New Conference re-alignment thread

[Saulbadguy]

The old one has AIDS.

Anyways, Chip Brown from Orangebloods.com reports OU may apply to the Pac-12 by the end of the month.

Oklahoma will apply for membership to the Pac-12 before the end of the month, and Oklahoma State is expected to follow suit, a source close to OU's administration told Orangebloods.com.

Even though Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott said Friday the Pac-12 was not interested in expansion at this time, OU's board of regents is fed up with the instability in the Big 12, the source said.

The OU board of regents will meet within two weeks to formalize plans to apply for membership to the Pac-12, the source said.

Messages left Sunday night with OU athletic director Joe Castiglione and Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder were not immediately returned.

If OU follows through with what appears to be a unanimous sentiment on the seven-member Oklahoma board of regents to leave the Big 12, realignment in college athletics could be heating back up. OU's application would be matched by an application from Oklahoma State, the source said, even though OSU president Burns Hargis and mega-booster Boone Pickens both voiced their support for the Big 12 last Thursday.

There is differing sentiment about if the Pac-12 presidents and chancellors are ready to expand again after bringing in Colorado and Utah last year and landing $3 billion TV contracts from Fox and ESPN. Colorado president Bruce Benson told reporters last week CU would be opposed to any expansion that might bring about east and west divisions in the Pac-12.

Currently, there are north and south divisions in the Pac-12. If OU and OSU were to join, Larry Scott would have to get creative.

Scott's orginal plan last summer was to bring in Colorado, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State and put them in an eastern division with Arizona and Arizona State. The old Pac-8 schools (USC, UCLA, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State) were to be in the west division.

Colorado made the move in June 2010, but when Texas A&M was not on board to go west, the Big 12 came back together with the help of its television partners (ABC/ESPN and Fox).

If Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were accepted into the Pac-12, there would undoubtedly be a hope by Larry Scott that Texas would join the league. But Texas sources have indicated UT is determined to hang onto the Longhorn Network, which would not be permissible in the Pac-12 in its current form.

Texas sources continue to indicate to Orangebloods.com that if the Big 12 falls apart, the Longhorns would consider "all options."

Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe held an emergency conference call 10 days ago with league presidents excluding Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M and asked the other league presidents to "work on Texas" because Beebe didn't think the Pac-12 would take Oklahoma without Texas.

Now, it appears OU is willing to take its chances with the Pac-12 with or without Texas.

There seemed to be a temporary pause in any possible shifting of the college athletics' landscape when Baylor led a charge to tie up Texas A&M's move to the Southeastern Conference in legal red tape. BU refused to waive its right to sue the SEC over A&M's departure from the Big 12, and the SEC said it would not admit Texas A&M until it had been cleared of any potential lawsuits.

Baylor, Kansas and Iowa State have indicated they will not waive their right to sue the SEC.

It's unclear if an application by OU to the Pac-12 would draw the same threats of litigation against the Pac-12 from those Big 12 schools.

Stay tuned.

[RustShack]

Found this interesting.

TOTAL VIEWERS BY CONFERENCE MEMBER (GAMES ON ESPN CHANNELS, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, FS1) - FINAL

LISTED IN THE MILLIONS

CONFERENCE TOTAL
310.89 - SEC (73)
254.45 - ACC (66)
223.03 - Big Ten (69)
171.81 - Big 12 (97)
87.54 - Pac 12 (62)
67.00 - AAC (63)
31.07 - Sun Belt (44)
16.81 - MWC (29)
15.30 - CUSA (22)
13.44 - MAC (18)

PER MEMBER AVERAGE
22.21 - SEC (5.2)
17.18 - Big 12 (9.7)
16.96 - ACC (4.4)
15.93 - Big Ten (4.9)
7.30 - Pac 12 (5.2)
6.09 - AAC (5.7)
3.11 - Sun Belt (4.4)
1.40 - MWC (2.4)
1.18 - CUSA (1.7)
1.12 - MAC (1.5)

PER GAME AVERAGE
4.26 - SEC
3.86 - ACC
3.23 - Big Ten
1.77 - Big 12
1.41 - Pac 12
1.06 - AAC
0.75 - MAC
0.71 - Sun Belt
0.70 - CUSA
0.58 - MWC

BIG 12
30.72 - Oklahoma (10)
27.11 - Iowa State (12)
26.17 - Texas (9)
23.95 - Oklahoma State (11)
15.55 - West Virginia (10)
14.19 - Kansas State (10)
10.87 - TCU (10)
10.74 - Texas Tech (8)
8.02 - Baylor (9)
4.49 - Kansas (8)

