Smoke your cigars and enjoy the band while you can....

[Skipper44]

Wanna LOL? Here's a weird picture of FSU's stadium before it was big-timey. 

I like how the roads form an arrowhead

[Panjandrum]

It's not going to be near that much.  As much as people like to think the SEC wants 16, they don't.  Neither VT or NC St. provide the value-add needed to make the dollars work.  Also, with the current playoff structure, if the SEC can't get two teams in, they aren't going to put their member schools at a greater disadvantage.

I have to disagree with 14 being better financially than 16 as 16 allows the tv networks to pick and choose the annual cross pod games (more UF v LSU, UGA v Bama, etc).  Additionally, VT and NCSU can't be much worse than Mizzou even if they SEC doesn't create a Big Ten type network.

It's the issue of exponential math.

Say the SEC gets $24 million per team in the next deal for 14 teams.  That's $336 million annually between Tier 1 and Tier 2.  To get that split for VT and NC St., you'd need to increase the annual value of that contract by $48 million.

Now, do you think VT and NC St. increase the value by $48 million?  I don't.

Well, the states of Va and NC do combine for close 20 M people but I think the biggest gain is in the scheduling flexibility pods can give a conference.  The reason the networks spend billions on these contracts is for the exposure of big time games between the teams with the biggest tv draws. 

Maybe Slive will come up with a creative way to get more games between the SEC East and West powers at 14 teams however they did not do it for 2012 and I take that as a sign they want 16. 

I think we're overthinking why Slive moved to 14 in the first place.

It was basically for two reasons:
1) They were falling behind other conferences in TV dollars (at that point, they were #3 behind the Big Ten and Pac-12), and they wanted to renegotiate that contract because they were locked in for 15 years.
2) Slive always salivated on getting into Texas for numerous reasons.  The SEC made a run at Texas back when the SWC was falling apart, and UT declined.  This was the one shot they had at making this happen, and he wasn't going to miss it.  They obviously needed an even number for scheduling purposes, they made a run at VT, and they didn't get them.  Hence, Missouri was the easiest to pick off.

People like Clay Travis (known idiot) think that this was a part of some grand design to create a massive Tier 3 deal, but the fact is that the SEC can't start one because Florida has a $100 million Tier 3 deal with Sun Sports in Florida, which is similar to the $300 million deal Texas has with ESPN.  But it's not a part of some grand design.  It was the SEC wanting to get into Texas and Virginia, and they had to settle for Texas and Missouri.  They certainly aren't going to take VT and the third most popular school in North Carolina unless it's an absolute necessity.

[PowercatPat]

Found this on the Louisville Rivals board. I thought it was interesting:

If you go to the Oklahoma, Kansas, FSU, Baylor, or Clemson sites there is not much positive written about us to to the Big 12. All the excitement among the Big 12 schools is about FSU and/or Clemson, not us.

With that said I would like to know who Kansas thinks they are...other than basketball the Gayhawks are an athletic joke and for them to look down their nose at the Cards is laughable.

[SkinnyBenny]

Man, after reading that post now I kinda feel bad for Louisville.   

(Still do not want, though.)

So pretty much everything the FSU president said in his memorandum yesterday is refutable and if they end up being in the Big XII they can just brush it off as him playing the game. But the thing that makes me think he's more just a dumbass than a game player is when he dogged on Big XII academics. There ain't no take-backs on that one, and it's gonna be real awkward at meetings of Big XII presidents, right?

[john "teach me how to" dougie]

Man, after reading that post now I kinda feel bad for Louisville.   

(Still do not want, though.)

So pretty much everything the FSU president said in his memorandum yesterday is refutable and if they end up being in the Big XII they can just brush it off as him playing the game. But the thing that makes me think he's more just a dumbass than a game player is when he dogged on Big XII academics. There ain't no take-backs on that one, and it's gonna be real awkward at meetings of Big XII presidents, right?

Any talk of academic superiority between universities is ridiculous. Look at the dipshits that places like Columbia, Yale, Stanford, and Harvard unleash on the world. Common sense will always prevail.

