Arkstfan

Let's say 12 teams. That's 11 games. What is going to produce more straight revenue before considering expenses? 11 bowl games with 22 G5 teams or 11 tournament games involving 12 G5 teams? I think the tournament. Instead of playin for 11 trophies, you are playing for one. Half the teams you see playing this Saturday are playing next Saturday and you start recognizing players and coaches and get more engaged. So I think replacing 11 bowl games with 12 game tournament is likely to produce more money while costing less to put on because the participants own the stadium, at least until the final, half the teams aren't traveling. The ones that travel are staying one or two days instead of four. You've got no need for a local ticket selling person in each bowl town, the home team does the hustling to sell tickets. Lower cost more drama. It's made for TV. I was looking at old AState schedules. 1975, 76, 77, 78, 79 we didn't play any traditional "P5" teams (had a game with Cincinnati in there). Looked at y'all and Memphis and USM and other than USM going Bama nearly every year, there just weren't many go to this place, get a check, go home games, most games against the power programs were depending on the school home/home, 2 for 1, 3 for 1, 4 for 1 deals. Oddly the "buy games" I found poking around (clicked a link by accident) was LSU bought a game against WAC member Utah and bought a home game against Pac-8 member Oregon State. When the money got crazy, selling a game to generate revenue became the norm, it just didn't used to be the norm and even an old fart like me had forgotten. The normal buy games you find in that era were things like Tulsa going to Arkansas every year or when A-State was playing in Memphis all the time, you hop on the bus day of the game, play and go home type deals. We may be heading that direction, not because we choose to live within our capacity to self-generate revenue but because TV is going to squeeze Big Ten and SEC for more conference games and more big non-conference games to get that next bump in money. If you get to the point they won't play, I like our chances outdrawing UFL, besides we pay better.

Some musings. First, G5 realignment for efficiency? HAHAHAHA yeah that's been bandied around and ain't no one ever bit on it. I'm very happy with what Sun Belt West looks like, odds are a shuffle gives me something I don't like especially since every let's draw a pretty conference on map nerd out there is convinced Arkansas State belongs in a Texas alignment when its basically same distance to Atlanta as Denton and there's a LOT of schools closer than UNT, the closest G5 in Texas. Now as to a playoff. To quote former Sun Belt commissioner Wright Waters when someone asked him if the flavor of the day G5 consortium idea would work, "You only need one network to love you." If you can get CBS, Fox, NBC, or even ABC/ESPN on board to go all-in and carry the bulk of this tournament on over-the-air TV on Saturdays, then it's going to deliver better audiences than virtually every G5 v G5 bowl game that ever existed. Bundling a 7 game or 11 game or even 15 game tournament is going to be more efficient and more marketable than TV rights to a bunch of single game bowls and same for sponsorships. Financially it is more cost effective to send Toledo to Jonesboro on Friday to play Saturday than to send A-State and Toledo both to Montgomery and make them both spend four nights there. You will sell more tickets presumably to UNT hosting Utah State in Denton than you likely sell for the same game in Tucson or Albuquerque. The finances start making sense fairly easily. Here's the critical element to me. Third Saturday in December has long been G5 Bowl-a-Palooza on TV, that's now first weekend of the CFP with one game Friday and three on Saturday. If ESPN bothers to put any bowls that day, they get swamped and they are probably on ESPN2 or ESPNU. Fourth Saturday is likely to be flooded with games like the Liberty Bowl and Alamo Bowl P4 vs P4 games. Again if G5 get that slot, it's probably ESPN2 or ESPNU. Maybe get to play bowl games the Saturday after New Years but the competition isn't just NFL, it's NFL playoff football. The likely outcome is the Texas Twister Tyler Texas Bowl pitting AAC #6 and MAC #3 is going to be played a 2pm on Tuesday before Christmas or such. G5 is likely getting shifted to more weeknight bowl games and maybe more weekday games during work hours. If that's what's coming down the pike, then fine. Find me a network that will commit to Saturday over-the-air broadcasts in addition to cable channel broadcasts during the four Saturdays that CFP isn't playing. Probably best scenario is play one week, take a week off then play the next two in consecutive weeks in a 7 game format. No rocket science involved, top team from each G5 (so four champs plus whomever from the league getting a CFP berth) and three at-large based on whatever arbitrary and senseless ranking one cooks up or if 12 then 7 at-large. Bowls pretty much fade out and coaches getting laurels for 6-6 and 7-5 not so much any more.

