The World of College Football

[Let'sGoZips94]

1 hour ago, zippy5 said:

The MWC kinda sucks imo

 

This is why I don't understand the move by them. The new MW is not an upgrade over the MAC in any way, shape, or form, at least not in football. Air Force, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Northern Illinois, San Jose State, UNLV, UTEP and Wyoming - that's their new football conference. Outside of Vegas, what is the MW selling to media networks? 12am kickoffs with NIU @ Hawaii? 

 

59 minutes ago, ClevelandZip said:

I agree with you 100% there as a bigger MAC basketball fan than football. The only real bummer to this loss is that their football team got the highest TV ratings in the MAC (I believe). Probably doesn’t put us in a great negotiating position when we try to get our peanuts from ESPN next time.

 

Is this strictly based on their Notre Dame game?

 

[GP1]

12 minutes ago, ZipsBBjunkie said:

Does the MAC have an actual strategy? 

Any day now. They have been working on it since 1946. 

[GP1]

NIU would have done less damage upgrading their logo. Putting it that way, maybe we should be happy all our last AD did was change the logo. Things could always be worse I guess. 

[kreed5120]

2 hours ago, ClevelandZip said:

I agree with you 100% there as a bigger MAC basketball fan than football. The only real bummer to this loss is that their football team got the highest TV ratings in the MAC (I believe). Probably doesn’t put us in a great negotiating position when we try to get our peanuts from ESPN next time.

 

I don't think it materially impacts it to be honest. Any additional revenue that was potentially lost would virtually be offset by the fact we would now have one less mouth to feed. Not just from the TV revenue, but league revenue as a whole. NCAA tournament credit, league sponsorships, CFP payout pool, etc. 

[GP1]

8 hours ago, kreed5120 said:

 

I don't think it materially impacts it to be honest. Any additional revenue that was potentially lost would virtually be offset by the fact we would now have one less mouth to feed. Not just from the TV revenue, but league revenue as a whole. NCAA tournament credit, league sponsorships, CFP payout pool, etc. 

This is a good point. MAC athletic departments are hemorrhaging money. With or without NIU, the base problems don't disappear. The revenue changes marginally

 

I'm close to 100% certain any ESPN executive didn't bat an eye at the NIU departure and the impact it will have on MACtion. The price they are paying to fill air time in the late fall is amazingly cheap all things considered. 

[ClevelandZip]

12 hours ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

Is this strictly based on their Notre Dame game?

 

Take it with a grain of salt as I saw this stuff on a separate message board, but they were only talking about ratings of non-P4 matchups. I agree with sentiments here, though, that our revenue share of our peanuts will be a little higher now with one less mouth to feed. NIU didn’t put money into anything but football so it is probably addition by subtraction overall for us.

[kreed5120]

1 hour ago, ClevelandZip said:

Take it with a grain of salt as I saw this stuff on a separate message board, but they were only talking about ratings of non-P4 matchups. I agree with sentiments here, though, that our revenue share of our peanuts will be a little higher now with one less mouth to feed. NIU didn’t put money into anything but football so it is probably addition by subtraction overall for us.

 

I saw several of these posts. Initially NIU fans were saying their ratings were 30% better than other MAC teams. That didn't take into account NIU had more games on stations like ESPN2 compared to less viewed networks like ESPNU and CBSSports. When adjusted to compare how NIU did on a particular network vs other MAC schools, there was only a 4-5% difference. I don't really see that swaying the needle much.

[LZIp]

The P4 are poison to college sports.

 

[GP1]

6 minutes ago, LZIp said:

The P4 are poison to college sports.

 

What they are asking for could be the best thing for G5 conferences. They won. Let's get away from them and organize ourselves in a way that works for us. 

 

If they get rid of the NCAA it could be one of the best things to ever happen to college athletics. The inability of the NCAA to effectively look forward lead to gross mismanagement and they deserve to go out of business. 

[kreed5120]

3 minutes ago, GP1 said:

What they are asking for could be the best thing for G5 conferences. They won. Let's get away from them and organize ourselves in a way that works for us. 

 

If they get rid of the NCAA it could be one of the best things to ever happen to college athletics. The inability of the NCAA to effectively look forward lead to gross mismanagement and they deserve to go out of business. 

 

I would agree in football as the distance between the haves and have not has grown considerably. You still see mid-majors make noise every March. Heck, the P4 wouldn't even include the Big East, which is consistently a top 2-3 conference.

[GP1]

4 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

 

I would agree in football as the distance between the haves and have not has grown considerably. You still see mid-majors make noise every March. Heck, the P4 wouldn't even include the Big East, which is consistently a top 2-3 conference.

Basketball and March Madness isn't the future of college athletics. March

Madness has the market cornered on drunks and degenerate gamblers in March. There is no room for growth. There is a lot of room for growth in the consolidation of college football into a super league with drunks and degenerate gamblers. Someone in the article uses the word "industry" and that explains everything. 

[ClevelandZip]

1 hour ago, kreed5120 said:

 

I saw several of these posts. Initially NIU fans were saying their ratings were 30% better than other MAC teams. That didn't take into account NIU had more games on stations like ESPN2 compared to less viewed networks like ESPNU and CBSSports. When adjusted to compare how NIU did on a particular network vs other MAC schools, there was only a 4-5% difference. I don't really see that swaying the needle much.

Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying! Then, as Jarvis Landry used to say: “Bless ‘em.”

[kreed5120]

It took until the semifinals, but we finally got a good game that was decided in the final few minutes in the CFP...