ACC
70.52 - Notre Dame (12)
60.22 - Clemson (9)
24.22 - North Carolina (8)
21.72 - Miami (7)
13.62 - Georgia Tech (5)
11.59 - Florida State (4)
11.50 - Boston College (3)
8.97 - Louisville (4)
7.00 - Virginia Tech (3)
5.58 - NC State (3)
5.49 - Pittsburgh (2)
5.44 - Wake Forest (2)
4.71 - Duke (2)
3.87 - Syracuse (2)
0.00 - Virginia (0)

BIG TEN
69.01 - Ohio State (7)
22.01 - Indiana (8)
21.38 - Northwestern (6)
19.87 - Michigan (5)
18.28 - Penn State (7)
16.93 - Michigan State (6)
16.54 - Wisconsin (5)
12.61 - Nebraska (5)
9.50 - Minnesota (4)
8.91 - Iowa (6)
3.11 - Illinois (4)
2.86 - Maryland (2)
1.56 - Rutgers (3)
0.46 - Purdue (1)

PAC 12
19.81 - Oregon (7)
13.37 - Southern Cal (6)
7.28 - UCLA (7)
6.47 - Stanford (6)
6.18 - Colorado (5)
6.12 - Arizona (5)
6.05 - Utah (5)
5.71 - Oregon State (6)
5.21 - Washington (4)
4.32 - Arizona State (4)
4.03 - Washington State (4)
2.99 - California (3)

SEC
87.64 - Alabama (12)
44.33 - Florida (11)
34.67 - Georgia (5)
28.65 - Auburn (8)
27.36 - Texas A&M (8)
23.31 - LSU (6)
17.26 - Tennessee (5)
11.67 - Mississippi (3)
11.12 - Mississippi State (4)
8.40 - South Carolina (4)
7.15 - Arkansas (3)
5.22 - Kentucky (2)
2.09 - Missouri (1)
2.02 - Vanderbilt (1)

AAC
16.55 - Cincinnati (8)
10.36 - Central Florida (8)
8.42 - Tulsa (9)
8.31 - Navy (6)
5.44 - Memphis (6)
5.11 - Houston (5)
5.08 - Tulane (8)
3.37 - SMU (6)
2.31 - East Carolina (4)
2.05 - South Florida (3)
0.00 - Temple (0)

CUSA
4.34 - Marshall (3)
3.13 - UTSA (4)
2.13 - Louisiana Tech (5)
1.83 - Western Kentucky (3)
1.27 - Florida Atlantic (1)
0.64 - Middle Tennessee (1)
0.64 - North Texas (1)
0.50 - UAB (1)
0.41 - Charlotte (1)
0.28 - Southern Miss (1)
0.13 - UTEP (1)

MAC
3.83 - Buffalo (4)
2.65 - Ball State (2)
1.20 - Western Michigan (2)
1.19 - Central Michigan (2)
1.15 - Kent State (2)
0.96 - Akron (1)
0.72 - Toledo (1)
0.71 - Ohio (1)
0.64 - Miami-OH (1)
0.20 - Northern Illinois (1)
0.19 - Bowling Green (1)

MWC
3.56 - San Jose State (4)
2.94 - Boise State (4)
2.32 - Nevada (4)
2.16 - Hawaii (2)
1.52 - Utah State (3)
1.47 - San Diego State (2)
1.17 - New Mexico (3)
0.49 - Air Force (2)
0.44 - UNLV (2)
0.29 - Colorado State (1)
0.26 - Wyoming (1)
0.19 - Fresno State (1)

SUN BELT
6.42 - Coastal Carolina (7)
6.16 - Louisiana-Lafayette (6)
4.71 - Appalachian State (7)
4.20 - Arkansas State (6)
2.60 - Texas State (4)
2.04 - Georgia State (3)
1.74 - Georgia Southern (4)
1.61 - Troy (3)
1.46 - South Alabama (3)
0.13 - Louisiana-Monroe (1)

INDEPENDENTS
9.95 - Army (4)
9.50 - BYU (11)
2.87 - Liberty (3)
0.13 - Massachusetts (1)

[BWillie]

Nobody is going anywhere. Didnt we learn from this 10 years ago? This is a negotiating tactic.

[sedated]

Originally Posted by BWillie

Nobody is going anywhere. Didnt we learn from this 10 years ago? This is a negotiating tactic.

BWillie working hard on the "always wrong" perception.

OU and UT have already announced they are leaving, it's just a matter of the buyout in 2 years or waiting the full 4.

