College Football Re-Alignment 3D: Terrapin Terror

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College Football Re-Alignment 2: Aggie Boogaloo

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Maryland, Rutgers to Big Ten?

So. Maryland to the Big Ten. Does this set off the next round? Kinda foolish of the Terrs to wait until the exit fee ups to $50M (which Maryland and FSU voted against). Does Maryland really have enough fan support in the DC area to drag the Big1G network onto the mandatory cable list (which is the ONLY way I see this move having any sort of ROI). Is Maryland a good fit for the AAU? Does this accelerate the full inclusion of the mighty Irish into the ACC?

Or is all this smoke-and-mirrors with no realistic chance of success?

Talk amongst yourselves. Apologies for the bullshit move, but I’m headed to early Thanksgiving Dinner with the 'rents and will be back later this evening.

I can’t see Rutgers actually bringing the NYC market. No one here follows college football. It sounds like Maryland has the same sort of relationship with DC, so I think the Big Ten is deluding themselves. And neither of these teams will be competitive year in, year out. (This year, though…). The only positive I see is at least Michigan will be playing an hour train ride away every six years or so.

NYC market has plenty of Notre Dame fans which is why the ACC grabbed them. The whole Northeast is full of ND fans.

I don’t even begin to understand this. All the moves in realignment recently at least made some kind of sense, but this is just weird. Does anyone, except maybe Rutgers fans, really want this to happen?

What does Maryland even really get out of this? Sure the Big 10 plays better football overall, but isn’t Maryland a basketball school and is not the ACC one of, if not the best basketball conferences in the NCAA? Is a couple million more a year worth paying $50 millionish upfront to get slightly more killed in football on a regular basis? I’m not buying academics at all as reason, the Big 10 has some great schools but most of the ACC are really great academic institutions as well. It’s almost a push.

And for the Big 10, is the potential cable money and being slightly closer to more fertile recruiting grounds worth deluding their brand with more lackluster football and decreasing the traditional rivalries that make it such a strong conference? Seems like a no brainer. Pitt may have been an OK pick for them if they really wanted to expand, but Maryland seems like a big stretch.

As for Rutgers, they should jump on the boat the second they get the invite. The Big 10 wants to throw them a bunch of money for almost nothing in return, you have to take that.

ACC’s next move? Invite West Virginia and the “geographic” Floridas. (UCF and USF)

UCF and USF would love to join the ACC but I think FSU and Miami would not approve them.

Rumor has it UConn would be picked to replace MD if they go.

Already thought UConn was heading to the ACC.

No, Pitt and Syracuse.

UConn would be stupid, but that’s what everyone is saying right now. The ACC needs another football school.

UCF and USF have both just locked themselves into pretty much unbreakable Big East commitments. I think the exit fee for UCF would be something like $55 million.

I can’t find any cite for this. As near as I can tell, the exit fee for the Big East remains officially at $10m. However, schools that want to leave before the 27 month deadline can negotiate higher exit fees in lieu of notice. WVU did and ended paying close to $20m in fees and lost revenue. It appears the Big12 helped with a fair amount of that.

As for Maryland, this is increasingly looking like something that is far from complete. The school’s ties to the ACC are strong, the $50m is a big deal (although the school seems to think that a court would throw that out as an unreasonable restraint on trade/free association*), and the Regents’ support seems…mixed at best.

The story includes the note that Rutgers addition may be dependent on Maryland. Also, I neglected to read far enough down to discover that both Maryland and Rutgers are already AAU members - so at least that problem is solved.

  • Interesting this. A court case about college athletics that essentially is based on the fact that they are businesses (with business concerns about revenue/profit)might open a whole can of worms with regard to player payment, eligibility, movement, etc in the hands of a motivated and talented attorney.

MD board is voting at 9 AM on Monday to stay or go to Big 10. They need 9 yes votes of 17.

I have heard rumors (I have no citations) that the B1G has also been trying recruit Ga Tech.

Ga Tech is my alma mater and I talked to a former classmate who has a friend who has a friend…etc.

Not sure how reliable it is.

I do not like the idea of GT going to the B1G. I have bad mouthed them long enough that there is no way I can go back.

If Rutgers goes (and subsequently UConn) what is left of the Big East Football from six years ago?

Pitt-Syra-UConn-Rutg-WVa have all left. (BC, Va Tech, Miami left a long time ago)

Cincy, Louisville, and USF remain.

Any Big1G school fans around here want to weigh in?