[AkronAlumnus]

1 hour ago, kreed5120 said:

It took until the semifinals, but we finally got a good game that was decided in the final few minutes in the CFP...

Yeah, 12 teams is just too many.  I'd be open to eight, but I'd prefer four or six (with two byes).  Right now, it feels like the NFL, where mediocrity is rewarded.  Strength of schedule should be the top criteria for consideration, just behind wins. Half of the Big Ten could have done what Indiana did this season with IU's schedule.

[Blue & Gold]

Indictment on the state of college football if there aren’t even 12 competitive teams.

[Hilltopper]

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/43348934/house-settlement-ncaa-sec-big-ten-nil

[kreed5120]

1 hour ago, Blue & Gold said:

Indictment on the state of college football if there aren’t even 12 competitive teams.

 

There are plenty of competitive teams. The problem is there are 2-3 Super Teams every year. It was like the Golden State - Cavs era of the NBA. The whole season was meaningless because you knew those two stacked teams were going to meet in the finals every year. There were other good teams in the NBA during this time. Those teams just didn't have 3-4 hall of famers who were all still in the prime of their careers.

 

If I wasn't a Cavs fan, I wouldn't have even bothered watching the NBA during that time.

Edited Friday at 06:23 PM by kreed5120

[GP1]

7 minutes ago, Hilltopper said:

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/43348934/house-settlement-ncaa-sec-big-ten-nil

Very interesting. Thanks for posting. I'm always skeptical of legislation designed to help organizations save themselves. The NCAA can't be saved because it's a member organization. If the members want to kill it, they can elect to do so. If 20-30 members want to leave and start their own organization, there is nothing stopping them. The best thing that could happen is for the NCAA to go away and then schools can organize themselves in a way that is best for them. Think of it as breaking up a monopoly. 

 

Can anyone give me a good reason why a membership organization like the NCAA should continue to exist when there is such disparity between the financial abilities of the members?

[GP1]

2 hours ago, Blue & Gold said:

Indictment on the state of college football if there aren’t even 12 competitive teams.

It's been that way for a while. There has just never been a method of proving it until now. If you look at final scores, there a a ton of blowouts every Saturday. Since the best teams almost never play one another during the season it didn't stand out. The playoff is shining a light on how uncompetitive most college games are. 

 

If an NFL team loses by more than 10 points, they lost handily. There are tons of 10+ point differences every Saturday. 

 

Another way I notice this is when I sit down to try andd.find two competitive games at once to go back and forth on. At any time on a Saturday afternoon, there are 10 games on. It's hard to find two close games. 

 

Unless you have a rooting interest or a student at a school or alumnus or degenerate gambler college football isn't very entertaining. 

[ZippyRulz]

On 1/7/2025 at 8:43 PM, ClevelandZip said:

Not sure the Atlantic 10 would want us, but that’s a pretty fun basketball conference. They also get paid more from their media deal per school than we do, despite not having football. We’d likely have to go to the Horizon or something for FCS football in that case, though. Not sure people are clamoring for that, but it’s not like we’ve been doing well in FBS.

 

The A10 footprint is from the east coast to Chicago/St. Louis which we would obviously be within, and already has an Ohio member in Dayton. Their members are scattered between 4-5 different conferences for football, one of which might suit us. With UMass leaving, they will be at 14 (basketball) members... would they be interested in an Akron/Kent dynamic duo to go to 16?

 

 

[Captain Kangaroo]

1 hour ago, ZippyRulz said:

 

The A10 footprint is from the east coast to Chicago/St. Louis which we would obviously be within, and already has an Ohio member in Dayton. Their members are scattered between 4-5 different conferences for football, one of which might suit us. With UMass leaving, they will be at 14 (basketball) members... would they be interested in an Akron/Kent dynamic duo to go to 16?

A-10 teams routinely mop the floor with us. If we like going to the NCAA tournament with any regularity, and winning conference championships we don’t leave the MAC. 

[kreed5120]

18 hours ago, ZippyRulz said:

 

The A10 footprint is from the east coast to Chicago/St. Louis which we would obviously be within, and already has an Ohio member in Dayton. Their members are scattered between 4-5 different conferences for football, one of which might suit us. With UMass leaving, they will be at 14 (basketball) members... would they be interested in an Akron/Kent dynamic duo to go to 16?

 

They would have 0 interest.

[lance99]

15 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

 

They would have 0 interest.

And even if they did, Dayton would block us.....

[kreed5120]

The committee got a lot of criticism with the initial selection, but the team selection ended up being fairly decent. The SEC proved to over rated and 3 teams for them was more then plenty. Indiana's only 2 losses on the season are to the two best teams in the country. They clearly belonged.

 

I'm still not a big fan of how the playoffs were seeded, but a lot of that had to do with the requirements of the conference champion being given the #3 and #4 seeds.

[LZIp]

4 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

The committee got a lot of criticism with the initial selection, but the team selection ended up being fairly decent. The SEC proved to over rated and 3 teams for them was more then plenty. Indiana's only 2 losses on the season are to the two best teams in the country. They clearly belonged.

 

I'm still not a big fan of how the playoffs were seeded, but a lot of that had to do with the requirements of the conference champion being given the #3 and #4 seeds.

I don’t mind the seeding either TBH, though I’m sure it will change due to the SEC and B1G programs whining. A lot of the opponents against the expanded playoff were worried about it devaluing the regular season. Conference champs getting preferred seeds/byes helps with that. NFL works the same way. Look no further than the 14-3 Vikings going to the Rams this week.