To break from UGA practice discussions...there were recent on again off again noise out of the Big 10 about possible expansion. Brian at MGoBlog offered up some candidates for the Big 10 to consider.Given that Notre Dame is likely never leaving their sweet heart deal with NBC deal to join a conference, some of the top names bantered about for the Big 10/11 included Missouri, Iowa State, Syracuse, Rutgers and Pitt. Missouri in particular has been mentioned as a potential candidate for the past two years.
The downhill effect of a Big 10 move involving a Big 12 member is the Big 12's own need to expand. The logical first name to pop up is former Southwest Conference member Arkansas. However, the Razorbacks would take an enormous financial hit (around $3 million per year in lost revenue by my lousy math) to leave the SEC as the Big 12 generates less overall revenue, and they split the revenues unequally. So why toss away a good thing to take a smaller piece of a smaller pie?
The "What If" conversation around Big 12 changes came up last week on BurntOrangeNation with some of the top candidates being BYU, Utah, Cincy, TCU, Memphis and other names even more far fetched as a replacement should Missouri or Iowa State leave.
One name that might be a great fit for the Big 12 = Louisville. Why?
- TV: Louisville would open a new TV market of Kentucky and more importantly southern Ohio and Indiana. L'ville is less than 2 hours from Indianapolis and Cincinnati. Plus, they would bring Eastern Time Zone games and viewers to the league. (see DMA info below)
- Basketball: A strong hoops program would be an ideal fit if Missouri leaves.
- Geography: Closer than Denver and Salt Lake to most Big 12 members
- Receptivity: Louisville has no historical ties to the Big East
- Cash: Big 12 is a better paying gig than the Big East.
Louisville is unranked academically in the Top 125 overall colleges. Academically, they are a peer school with USF or UCF. However, Nebraska, Kansas State, Iowa State, and Oklahoma are academic peers with Tennessee, Auburn and Alabama while Mississippi State and Oklahoma can swap fun stories about the merits of the 64 vs. 128 box of Crayons together.
While nothing is going to happen either way, it's interesting to consider the "What Ifs" if the Big 10 finally makes its move to expand.
Factoids:
- -- Overall SEC Revenue = $122 million (over $10 mil / team)
-- Overall Big 12 Revenue = $106 million
-- Overall Big East Revenue = $75 million ($5.8 mil / team)
-- St. Louis -- 21st DMA
-- Indianapolis - 25th DMA
-- Cincinnati - 33rd DMA
-- Louisville - 48th DMA
-- Lexington - 63rd DMA
*DMA = Media market ranking
9 comments:
Louisville seems to be the girl that nobody gives two glances. Then, something weird catches your eye. It's a fairly good-looking girl hanging on the arm of some wretched-looking dude. You think to yourself, "What the hell is she doing with that guy? I mean, look at him! He's Conference USA at best! She's got to be at least Big East quality." Then, she starts dating the two-to-three good team Big Easy. When you see her again, you think, "Aww, she could easily be Big XII North." But if she played with Texas and Oklahoma, you'd realize she really should have just stuck with the Big Easy.
To take this horrible metaphor in an entirely different, albeit still incoherent direction, it's like taking a really hot girl from Notre Dame and bringing her down to Athens or Oxford. Something great in dire circumstances often appears great because of the dire circumstances.
If Louisville didn't have rock bottom academics, they could've had chances sooner to move up the football food chain.
BTW - I was shocked to learn that Big East schools pull about half what SEC schools do in terms of conference revenue.
I my opinion Arkansas is expendable in the SEC just like pwd said. however, I'd like to see us add Louisville and make their game against Kentucky mean something every year. As far as the Big 10 goes, I have no idea who they could/would take. They could take Iowa State or Missouri and free up a slot for us to kick out Arkansas.
Again, it won't happen, but that's I would do.
To me, Lville just doesn't seem Big 12ish. I could see Arkansas, but I think TCU fits the bill too. But I am not looking at it quite as analytical as PWD (who did a great job). The only snafu would be if Mizzou or ISU left, TCU is geographically a B12 South team, not North.
I think the SEC's options if Arkansas fled are sparse: Louisville and Southern Miss. Neither are ideal options, but they are better than Memphis, UCF, or anyone else geographically Southeastern.
It's pure speculation on my part, but I think Arkansas would jump at the chance to join a revamped Big XII, particularly if they join the South division with Texas and A&M.
The bigger question is who the Big 10(ish) would take. Notre Dame is the perfect candidate, except for that whole "more money as an independent" thing. Adding Rutgers or Louisville or Miami(Ohio), or even Nebraska would just be very un-Big 10(ish) to me.
The big 11 would probably look at Syracuse too since it wouldnt scare the football powers over there.
I would be worried if Arkansas left and we couldn't find a quality replacement. I'm sure other conferences have added penalty clauses after the ACC raided the big least.
They would never admit it publicly, but Georgia Tech would be MORONS to not crawl on their hands and knees back to the SEC.
GT's decision to leave the SEC was a strategic blunder on par with invading Moscow in the Winter or betting against a Sicilian with death on the line.
Tech has never been the same since.
I'd selfishly like Tech to be back in the SEC if we had to replace Arkansas. It would free us up to get more creative in our OOC scheduling.
My biggest question if we lost Arkansas would be that if we added a team like Tech, would they automatically take Arky's spot in the SEC West?
It would make life a lot harder for Tech if they had to play LSU-Bama-Auburn-MSU-Ole Miaa every year instead of VT-Miami-UNC-Duke-UVA.
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