And btw, 10 years ago the Big 12 lost 4 schools. It wasn't nothing.

[Boiled Chicken]

Originally Posted by Raiderhader

I’d be one of them. A couple of times he had me thinking I might have to back off but, ultimately reverted to type.

What was it KU fans said at the time of that hire? When you succeed at Illinois you go to KU; when you fail at Illinois you go to K-State. As much as that statement hurts the ****ing leadership and big donors were/are more concerned with our “image” (thus running Martin out of town) than having a winning program and proved it true.

EMAW is scared of another Asbury/Wooly era after running off Altman, because he wasn’t Kruger. As such, Weber will hang around (which coming full circle on the Illinois thing…EMAW thought they had a chance at Underwood, thinking he’d come home after his success at SFA, only to go to Champaign, after he wiped his ass with the Pokes - kind of ironic).

[sedated]

K-State could have had Underwood but they dragged their feet.

[Raiderhater]

Originally Posted by sedated

K-State could have had Underwood but they dragged their feet.

They also could have brought Gary Patterson home after Snyder retired the first time but, some idiot leaked the talks and Patterson quickly backed out.

We’ll be lucky to end up in one of the super conferences when this is all said and done with our boneheaded track record.

[Mecca]

Where the real issue lies here is if you have 4 16 team power conferences and likely Notre Dame as an Indy..you have 65 teams.

Those conferences could very easily break away from the NCAA to form their own league. If that happens there's no telling what happens to the rest of college football, whether those teams join the FCS or try to form something else.

[Valiant]

Originally Posted by Mecca

Where the real issue lies here is if you have 4 16 team power conferences and likely Notre Dame as an Indy..you have 65 teams.

Those conferences could very easily break away from the NCAA to form their own league. If that happens there's no telling what happens to the rest of college football, whether those teams join the FCS or try to form something else.

They should form something else.

[Mecca]

Originally Posted by Valiant

They should form something else.

I'm pretty sure that's the endgame, those schools make so much more money if they aren't giving the NCAA anything and they're playing top competition constantly.

You're downside is it could literally become a 2 conference type of thing resembling the AFC and NFC where it's literally NFL he with just the big boys.

[RustShack]

Originally Posted by Mecca

I'm pretty sure that's the endgame, those schools make so much more money if they aren't giving the NCAA anything and they're playing top competition constantly.

You're downside is it could literally become a 2 conference type of thing resembling the AFC and NFC where it's literally NFL he with just the big boys.

That’s the end game. But instead of two conferences and 32 teams, it’s four conferences and 64 teams.

[ChiefsHawk]

It's already in the Iowa athletic department that they will vote no if ISU is to be voted in. Plus the BIG will listen to Iowa and ISU going mid major only helps Iowa in a small state which is good for the conference. Iowa also controls the market in the state so bringing Iowa State does nothing as they are awful historically in football and good in basketball. This about money and football and neither are strong suits for ISU.

[RustShack]

Originally Posted by ChiefsHawk

It's already in the Iowa athletic department that they will vote no if ISU is to be voted in. Plus the BIG will listen to Iowa and ISU going mid major only helps Iowa in a small state which is good for the conference. Iowa also controls the market in the state so bringing Iowa State does nothing as they are awful historically in football and good in basketball. This about money and football and neither are strong suits for ISU.

Good thing it takes more than one vote, and no one else has a reason to vote no other than the instate school that’s been shitting themselves recently about Iowa States recent emergence and now taking the top instate recruits.

Plus ISU going to a midmajor is so outdated. Quit listening to your friends on Facebook. Worst case scenario is they join the “Midwest division” of the Pac16/20.

[RustShack]

Iowa in the B1G is like aTm in the SEC. their vote doesn’t matter, and they were left out of talks for a reason.

[Bill Brasky]

So this is happening. I’m surprised people people still have their heads in the sand. Fresh new take.

[RustShack]

Originally Posted by ChiefsHawk

It's already in the Iowa athletic department that they will vote no if ISU is to be voted in. Plus the BIG will listen to Iowa and ISU going mid major only helps Iowa in a small state which is good for the conference. Iowa also controls the market in the state so bringing Iowa State does nothing as they are awful historically in football and good in basketball. This about money and football and neither are strong suits for ISU.

Also what exactly does Iowa “control” in state? If you go up a few posts to the viewers per school, Iowa sure as hell didn’t even have half the total viewers per game. It’s not recruiting anymore. The only thing they have right now is racism which we will gladly let you have that.