Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

ESPN/ABC is not going away

they are streaming as well

the delivery method will change

the big boys will continue to control the content

When ESPN/ABC have nothing to stream, it will go away. They are currently in a big spat with the NFL even.

ESPN/ABC don't play nice.  Sometimes they lose with that tactic

but, they have the benjamins, because they have the subscriber base

high bidder usually gets the content - they have the prime content because they pay the best price

obviously, that can change in the future, but ESPN/ABC isn't going to give it up w/o a fight 

As we are throwing out our dream alignments (and ignoring everyone else) we have to decide do we want to revert to some point in time that was close to what we think is perfect and modify that; or push forward into a brave new world and try and shape what the conference may look like in the future.
Moving forward where expanding to 16 seems to make more sense than stagnation or contraction, we have to argue do we want 2 8 team conferences that play a title game (and a couple more crossovers) or do we want "pods" where we try to play the whole conference as much as possible.


I'm firmly in the "pod" camp. In our Brave New World, history be d@mned!
We get 3 regional rivalries (Home Pod.) We get 3 performance rivalries (Over a set period of time against teams have performed at your level, ie Performance Pod.) And we get 3 temporary opponents. (2 years H-A with whatever is left of another pod.)

Example (I'm going to add Missouri and Virginia Tech to the B1G for this fantasy.) East - Penn State, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Rutgers (Rutgers gets to play in the east, novel right?) West - Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota North - Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Purdue South - OSU, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana

Performance over the last 6 years I think would create performance pods of: King - PSU, Wisconsin, OSU, Michigan. Barons - Virginia Tech, Nebraska, MSU, Missouri. Knights - Maryland, Iowa, Northwestern, Illinois. Peasants - Rutgers, Minnesota, Purdue, Indiana

Temporary Pod - Years 1&4 East also plays West, while North plays South. Years 2&5 East also plays North, While West plays South. Years 3&6 East also plays South, while North plays West

You get to play everyone in the conference every 3 years, and H-A every 6. After 6 years we would rebalance the performance pods. Every year this format keeps us 3 regional rivalries, 3 really good games against teams performing similar level to your team, and 3 games against a conference mate. I'd buy season tickets to see that slate. Nationally, the top performing teams in the conference get to compete in showcase games for the the conference. It just makes too much sense to me to actually do this.

I too am firmly in the "pod" camp.  I know you travel some because I've seen you on roadtrips before.  That is probably part of the reason for both of us.  In a 16 team conference with two eight-team divisions even if you didn't have any fixed cross-overs and had nine-game schedules it would still take four years to play the eight teams in the other division and eight years would elapse between hosting them.  I much prefer the "pod" model where you play each team every three years and host them every six.  
The ability to "rebalance" the performance pods is somewhat limited because:

• Northwestern (North Pod) and Illinois (South Pod) have to be in the same "performance pod" to maintain that instate rivalry.  
• Purdue (North Pod) and Indiana (South Pod) have to be in the same "performance pod" to maintain that instate rivalry.  

Also, even though Wisconsin's and Michigan State's performance over the past six years (your time-frame) has clearly exceeded that of Nebraska and Michigan respectively, I think viewership (which is ultimately all-important) is based as much on "Helmet" as it is on recent performance.  Thus, I think that Nebraska and Michigan are likely to draw more viewers and more stadium attendance.  That is why my version of your "King Performance Pod" was Nebraska, Michigan, Penn State, and Ohio State.  Of the four, only Ohio State has been consistently near the top of the B1G in actual on-field performance for every recent (say last 24 years) six year bloc.  I would ignore that and keep those four as the "King Performance Pod" until MSU's or UW's (or another team's) "helmet" grew to exceed one of the "Kings".  

Finally, we've discussed this before but I think that if Big Jim had any interest in Mizzou they would have joined when they practically begged for a B1G invite before joining the SEC.  Now that they are in the SEC, I don't think that is a direction that the B1G will probably ever go.  

Mizzou was never close to being a member, but I'm not sure why. I've been there and it felt like a Big Ten school and it's AAU.

Maybe we should rethink this without the Pac 12?

Ouch. I can't think of a conference having a worse stint than the Pac this year. There is too much money out there for them to stay at the bottom for long.
I'm in the camp that postseason performance isn't the "be-all-end-all" of performance metrics. But I was really happy when the B1G got snubbed from the postseason they performed so well in the bowls. Interesting each B1G team got bumped down a spot to make room for non-CFP bound OSU except for M*ch*g*n who got bumped up 2 spots. And even it that game UofM looked the better team (until they didn't.) It didn't help the Pac's appearance that 4 of their teams lost to B1G (3 of the 4 in pretty dominant fashion.)
Now for basketball they only got 3 invites?!? I thought the B1G looked bad with only 4, thankfully our 2 lower seeds got wins (sloppy, but wins) yesterday, and MSU and Purdue look really good on paper. I haven't looked deep into it (and hope I don't jinx it) but I expect B1G will have the best performance in the tourney, and that's just playing to their seed, no upsets needed.
Pac will rebound, and rebound fast. Even at this low they have to be closer to the next P5 team than the highest G5 team is to them.

i could not agree more. there is a perfect word for it already in use: divisions.

Well, no a pod is different than a division.  Pods move around to create the divisions.

Mizzou was never close to being a member, but I'm not sure why. I've been there and it felt like a Big Ten school and it's AAU.

Badge, this isn't a difficult riddle to figure out, it was money.  It is always money.  
I seriously questioned Nebraska over Mizzou because I thought the money would be better with Mizzou but I now think I was wrong.  Nebraska is a true Helmet in football with an enormous regional and a decent national following.  Mizzou simply couldn't match that.  
Missouri is a much more populous state than Nebraska (~6.1M vs ~1.9M) but my guess is that Missouri has extremely few out-of-state fans.  Nebraska, on the other hand, has tons of out-of-state fans such as @FearlessF .  Even in my little town in Ohio I've seen at least two houses flying Cornhusker flags on gamedays.  
Nebraska is a special case because, as a Helmet, they have a loyal following much larger than simply population demographics would suggest.  Outside of cases like that, conference expansion/realignment is mostly based on population.  

• Missouri is at 6.1M and growing anemically.  
• Maryland is at 6M and growing faster than Missouri.  
• New Jersey is at 9M and growing faster than Missouri.  
• Virginia is at 8.5M and growing rapidly.  
• North Carolina is at 10.3M (just passed Michigan) and growing rapidly.  

I believe, based on this, that the B1G's next targets (and there will be next targets) will be in VA and NC.  My best guess remains UVA and UNC.  

Bottom line:  Missouri makes sense but UVA and UNC make dollars, millions and billions of dollars.