Interesting. UALR started as a juco run by Little Rock school district. When the schools got closed as part of the Central High crisis, the district spun it off as a private school so it could stay open. UA-Fort Smith (Division II) was created as a juco by Fort Smith School district before getting its own charter and board as WestArk. Only ones I know of that started by local school districts

Well they aren't going Big XII unless it's a backfill. They will probably be sour about the league losing its big money producers and align with Stanford and Cal trying to block any expansion candidate while holding out for a raid of Big Ten, or SEC or Big 12.

Some Memphis folks think the Tigers would pass on Pac-2 offer. Seems pretty clear Florida State and Clemson are going to leave with just the exit date and cost to be worked out. If they leave seems likely UNC and UVA would leave too. Memphis would be the best candidate to pull up that doesn’t have baggage of an in-state school whining about not elevating them.

The consolidation I’m sure helped but Pan American was a cool name.

You find a network who will give you numbers based on various hypothetical scenarios.

NCAA will no longer include the Pac-12-10=2 as an autonomy conference. If the league survives they'll have same voting power as the G5 leagues. They won't be on the Board of Directors, but will stay part of the Division I Council like the G5 which beats being FCS and non-football who have less representation. The autonomous group have a limited ability to make optional rules (such as full cost of attendance) that the non autonomy can choose to follow but they get no say in those rules. Losing that status and with it the better than G5 independent but not as good as P4 payout from CFP is another blow to Pac-2 having big carrots to offer schools that might make them willing to pay exit fees to join. Supposedly Pac-2 wants Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, UNLV, SDSU and some mix of Memphis, UNT, UTSA, Rice, Tulane. With those advantages eroded, they are going to have to show an impressive media rights deal to successfully raid.

They withdrew. Sort of like Nixon resigning.

Not everyone is going to land in the $EC or B1G. Everyone else is fighting for scraps and needs to figure out who they want as business partners in that endeavor. UTPA/UTRGV ever since being nudged out of the Belt has wanted to be in the Southland. Glad to see them find that fit.

WNIT is 48 teams at campus sites. WBI is 8 teams I think in Florida.

WNIT still do autobids to all conferences? They used to extend invite to the highest rated team from each conference that wasn’t picked by NCAA.

Power Five uh Four uh Two is only tier of professional sports where teams play regular season games against lower tier. NHL doesn’t play AHL, NBA doesn’t play G League, etc I would wager SEC and B1G are leaving money on the table not playing only conference games or only against the other league. Day will come that they’ve bled all revenue sources and that’s last one left and they’ll go that way.

A10 today isn't the A10 of a decade ago or two decades ago. In the past 20 years they've lost Xavier, Temple, Charlotte, Butler, and now UMass.

People act like the NCAA is some independent entity that makes decisions that people gotta live with no matter what they think. Remember. The commissioner of the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA are all employees of the owners. They are just the day-to-day managers and they have to keep a majority of the owners happy no matter how good or noble they want to be about their league. Conference commissioners are doing the same role for the university presidents. The NCAA is a complex beast where all are equal but some are more equal than others. Lamar gets more say in how things go than West Texas A&M, UNT gets more say than Lamar, Texas Tech gets more say than than UNT, and while on the organizational chart, Texas Tech has the same say as Texas, we all know that with the SEC and B1G saber rattling, Texas gets more say than Texas Tech. The basic system is UNT and Texas State are simultaneously wanting someone to hold Texas and Texas A&M in check while not making UT and TAMU so mad that they leave. Even West Texas A&M wants the NCAA to not piss off UT and TAMU because they get to be in the NCAA for the price of a token dues payment every year and the NCAA picks up a good piece of the costs for good post-season events for them to compete in. They don't want the NCAA to be like the NAIA where dues are large enough to cover not only the administrative costs of running the organization but also the cost of post-season events. The old Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference broke up because NAIA dues were assessed based on enrollment and the larger schools could go and deal with more complex compliance issues in NCAA Division II that would require hiring another person and still come out ahead financially over paying NAIA dues. So the Division II and III schools are both appalled by how Division I athletics are run while enjoying the financial benefits of it being an insane system... as long as the high value schools stay. It's a mess but no one likes the alternative.

