Except to play those types of schools OOC at the beginning of the season at home, to pad their W-L record with easy wins and pad the balance sheet with sellout crowds to watch glorified practice games.
Bob Huggins says major conferences should create own college basketball postseason event, ditch NCAA tournament
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Your points need to assume that a "break off" league would stop at eliminating all non-P5 schools. Which it clearly wouldn't. The natural evolution of something like this would be:
1- Eliminate non-P5 teams from CFP and NCAAT
2- Form a another subsequent break off league that would include (for example) the Top 30 or so college football schools and top 30 (or so) college basketball schools. Which would eliminate all but the "blue bloods" and be very attractive for the networks in an NFL and NBA like set up.
You don't think a college football league that included only schools like Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Auburn, Texas A+M, Texas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, USC, UCLA, Oregon, Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Ok State, wouldn't be the most lucrative? Why the need to include Mississippi State or Washington State or Rutgers? Who would want to watch Illinois v Mississippi State or Syracuse v Washington in CFB when Michigan v Georgia or Notre Dame v Oregon or Clemson v Penn State is the competing slate? Not only would that subsequent break off league not split revenue with non-P5 schools, but also eliminate a revenue split with the non-elite P5 schools as well.
The reason the NFL or NBA don't have 50 or 60 or 70 teams is because that size league(s) isn't the most lucrative set up. It's not the 1st iteration of change that would harm Rutgers, it's the 2nd. Which is clearly what would happen next.
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You probably looking at best of 3 series or double elimination.
The college game is already trending towards the NBA. When total revenue declines and schools want to hold on to their revenue bad decisions will be made. The engine is the NCAA tournament the "blue bloods" are just the parts. "Blue Bloods" might one day find this out the hard way.
I don’t think so. There aren’t enough NCAA basketball nationally followed blue bloods for an NBA style structure to generate enough interest for it to work.
I believe the biggest obstacle would be potential Congressional intervention. The Senators and Representatives from Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, etc that contain schools that would be forced out in "iteration 2" would likely be pressured to get involved. But (imo) the best way to avoid the second scenario is to not have the first scenario happen.
Just my $0.02
Here is a 30 team NCAAB league for you: Duke, UNC, FSU, Cuse, Louisville, Virginia, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Kansas, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Indiana, Maryland, Purdue, Villanova, Uconn, Oregon, Stanford, Arizona, UCLA, USC, Kentucky, Florida, LSU, Tennessee, Gonzaga.
The remaining teams, being they would be excluded from a playoff that includes those teams, present an obstacle because? I think a cogent 30 team college basketball league is easier to put together than a 30 team college football league.
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At what point would the NCAA be an obstacle and those schools would be forced out of the NCAA and be independent. Wouldn't players be allowed to be paid if those schools weren't in the NCAA?
Jumping the gun perhaps.
Jumping the gun perhaps.
No - nobody, outside the fans of most of those teams, care about a Tenn vs Villanova basketball game. They don’t. More fans watch the bubble teams play as it gets close to the tourney if it has an impact on their own teams than would tune in for this routine match up. The following for this format wouldn’t draw support outside of die hard college basketball fans. Not a money maker.
Doesn't mean bad decisions can't be made. If smaller conferences/schools don't blink and accept a significant piece of the pie it could go down this way.
2021 March Madness Payouts from Men's Basketball Tournament Impacted by 2020
Last Updated on March 18, 2022 Looking for more information on NCAA revenue from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and payouts? Check out this page for the latest info on the current year. As first reported by Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports, the NCAA has confirmed it plans to distribute the full...
businessofcollegesports.com
Every conference receives $337,141 each year just for being a part of March Madness.
Maryland East Shore a member of the 8 team MEAC receives $42,142 for basically nothing
Never understood this argument.
"Nobody cares about elite matchups. People only watch their own games."
So only 8 additional fanbases watch other bubble team games? For 3 weeks in late Feb/Early March?
Are you saying nobody watches national TV games outside of the 2 specific teams playing during the season?
You only watch Rutgers games?
Only 4 fanbases watch the Final Four?
I agree.
I'll add if you look at TNT's NBA schedule for the year you don't see a lot of Timberwolves or Cavaliers or Raptors games on the network, but rather a whole bunch of Lakers, Clippers, Nets, Celtics games. Because that is what folks want to watch.
In the hypothetical NCAAB break off league, while you need 30 teams, any network that buys that leagues' games is going to regularly feature games with Duke, Kentucky, UNC, and Michigan (for example). So the argument of who "cares about a Tenn vs Villanova basketball game" is about as relevant to the marketability of the hypothetical league as is an idea the NBA property isn't valuable because who cares about a Pelicans vs Pistons game.
Your right - bad decisions are made. But the TV networks have to offer price tags that make this move appealing. As I said, I don’t think the draw is there. Maybe I’m wrong.
