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

FWIW, going back 50 years doesn't change things much vs going back 30 years.  Here are NC's:


Bama has "only" twice as many as anybody else instead of "more than" twice as many as anybody else and going by league the SEC still dominates albeit not by as much:

• 19 SEC, 6 schools
• 16 ACC, 6 schools (includes 4 NC's by ND)
• 9 B1G, 4 schools
• 7 PAC, 3 schools
• 5 B12, 2 schools
• 1 G5, 1 school

And if you count TX and OU among the SEC you get:

• 24 SEC, 8 schools
• 33 everybody else, 14 schools

Once again winning percentage tells a slightly different story:

The SEC dominates NC's but only has one of the top-7 most consistently good programs. 

Since some here might be curious, the highest winning percentage programs over the last 50 years not to win an NC are:

• #19 aTm
• #20 VaTech
• #22 WVU
• #23 ASU
• #24 Toledo
• #25 Wisconsin
• #26 UCLA
• #27 Oregon
• #28 Arkansas
• #29 Fresno St

if ESPN and FOX really want to hurt NBC, they simply exclude ND playing games with their teams

Bowlsby is the captain of the Titanic. Does it matter at this point if he publicly yells at the iceberg?

I’m wondering if the Sooners or Longhorns will have 17 penalties rung up in one game by Big 12 officials.

As has been pointed out, Notre Dame and USC are really the only schools the B1G could add that would move the needle.  Because they're the only two helmet schools left, that are not already in either the SEC or the B1G.

I know a lot of B1G fans are tired of hearing about Notre Dame, but my #1 priority would be to get the domers into the fold. 

Moreseo now than even a week ago, the idea of a mega-conference playoff is very much in the cards.  And if the B1G and the SEC decide to split and form their own playoff, there is no reason at all they would need to include a provision for independents.  There's way more pressure on ND to join a conference now than there ever has been before.

Pulling in PAC schools like USC seems weird, but these are strange times.  I have no doubt that conversations between the B1G and those two, plus probably others, are currently underway.

Well, you're talking about moving the needle when it comes to helmets. 

There's another needle, and it's called TV screens. 

We act like that's not important any more, because of cord-cutting and the decrease in traditional pay-TV subscribers. And yes, traditional pay-TV, which was 100M a few years back, is down to 75M households. 

But I'd highlight a few things:

• 75M households is still a GIGANTIC number.
• About half of that decline, a little less than 12M, has been made up by streaming live TV services. They're not geography-dependent like cable, but that means TV rights are still valuable.
• The group least likely to cut the cord completely (as opposed to cord switching, which is what streaming live TV is) are sports fans. I'd venture to say that the difference between that original 100M households and the current ~87M households subscribing to a live TV service is mostly fans who didn't care about sportsball and weren't watching it anyway.

So while the importance of cable subscribers is diminished, it's not destroyed.

So look at the options:

USC/UCLA: Gets you in front of 18.8M, not even counting San Diego (which I'd argue may end up being included, and is another 3.3M). 
Stanford: Gets you another 7.8M in the Bay Area
Oregon: Probably gets you in front of the entire state of 4.8M
Washington: Probably gets you in front of the entire state of 7.6M, but even if it just got you Sea-Tac it would be almost 5M.
Colorado: Would certainly get you the Denver area which is 3.6M, but possibly all of Colorado which is 5.8M

Go big and you get a combined area with a population of up to 48M people depending on how you slice it up...

That's $$$, and you don't need to limit to legitimate "helmets" to do it.

Well, you're talking about moving the needle when it comes to helmets.

There's another needle, and it's called TV screens.

We act like that's not important any more, because of cord-cutting and the decrease in traditional pay-TV subscribers. And yes, traditional pay-TV, which was 100M a few years back, is down to 75M households.

But I'd highlight a few things:

• 75M households is still a GIGANTIC number.
• About half of that decline, a little less than 12M, has been made up by streaming live TV services. They're not geography-dependent like cable, but that means TV rights are still valuable.
• The group least likely to cut the cord completely (as opposed to cord switching, which is what streaming live TV is) are sports fans. I'd venture to say that the difference between that original 100M households and the current ~87M households subscribing to a live TV service is mostly fans who didn't care about sportsball and weren't watching it anyway.

So while the importance of cable subscribers is diminished, it's not destroyed.

So look at the options:

USC/UCLA: Gets you in front of 18.8M, not even counting San Diego (which I'd argue may end up being included, and is another 3.3M).
Stanford: Gets you another 7.8M in the Bay Area
Oregon: Probably gets you in front of the entire state of 4.8M
Washington: Probably gets you in front of the entire state of 7.6M, but even if it just got you Sea-Tac it would be almost 5M.
Colorado: Would certainly get you the Denver area which is 3.6M, but possibly all of Colorado which is 5.8M

Go big and you get a combined area with a population of up to 48M people depending on how you slice it up...

That's $$$, and you don't need to limit to legitimate "helmets" to do it.

I don;t really dispute anything you say, I was speaking mostly from the viewpoint of "power and prestige" which still do matter-- a lot-- to the Selection Committee.

But if you want to talk TV sets, well then, sure, sort of.  Except we already know that people along the West Coast just don't watch college football like they do across the rest of the country.  It's not a slight, there's a lot of other great stuff to do out there, but the fact remains that those PAC programs just aren't turning on TV sets-- and the networks absolutely know this.  The ratings speak for themselves.

But that doesn't mean the B1G shouldn't pursue any of those teams, it just means there is a serious attenuation-- a highly downward sloped diminishing return-- on any presumed television eyeballs in all of the PAC states.

not with what we are paying them

This is funny.
In store for some interesting times the longer this runs on.

As has been discussed in the before time, a 16-team conference can be split into 4 pods and can be scheduled so that every team plays all the others every other year. 
9 game conf schedule of:
the other 3 teams in your pod (every year)
2 from each of the other 3 pods one year, the other 2 from each pod the next
3 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 9
You see everyone else every 2 seasons
You play at your place and their place every 4 seasons
.
I doubt the SEC would do this, as it makes too much sense.  Plus, the pods would be all wacky if the original 4 schools held the rest of the conference hostage again (although Tennessee might not want to play Alabama every year anymore).
If those 4 did insist on being in a pod together (AL, AU, UT, UGA), it would leave Florida with Carolina, Vandy, and Kentucky.
Texas, OU, A&M, and Arky would be a pod.
That would leave LSU with OM, MSU, and Missou, which would be a casserole, basically.
.
Or people might insist LSU and Florida are in a pod, and you'd be left with some kind of toilet bowl pod remaining.

Pods of 4 must play double round-robin schedules within the pod.


"A conference with subdivisions of four members must conduct double round-robin competition within each subdivision, plus a postseason tournament, to determine its champion."

https://web3.ncaa.org/lsdbi/bylaw?ruleId=9206