They go in the meeting supposedly with enough 6+6 votes to make it a nasty fight and come out with 5+7 and completely out of the blue are talking about adding two or four teams to the field for 2026.

So we went from G5 and P2 fighting to preserve 6+6 to approving 5+7 for 2024 and 2025 and talk of going to 14 or 16 for 2026 the contract that will be bid on by multiple companies. Think you can expect 6+8 or less likely 7+7 for a 14 team playoff and 7+9 or less likely 8+8 for a 16 team format. In a nutshell, SEC and B1G are selling to the rest that the contract for 2026 and future will have real bidding and will be a blockbuster and they can “afford” to invite more conference champions but they need at-large slots so a couple teams don’t suck the spots up every year increasing disparity in their own ranks

Congress or the IRS via letter ruling need to do the obvious. Donations to support professional sports or athletic organizations offering a mixture professional and amateur athletics are not charitable and should not be tax deductible. The Federal government shouldn’t forego $37,000 in revenue because the owner of a chain of cannabis dispensaries and used car lots loves the Sooners and gave them $100,000. Between 2005 and 2022 Oregon pulled in $969 million with taxpayers subsidizing at least $230 million of that via deductions. If they are separating and going pro much harder to keep a straight face arguing it should be deducted

I doubt it. The schools who give up will go the way of the Canton Bulldogs and Duluth Eskimos. They either give up and leave for something affordable or give up on football completely. If they think they need a replacement team then expect to pay a few hundred million to buy in.

If pay to play becomes the norm and is truly free market, there are no more 28-35 schools who can truly compete. Anyone else is hoping to be a successful MLB small market team. Problem is there are another 30 or so who will feel obligated to try to keep up and all or close to it will fail because they will overspend vs their capacity, or they overspend for a few critical players, they make the playoff as champions and get blasted by the second place Big 10 or third place SEC in the first round. The big investment in Joe Stud comes to an end because he can get same money or close to it from a team that can make it to the finals or semis. Basically until the 1950's a scholarship was whatever the school or conference said it was. The NCAA's only input for decades was that players had to be enrolled. Eventually NCAA was drug into the mess and a scholarship was capped at tuition, books, fees, housing, and meals with a small cash stipend called "laundry money" that was capped at $15 a month. Until 1973 football scholarships had no cap, some top programs awarded as many as 150 just to warehouse talent. 1973 brought the 105 limit which became 95 then 85. Until around 2005 or so there was no minimum number of scholarships. 1969 Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and not long after the University Division schools opened fall camp for the centennial season of college football. Schools had anywhere from 150 to zero on scholarship. You had conferences with no limit, 105 limit, 85, 75, 70 limits. Conferences generally didn't even make out the conference schedule, the ADs did it. In the SEC team with the best winning percentage was the champion as long as you played at least five conference games. That year you had SEC teams playing 5, 6, or 7 league games. Tennessee went 5-1 winning the championship over LSU who went 4-1. We CAN survive and thrive in a college football universe where the starting QB at Ohio State makes a million a year and the starting QB at San Jose State makes $40,000 over the scholarship, a universe where the 85th guy on scholarship at Georgia makes $30,000 and the 85th guy at FAU gets a scholarship and glad to have it. What we can't survive is if Memphis starts roster spending like Iowa State or Colorado State spends like Kansas or Oklahoma State tries to keep pace with OU. Everyone has been spending like crazy to get facilities to keep up with the P5 boys, that's possible. It's a capital expense with a long life and debt can finance it. Annual spending is a whole nuther beast and keeping pace will be out of reach. Collective bargaining can keep things in check. SEC might negotiate a five million cap with a $20,000 minimum. Big 12 might negotiate a $3 million cap and $6000 minimum per player and AAC might go with $1 million and no player minimum but have to spend at least 75% of the cap. Personally I think best outcome is SEC and Big Ten pick off what they want from ACC, likely some mix of Virginia Tech, UVA, UNC, maybe Duke or NC State to plug a couple holes and Florida State and Clemson based on TV value. They secede and to maximize TV money go to a 10 or even 12 game conference schedule. Sun comes up and suddenly the Big 12 and ACC remnant understand they are out of the club and they can dial back the spending. Now the folks like San Diego State and Memphis are no longer looking for that last golden ticket they thought was out there. If you look at where Big 10 and SEC are now they just don't need much to become untouchable, not saying all their current members can keep up but they could be a real beast and I'm not sure its a bad thing if they leave. It's if the Houston's and SMU's and Memphis' are in some semblance of the club that the fecal matter is randomly distributed by the air movement device.