[SkinnyBenny]

Just emailed FSU's president. Totally pretended to be an FSU Class of '72 guy. Included this picture from this season as a reminder of what "we're" facing.  You should do the same. [email protected]

[ednksu]

so I'm a big FSU fan.  First game I saw was against Nebraska for the Title in the Orange Bowl.


The last two times I've heard this much bitching about boosters and their little club was the removal of Jeff Bowden where a stack of cash magically appeared at the FSU AD's office to make him go away and the ejection of Bobby Bowden.  So yeah...take that for what its worth. 

[SkinnyBenny]

From http://www.foxsportsmidwest.com/05/15/12/Big-12-should-make-a-move-on-Florida-Sta/landing.html?blockID=729262&feedID=8745

Big 12 should make a move on Florida State
Sean Keeler
May 15, 2012

For the love of Barry Switzer, don't wait. Conferences that sit on their hands these days usually wind up getting their toes gnawed off. When it comes to Florida State and the Big 12, there are only two major questions that need to be posed by the latter to the former:
 
1. How soon can you get here?
 
2. And can you bring a date for my friend?
 
True story: A few years back, the Wall Street Journal conducted a study examining national viewing figures for every bowl game between 1998 and December 2010. The Journal rated Bowl Championship Series schools relative to what the contest usually drew in terms of expected ratings. When all the chips were counted up, Florida State ranked second in the nation, with an average audience bump of almost 23 percent — 22.6 — per bowl game. The Seminoles trailed only USC (28.7 percent).
 
Twenty-three percent. If you throw a watch party for a Florida State game and expect to draw 200, the trends say 46 more people will show up on top of that, flaming spears in hand, looking for a good time.
 
The 'Noles are a good time. They're a national football brand, just like Penn State and Nebraska and Notre Dame. The Big Ten grabbed the first two and has been courting the third, without success, for decades now. (Yeah, yeah, we know: Florida State football isn't quite what she used to be. The same goes for the Nittany Lions and Cornhuskers, and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany is crying all the way to the bank.)
 
Twenty-three percent. Everybody gets rich, and your boosters might get to meet Burt Reynolds. What's not to love?
 
And has there ever been a better time for the Big 12 to slip on the armor and go ransack somebody else's castle for a change? New television deals. New commissioner. New mojo.

You've got two types of leagues on the Division I sports landscape now: those doing the plucking, and those about to be plucked. As more dominoes fall, the middle ground, neutral territory, shrinks exponentially. Earlier this week, I got into a discussion with an administrator about the Atlantic 10's additions of Butler and Virginia Commonwealth; he replied — and I'm paraphrasing here — that "you don't know who's willing to jump unless you ask."
 
So ask already.
 
The chairman of Florida State's board of trustees, Andy Haggard, will take the call. At least, you'd think. Haggard ripped the ACC's new television deal with ESPN over the weekend, venting to the website Warchant.com that it was "mind-boggling and shocking." Seminoles football coach Jimbo Fisher threw gas on the fire when he told the Orlando Sentinel on Saturday that if leaving the ACC is "what's best for Florida State, then that's what we need to do."
 
Of course, university officials spent the next 24 hours or so either backtracking from or retracting those statements — Haggard was snarling over misinformation, it turns out — as it headed into the ACC's league meetings Sunday.
 
But you've got to admit: We've heard this kind of rhetoric before, haven't we? The higher-ups at Texas A&M and Missouri were making similar grunts and groans before they got itchy feet and jumped to the SEC.
 
Sunday and Monday brought round after round of denials. Big 12 officials insist that no approaches have been made, nor are there any in the works. Look, you can throw as much sand on the flames as you like. We all saw the smoke.
 
New Big 12 boss Bob Bowlsby has an ambitious streak that runs from Ames to Orlando. He won't get behind a dog that won't hunt. His ascension to the Big 12 wasn't just an indicator of the league's stability — it sowed the seeds of an aggressor.
 
When asked about expansion recently, Bowlsby played it coy. But he also noted that if the Big 12 were to branch out, that "it's not a geographic footprint anymore. We're talking about an electronic footprint." Translation: If your football team doesn't draw eyeballs to television sets, you're probably not a fit.
 
Notre Dame fits, although the Irish want it both ways — BCS perks without having to share any of its BCS television stash.  Louisville keeps re-entering the conversation, but it's still a basketball-first school in a hoops-first state.
 
