Notre Dame and Conferences

[MaximumSam]

The only system that makes sense is one of promotion/relegation. Good programs rise, crappy programs fall, and everyone gets meaningful chances at postseason play. But that would require leadership based on the health of the game, not how much content they can generate for shareholders next season.

[OrangeAfroMan]

Perpetual quarterly increased profits!!!!!!  

[betarhoalphadelta]

Perpetual quarterly increased profits!!!!!! 

This is a mostly inaccurate characterization of capitalism / the stock market BTW. 

For *some* businesses and stock prices, perpetual growth is the goal for the stock price to go up. You see this mostly in things like tech... Lack of growth is stagnation, and stagnation is death. 

For others, I'd argue *most* businesses, income distribution to shareholders is the goal, so it doesn't really matter that much what the stock price is as long as the stock is generating quarterly dividends. 

Coca-Cola isn't chasing perpetual growth. They're just maintaining a business that generates stable profits and paying those out to shareholders every quarter. 

And right now, a lot of the big content companies are trying to survive. Content is king, and if you don't have content, you don't have revenue. So they're all trying to lock up live sports, which is the easiest content to use to move advertising spots for high dollar value. 

And sometimes that entails killing conferences to get teams to move into your sphere of influence. 

But it's not about perpetual quarterly growth in that case--it's knowing that there's limited content out there, and someone is going to own it. You don't want that content owner to be "the other guy". 

[Hawkinole]

This is a mostly inaccurate characterization of capitalism / the stock market BTW.

For *some* businesses and stock prices, perpetual growth is the goal for the stock price to go up. You see this mostly in things like tech... Lack of growth is stagnation, and stagnation is death.

For others, I'd argue *most* businesses, income distribution to shareholders is the goal, so it doesn't really matter that much what the stock price is as long as the stock is generating quarterly dividends.

Coca-Cola isn't chasing perpetual growth. They're just maintaining a business that generates stable profits and paying those out to shareholders every quarter.

And right now, a lot of the big content companies are trying to survive. Content is king, and if you don't have content, you don't have revenue. So they're all trying to lock up live sports, which is the easiest content to use to move advertising spots for high dollar value.

And sometimes that entails killing conferences to get teams to move into your sphere of influence.

But it's not about perpetual quarterly growth in that case--it's knowing that there's limited content out there, and someone is going to own it. You don't want that content owner to be "the other guy".

This is the view when you get old, and you look at your stockholdings you acquired 20 years ago or more and look at the current stock price, and dividend. For those that went up considerably, say 5x, and kept the dividend at 2-3%, you are now earning 5x 2-3% on your original investment on top of the price increase.
Sorry to bring this back to age, but I am already there, and don't have enough of those types of stocks in my portfolio, but for the ones that are in there, it's money.
That said, Notre Dame is not following along with Adam Smith, unless the institution thinks it is raising more $ from donors as an independent than they could possibly raise from donors as a member of a nationwide conference stretching from East to West, such as the Big Ten Conference. Perhaps if FSU joined the Big Ten, along with Cal and Stanford, the Big Ten would have outposts in all four corners, and the ACC would be so diminished, Notre Dame would almost have to join and would maintain its national schedule in the process, and get better media rights.