤷🏼‍♂️


It is interesting the degree to which ‘the streaming wars’ are a battle which corporation can lose the least.

 

[HailToPurple]

It's not about whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.

It's just a reality of the globalization of technology and media distribution. There is likely no world in which regionalized conferences work from a media standpoint in 10 or 15 years. Where is the money to make all this work?

Everything will be fine as the sport professionalizes/nationalizes, it will just be a lot more clear in 10 or 15 years when it's obvious that this was the only way for cfb to work in a pay 2 play/NIL world where streaming is the primary source of income and that requires viewership across the country.

At some level, the Pac-12 was killed due to many factors, but some of which were not in its control: Lack of relevance nationally forcing them into the "Pac-12 After Dark" as their primary window which further caused a downward spiral of relevance and media value.

That's all well and good, but I still don't see why it is necessary to keep all of the non-football sports in the same conference as football. There can easily be a separate conference that is essentially regional for everything else, like women's softball, lacrosse, etc.

There will still be the same amount of money, or even more, from football and the school can spend it anyway they want.

I have yet to see anyone make a case why this would not work or not be a good thing.

 

[pawildcat]

Yes but they don’t offer scholarships or if they do, there are only a few to go around.

Some D2 schools offer 25 or more football scholarships (limit is 36). They also offer scholarship equivalents in most other sports.

 

[zeek55]

That's all well and good, but I still don't see why it is necessary to keep all of the non-football sports in the same conference as football. There can easily be a separate conference that is essentially regional for everything else, like women's softball, lacrosse, etc.

There will still be the same amount of money, or even more, from football and the school can spend it anyway they want.

I have yet to see anyone make a case why this would not work or not be a good thing.

Fine, I understand your point, especially about non-revenue sports. Men's football and basketball (and baseball) run as professional sports while the rest are run as more "non-professional/localized" does make some sense if it can be worked out...

It is interesting the degree to which ‘the streaming wars’ are a battle which corporation can lose the least.

Yeah and that's really the main reason why we're seeing all of this stuff. Everyone has realized that streaming isn't a silver bullet or smooth transition from the cable bundle where you could extract profits easily from every household by just lumping in tons of channels nobody watched and taking extra pennies/dimes from millions of households monthly.

Streaming is far more brutal as a market because people binge and cancel subs easily and jump from one service to the next if they stop watching for a while.

That's why all the stock prices of these companies are showing distress. It's why we're seeing people talking about more mega media mergers to reduce the number of streaming services out there.

And ultimately that's why we're seeing this level of realignment with all the "big brands" trying to join together. Media is forcing this from a position of weakness imo.

In the future, the money for sports leagues will be heavily dependent on the ratings that they draw. The old days of regional networks pumping tons of easily obtained money into leagues is going to be over at some point and only the leagues that actually draw viewership will survive and trhive.