Florida State, however, ticks almost every box. You'd be setting up an outpost in the fourth-most populous state in the land. You'd have tent stakes in Texas to the west and in Florida to the east, just as the SEC can claim once the Aggies are on board. You'd get another baseball power, as well as an up-and-coming men's basketball program that's been to four straight NCAA tourneys under coach Leonard Hamilton.
 
And did we mention the 23 percent thing? To wit: Last winter's Champs Sports Bowl between the Seminoles and Irish drew a 3.6 rating, according to the Nielsen Ratings, a 64 percent jump from the previous year's contest.
 
Sure, a posse that features Iowa State and Kansas State at one end and West Virginia and Florida State at the other seems — well, strange. But is it any stranger than the fact that Nebraska now plays in a division with Michigan and Michigan State? Or that Missouri will soon reside in the SEC East alongside South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia? Greed makes for strange bedfellows, sometimes.
 
The ACC's deal with ESPN reportedly guarantees an average of $17 million a year to each member. The Big 12 programs are reportedly taking home $20 million per school, annually, through their partnerships with FOX and ESPN. Plus, at the moment, third-tier rights — Hello, The Seminole Network! — are potentially more lucrative in the Big 12 than they are in the ACC. And word on the street is that the Seminoles' athletic department is about to go $2.4 million in the red.
 
Ask. Go on. Ask. Because if you don't, somebody else will.
 
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter @seankeeler or email him at [email protected]

[MakeItRain]

Man, after reading that post now I kinda feel bad for Louisville.   

(Still do not want, though.)

Louisville's plot is that redbird head with the approximately 16th highest revenue.

[star seed 7]

Man, after reading that post now I kinda feel bad for Louisville.   

(Still do not want, though.)

Louisville's plot is that redbird head with the approximately 16th highest revenue.

i don't see tulane on there 

[Rage Against the McKee]

Man, after reading that post now I kinda feel bad for Louisville.   

(Still do not want, though.)

Louisville's plot is that redbird head with the approximately 16th highest revenue.

i don't see tulane on there 

Private schools aren't charted because they don't have to report revenue.

[SwiftCat]

Man, after reading that post now I kinda feel bad for Louisville.   

(Still do not want, though.)

Louisville's plot is that redbird head with the approximately 16th highest revenue.

We are such an outlier on this chart. Best fit line is about 45 degrees, running from Boise to Texas, we are way outside that. 

[MakeItRain]

K-State and Louisville are the two biggest "one of these things is not like the other" on that coordinate system.  Also Washington State is pathetic and look at how sad the Big East has become, why should Louisville be subjected to that, certainly they'll end up in the Big 12 or ACC.

[EMAW4life-JHL]

Kind of going out on a limb, but lets add Fresno State and FSU and have market shares of the three biggest states in the U.S.
Then add Clemson and NC St and watch ND chomp at the bit over the money they'll make off tier 1 and 2 and they can still have their ridiculous amounts of money from their tier 3.

[SkinnyBenny]

If Fresno State came into the fold we could totally taunt them every time they came to the OOD about that time Ski scored 62.*

And what about when Florida State goes to play at Fresno State? Coast-to-coast head-to-head of who's the true FSU.*


So do we believe what The Dude from WV was saying about Clemson coming quietly in the night? BITB seems to think it's not reputable because Fitz hasn't said anything about it.






*--Still do not want.

[ednksu]

Man, after reading that post now I kinda feel bad for Louisville.   

(Still do not want, though.)

Louisville's plot is that redbird head with the approximately 16th highest revenue.

This is a really quality graph.

i don't see tulane on there 

this is a quality response

[Pete]

The "dude" with more info this morning

http://dudeofwv.blogspot.com/2012/05/so-its-done-deal.html

Wednesday, May 16, 2012
So It’s A Done Deal?

Yesterday I made a mistake. I wrote that Clemson was a “done deal” to the Big 12 and although it may be a matter of semantics my friend at WVU took issue with my choice of words.

“It is not a done deal,” he said. “An agreement in principal is not a done deal.”

“Until the contract is signed and the press conference is over it’s not a done deal” he continued.

So I asked exactly “what” it was.