For full disclosure, I’m an FSU fan, so while this does impact my school. Frankly the impact (at least now) looks minimal. Maryland is a strong b-ball school, but not a “must-see”. Football had a couple of decent seasons, but seems to be slipping back into mediocrity. With that said, surely we can find a better football replacement than UConn?

notfrommensa, I would take those rumors with a STRONG grain of salt. At $50m/ea, I doubt they’ll try to absorb 2 ACC teams at the same time. That’s a lot of moolah…

I guess for me the most interesting part of all this is the economics. For the Big1G, a school has to be worth $24+m annually just to avoid diluting the money for existing conference members - if Maryland is worth that, why is the ACC only getting $16m per school? Of course, I know the answer (alluded to in a post above), the Big1G network. But again, the Big1G network model is predicated on being added to the “required” line-up of cable operators - that way they get paid for every customer in the market whether they ever watch the channel or not. Is the Maryland fan base in the Beltway strong enough to force that?

Hmmm…might have figured out at least part of the reasoning behind all this…

The GT to Big 10 rumors have been around for a few years now.

West Virginia isn’t going. They would have to take $4 mil+ a year paycut (once they are at 100% share) in addition to the fines to leave their current conference and the ACC isn’t going to want WV without the TV money, which is owned by the Big 12 for next 13 years.

I hate to see my beloved Big Ten get diluted. Nothing against Maryland and Rutgers, both are respected institutions and AAU members. But how to align the schools for football and how to schedule? So you would have 7 team divisions, you play 6 against your own division plus one designated cross-division rival plus one other cross division game- if you keep 8 conference games. If they made it so that you played 10 conference games it might be worthwhile, but why? Just for the TV markets? Personally, I think 12 teams is as many teams as you can have for a football conference. Basketball- no big deal. Some of the minor sports might be hard to make back the travel expenses for say Minnesota to go to Rutgers for a baseball game.

So, if I had my druthers, keep the Big Ten at 12 teams. If it must be 14, these are decent choices.

I’m pretty "meh’ about it from an athletic side. Both are good schools, but they don’t improve the competition in the B1G Ten. They are similar to middle of the pack of B1G teams. Maybe the B1G Ten is trying to make sure they continue the trend of winning the past 3 ACC-B1G Ten Challenge by stealing a member. The most that can be said about them is they expand possible revenue IF they bring extended TV markets.

I am excited that it would continue to strengthen our academic side. Nebraska is the only school not in the AAU, but they were when going through the expansion process. Maryland and Rutgers would also continue the tradition of big public universities with Northwestern and UChicago (non-athletic member of Committee of Institutional Cooperation) being the sole private universities. I haven’t heard much talk about Virginia, but they would also fit well in the B1G Ten.

West (by god) Virginia and the Geographic Floridas aren’t going to the ACC. They don’t bring anything to the table athletics wise and their academics don’t fit either.

I don’t like this at all. Maryland is my alma mater. We are an ACC school. This is incredibly dumb.

I’m hoping the Board of Regents kills this. I think only desperate schools should join conferences that don’t fit geographically (WVU, the new members of the Big East). Maryland is running deficits in the athletic department, but I believe they are less than the ACC’s exit fee. No need to be desperate with the large playoff payouts ahead.

Here’s an illustration (assuming Rutgers would join with Maryland)

Schools within about a 6 hour drive of UMD (a reasonable road trip distance):

ACC - UVA, Pitt, VT, NC State, Duke, UNC, Wake, Syracuse (8/14 conference mates)
Big Ten - Penn State, Rutgers (2/13 conference mates)

This would kill fan support and recruiting. And all the travel to multiple time zones will wear down the teams (see West Virginia football this year).

Maryland is a charter member of the ACC, but they’ve always viewed themselves as outsiders. It’s ironic that now that the ACC expanded to place them closer to the center of the conference, adding two schools that they compete against not necessarily for athletes but definitely for regular undergrads, their President (who came from the University of Iowa) is looking to drag them away in the middle of the night (the Regents reportedly heard about this the same way we did).

Also, the Big Ten’s revenue model is entirely based on the status quo of cable tv pricing not changing. It really is a good deal for Big Ten members if the way people watch and pay to watch sports does not change at all for the next twenty years. Maryland would be joining the Big Ten schools going all in against ala carte cable or live streaming over the internet. If they lose, revenue is a wash at best.

There were rumors on Penn State fan message boards in the last few weeks that they were looking at the ACC. Could this offer just be the Big Ten’s reaction to those rumors?

The ACC is in a good position for the future, and I really hope for Maryland’s sake this gets shot down quickly.