If the 6+6 had been in place in 2020 Pac-12 would have been out. The champions of AAC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, and Sun Belt were the six highest rated champions. I want 6+6 to remain but Pac-12 getting a Power 5 share would be a disaster because that fat cut of money increases the odds they can pick off schools from the G5 and create another round of instability. As it stands there's a good chance MWC tells them join or be independent and that's the only options they have.

At this point unions are the absolute best thing that could happen. If you have a collective bargaining agreement you can set salary caps, you can limit transfers, you can set compensation agreements to release a player to another school.

If Florida State can go to a private equity group with an offer in hand from SEC or B1G and is willing to give up a high enough percentage of revenue, sure someone will make them a deal. Question is whether the leaks indicating that they will join Big 12 if neither invites is serious. We've had SEC connected reporters saying the votes aren't there to add Florida State or Clemson. At one time B1G was supposedly very interested in possibly adding some mix of UVA, UNC, Florida State, and Georgia Tech. Having just added four from Pac-12 the appetite to grow any time soon may not be there and taking a non-AAU even harder to push through. The Big XII boasts of its stability via grant of rights, do you really invite a school that busted or bought its way out of a GOR? Florida State has toyed with arguing sovereign immunity because Florida has a very strong set of statutes and case law. Supposedly stronger than Texas, ask Mike Leach's family how much Tech ended up paying out after being found to have breached his contract. If you put yourself in the shoe of a university president considering the application of Florida State, how willing are you to vote yes if they used state law to declare they aren't bound by agreements they signed? Again if they bust or buy out of a massive grant of rights, do you view them as someone you want to make an equity partnership with?

Spelling, punctuation, grammar gets highlighted when you are trying to sort out the meaning of a contract or statute. Pleadings, it is rarely relevant. In Maine the lack of a comma in the state's overtime statute led to milk drivers getting overtime. Exempted was The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of: The lawsuit came down to whether the legislature meant to exempt "packing for shipping or distribution" which would be packing goods for either shipping or distribution or they meant that as two independent items "packing for shipping" being one item and "distribution" an independent item. Dairy believed they were separate items so milk delivery drivers were exempt from overtime because they work in distribution. Court held that since there was no Oxford comma or serial comma after distribution to clearly indicate that the intent was to make those two independent activities that it should be read as one activity. $5 million in back pay was ordered.

Happens all the time and you don't want it to happen before certain judges who are really good at such because they will embarrass you which is worse than losing. The late Arkansas Supreme Court Justice George Rose Smith was a beast. In 1947 he wrote a law review article just tearing the state Supreme Court up for shoddy writing and logic. Ended up running for Supreme Court and served from 1948 to 1986. A few people called him out for that law review article from 1947 and he offered a $100 ($1200 in today dollars) reward to anyone who ever found a grammatical mistake in any opinion he authored and it was never claimed. His idea of a hobby was creating crossword puzzles selling them to numerous publishers including the New York Times. Most of his NY Times rejections were for making puzzles that were too hard. But most judges aren't going to catch anything beyond the most jarring errors because they are skimming a lot to keep caught up.