Clemson and the Big 12 have exchanged financial information, projected schedules and revenue estimates.  They have reached an agreement on all substantial issues.

Clemson wants the Big 12 and the Big 12 wants Clemson, but the process must play out.

The Tigers are waiting patiently for the FSU endgame and the ACC’s reaction. They’re content to let the Seminoles be the icebreaker and blaze the way out of the beleaguered conference.

It’s expected that the Big 12  will discuss both Clemson and FSU in the next league meeting and there’s a belief that the Big 12 will invite FSU and Clemson to become the 11th and 12th members.

At that point the “done deal” becomes a matter of signing the paperwork and holding the press conference.

FSU’s move to the Big 12 is inevitable. They’ve made statements that ruffled feathers at Duke and UNC and made every football-centric member nervous. They’ve made their distrust of the conference known and stated their disgust with the ACC TV contract.

FSU is much closer to the mythical “done deal” than Clemson but the Tigers are willing to follow in their footprints.

Notes:

I’ll have another update later today concerning expansion to 14 or 16 and details about interactions Georgia Tech, Maryland, Pitt and other ACC schools have had with the Big 12.  I also ponder if the Big 12 would take Georgia Tech over Clemson to attract Notre Dame.

[SkinnyBenny]

Come on, The Dude. 

One thing I hate about conference realignment, besides just about everything, is that everyone refers to everything as a done deal. I would love to see a computer algorithm-y guy scan the internet for every mention of a done deal from the last two years and see how many of them actually came to fruition.

One thing I LOVE about conference realignment is when tards on GPC and The Website Formerly Known As KStatefans start an 80th thread on essentially the same topic and assume a super self-important tone and start off a post with, "I'm hearing...."  And then one other guy will respond with "Well that isn't quite what I'm hearing; I'm hearing FSU wants out but with conditions."  HEY YOU rough ridin' WEIRD OLD GUYS: Just because you start a post with "I'm hearing..." does not make you a journalist. Just because the HR guy at McCall Patterns mentioned it to you in the breakroom does not make it important.

That said, what are you hearing today, Pan?

[Pete]

Greg Swaim ? @GSwaim

#Big12 denying #FSU talks, not wanting to look like bad guy, but they've talked over last 3 mos thru intermediaries, and offered ACC buyout.

Greg Swaim ? @GSwaim

"@ODUgolf99: @GSwaim Is #FSU interested in deal?" // They need the cash, but #ACC can only give so much. #Big12 has already offered buyout.

Greg Swaim ? @GSwaim

#ACC doing everything possible to keep #FSU, and already hammering out deals to give them a larger share, but at expense of other schools?

[Dugout DickStone]

Tulane is being quiet about this.  Too quiet.

[CNS]

Man, if FSU can position themselves as the TX of the ACC, they would probably be smart to stay and be the 500lbs gorilla of that conf.

[Dugout DickStone]

Man, if FSU can position themselves as the TX of the ACC, they would probably be smart to stay and be the 500lbs gorilla of that conf.

Will even that be enough $$?  and will Duke/Carolina/Cuse and Pitt give them that much? 

"Hey welcome Pitt and Syracuse, btw that money we said you'd make by joining, well we are giving that to FSU.  cool thx."

[CNS]

Man, if FSU can position themselves as the TX of the ACC, they would probably be smart to stay and be the 500lbs gorilla of that conf.

Will even that be enough $$?  and will Duke/Carolina/Cuse and Pitt give them that much? 

"Hey welcome Pitt and Syracuse, btw that money we said you'd make by joining, well we are giving that to FSU.  cool thx."

Your Texas impression is dead on(assuming I did the hayseed hick twang thing right when I read that out loud).

[Dugout DickStone]

Ultimately there just isn't enough money to go around in the ACC.  I also think FSU has a minor case of in-state butthurt the way ATM had towards Texas.  They simply have to get as close as even to them as they can or they will just die.  Of course ATM's butthurt was an 11 on a 10 point dial, and they were in the same conference, but I think FSU feels they need to take the next step.

The pecking order looks like

big 10 > SEC > Big 12 (or Pac 10) > ACC > Big E

So, you gotta keep moving up the ladder.

[SkinnyBenny]

We should keep reminding FSU people how much they pale in comparison to UF.