March madness is the draw for every casual college hoops fan.
All it takes is for 1 TV network to hit the bid of the 30 teams.
I agree 100% the star of the show is March Madness and not Duke, Kentucky or UNLV.
Huggins is correct.. financially speaking.
The TV revenue will be captured by the P5 conferences and not the NCAA organization. Basketball revenues of all the P5 conferences would rise dramatically.
Meanwhile, the NCAA would have to fire a lot of people or start charging schools directly for the "services" they provide... or both. I would imagine the NCAA is a bloated organization living off taking a good chunk of the NCAA tournament TV revenues.
The Cinderella teams from non-P5 conferences would suffer.. as would the people who just love those stories.... but.. financially.. the P5s should go their own way... and share the revenues with the player that would have gone to NCAA executives expense accounts.
Yes.. the product would change.. and suffer the loss of the Davids vs Goliaths... but we'd all get used to it soon enough.
The TV revenue will be captured by the P5 conferences and not the NCAA organization. Basketball revenues of all the P5 conferences would rise dramatically.
Meanwhile, the NCAA would have to fire a lot of people or start charging schools directly for the "services" they provide... or both. I would imagine the NCAA is a bloated organization living off taking a good chunk of the NCAA tournament TV revenues.
The Cinderella teams from non-P5 conferences would suffer.. as would the people who just love those stories.... but.. financially.. the P5s should go their own way... and share the revenues with the player that would have gone to NCAA executives expense accounts.
Yes.. the product would change.. and suffer the loss of the Davids vs Goliaths... but we'd all get used to it soon enough.
No that’s not all it takes. For starters, any semblance of P5 conferences as we know them would first have to fall apart.
It’s not only the March Madness event itself. So much of college basketball’s national following is around forecasts for making the tournament and seeding. The whole second half of the season following centers around that. Lunardi made a career out of it for crying out loud. A 30 team super conference wouldn’t have this and the TV networks know that. Why would they bid a ton of money for something that would have extremely limited following?
This hypothetical scenario occurs after many things occur. I think we’d be talking in 10 years. I think the ball would start rolling after media revenue declines. We aren’t there yet. My scenario has FB driving the bus which would bake March Madness less an issue.
What part of the merry go round do you expect to result in a decline in media revenue relating to March Madness? What your suggesting would make sense possibly if the same “super 30” football teams were to be the desired market for a basketball super conference. But that will never be reality, so I’m having trouble picturing this transformation coming to light.
March Madness is a everything to the NCAA. It desperately needs March Madness. 85% of NCAA revenue comes from March Madness. 85% of about 1 billion in total.
Total revenue for B1G in 2020 was $768.9 million. I can’t find how much of that revenue is from March Madness. If it is 15% of 600 million that was paid out you are talking about roughly $90 million or a little over 10% of total revenue.
All true. What I’m saying is that I think it extends a step further than the NCAAs reach - I.e. college basketball on a whole needs March Madness - and every media outlet is acutely aware of this. Bidding a large sum of money to parse out a 30 team super conference would be like doubling down on a doomed IPO that is destined for failure.
College Basketball needs March Madness zero argument!
Clemson, Georgia, Penn State, Texas, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Alabama could almost care less about March Madness.
Football drives the revenue bus 49 out of 52 weeks of the year.
I agree with your last analogy, yet people do it.
Clemson, Georgia, Penn State, Texas, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Alabama could almost care less about March Madness.
Football drives the revenue bus 49 out of 52 weeks of the year.
I agree with your last analogy, yet people do it.
I think the first domino that could potentially fall would be for P5 demanding the control over March Madness is taken away from the NCAA. The P5 conferences would love the opportunity to tie in the NCAA tournament with their regular media contracts. I think this is essentially what happens with college football now.
Once the P5 has control all he!! could break lose. P5 schools would not stand for MEAC and the Atlantic Sun getting 1/66 of part of the revenue pie.
Once the P5 has control all he!! could break lose. P5 schools would not stand for MEAC and the Atlantic Sun getting 1/66 of part of the revenue pie.
Nonsense.
How many P5 schools get into the field of.. what is it now.. 68? is it half of them?
Why would the P5 conferences have a problem if half their teams end up in a March Tourney of 32 teams or so if the money they get from said tourney doubles? How does that require the P5 conferences to "fall apart"?
The national appeal is the issue. A 32 team bracket will not have close to the same following. The first week of the tournament is the most followed national sporting event every year.
National appeal = money (i.e. contract value).
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So you are diverting your scenerio to a P5 only model with conference alignment retained? That’s very different from a 30 team basketball super conference. Most of the teams you listed would not make the cut for the 30 team super league and therefore wouldn’t be in favor of it - right?
If broad P5 conference alignment is retained for football, I agree that a break off for all sports could be possible down the road. But again - I’m just not sure the economics will be there. Any media outlet that does any due diligence whatsoever will look at the historic numbers and see the average revenue pull from that first weekend relative to the rest of the tournament.
I think you are wrong about the TV market issues. The P5 conference teams dominate all the largest markets and that is what advertisers pay big money for.
Yes, the end product won't be as "fun" with the loss of possible cinderellas... but it would crown the best tournament team.
That 1st weekend revenue pull from the basketball NCAA tournament puts very little in the pocket of P5 schools. It means the world to the NCAA, but not the P5 schools. The P5 schools would love to take control of the asset. The individual players feel they have a right to part of the asset. In the end it is the NCAAs asset.
NCAA owns the NCAA tournament. National appeal = money to NCAA. Yes part of the money gets funneled to the athletic departments of the 350ish D1 schools. If P5 schools control a 32 team basketball tournament they will make much more money than the current set up. Yes total revenue would be far less.
Look I’m not claiming to be a subject matter expert on this topic, but the math still doesn’t seem to add up for me. I read somewhere that the NBA playoffs only averages about 22M in annual revenue. Even with the extra round (32 vs 16 bracket) I don’t see a P5 only bracket taking in much more than what the NBA brings in annually in total, do you? Meanwhile in 2019, the BIG alone netted 35M in revenue from the tourney. March Madness brings in over 700M total so the fact that the NCAA keeps a big cut is relative. The conferences that put a lot of teams in the field still net a ton of money - especially when those teams do well. What am I missing here?
That’s not how it works. It’s an allocation of a total based on how many games your conference participates in up to the final 4. It’s not split round by round - the total is pooled and then split pro rata. So that first round revenue is huge for major conferences with a ton of teams in the field who win games.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theactivetimes.com/featured/how-much-money-schools-make-tournament?amp
What I’m trying to say here is - some of you seem to be arguing that 5 seed Iowa in the current system would be far better off financially losing to the 13 seed (as the 20 seed in a 32 team P5 bracket) than getting upset by a 12 seed mid major in the current system. Right?
As the article explains - in this example - Iowa would’ve brought the conference +1.6M (paid out over 6 years rolling) based on the current set up in that scenerio for the loss. My point is that i cannot picture a situation where a first round game appearance in a 32 team P5 bracket could be worth anything close to that. And that’s all because of viewing interest. The nation tunes in because of their brackets and loves to see a MAC team stick it to a BIG team in round 1. Nationally, nobody would care if # 20 Iowa “upsets” #13 Villanova. The viewing wouldn’t be much better than the pre-season tournies.
I think a power basketball league of 30 teams would turn into an epic fail, greed killing the golden goose. Nobody who is not connected to those programs will give it any thought within a year or two. We've talked about B1G expansion needing to add states/eyeballs across wide fantasies to bring the money. Rutgers is B1G because the NJ/NYC market is massive. Yet here, that market would be dropped out of a super basketball league except for sidewalk alumni? UConn and Syracuse going to deliver NYC eyeballs?
This converaation js also missing the question of what do the big-time donors of the biggest programs want. I don't know for sure but I bet some would rather have conferences that are consistent across sports rather than unique to each one. Even if only the two main revenue sports of football and basketball matter, as others have said, those don't overlap.
Last possible impact that comes to mind: Title IX. Any program dropped from any mega football or basketball leagues would lose a lot of revenue. So all of their non-revenue sports get crunched. Are they still going to play the mega conference teams in those other sports? If not, where do those top league teams have opportunities for women's sports to satisfy Title IX? Flying all over the country to play each other? I am probably exaggerating the potential impact here, but it is not zero.
This converaation js also missing the question of what do the big-time donors of the biggest programs want. I don't know for sure but I bet some would rather have conferences that are consistent across sports rather than unique to each one. Even if only the two main revenue sports of football and basketball matter, as others have said, those don't overlap.
Last possible impact that comes to mind: Title IX. Any program dropped from any mega football or basketball leagues would lose a lot of revenue. So all of their non-revenue sports get crunched. Are they still going to play the mega conference teams in those other sports? If not, where do those top league teams have opportunities for women's sports to satisfy Title IX? Flying all over the country to play each other? I am probably exaggerating the potential impact here, but it is not zero.
No doubt. But they wouldn’t earn more money from making the tourney only P5. That was my point.
We wouldn’t know because everything would be wrapped up. Rights to regular season and tournament
Yes we would. If football were to break off as these predictions speculate, there would still be conference media contracts negotiated for the rest of the sports (with basketball driving 99% of the appeal). It would be very difficult for a break off league to offer more for the BIG than whatever that new conference contract would be PLUS the typical pooling revenue from March Madness. As I said, the bid would have to be so far above forecasted fair market value of the contract based on projected revenue intake. Expecting a power 5 only basketball league / tourney to draw better than the NBA would be a ridiculously flawed valuation model. Could it happen? I guess. But it doesn’t seem that likely to me.
