Do you think the "new B12" will be a decent conference? Or a group of quasi-midgets battling it out and beating each other to have some 10-3 champion making the playoff?
The B12 is always going to be a stepping stone conference, but it has traditionally produced some pretty good coaching and some very good players. Geographically, where it is situated, with so many Texas schools still involved, it's always going to have access to talent. As for 10-3 champions making the playoff? Yeah it could happen. But I don't really care so much about that. TCU was "unworthy" last year, right up until the point they beat heavily favored Michigan. Turns out "we" don't know much about competition and competitiveness.
The related question will be whether they make enough money to be competitive longer term. With no Blue Blood or Big Dog, would they have enough interest to snag a nice contract?
People actually watch B12 football. That's why it was always going to outlast the PAC-- nobody watches PAC football, nobody cares about it, not even their own fans. I know all of the traditional Big Ten fans on this site poo poo'd me when I kept saying it for the past decade, because of their love of their traditions with the PAC and the Rose Bowl, but post-2011 there was never going to be a scenario where the B12 dissolved and the PAC survived. The ONLY way that would have happened would have been back in 2010, when Texas and 5 other schools were nervous about the future of the B12 and looked westward. But even then, ESPN and Fox knew the true value was in the B12, because that's where the television ratings were, and they offered up contract increases to keep the B12 at least somewhat aligned to the money in the SEC and the B1G (and ahead of both the PAC and ACC).
The B12 is actually stable now, precisely because they have no more brands to poach. Contrast that to the ACC which is currently unstable, because there are still brands that the B1G and SEC are interested in. As long as that's true, then the B12 is actually safer than the ACC. And it's not like the level of competition in the ACC is any better than the B12, in most years it's significantly worse, aside from Clemson-- whose reign seems to be coming to a close. FSU might or might not be good, but they're not enough to save that conference from all of the basketball schools.
Will the B12 be making as much money as the B1G and the SEC? Of course not. Will they be making as much as the ACC? They're
already making more, and contractually will continue to do so for another decade. And then, once the B1G and SEC poach the last remaining desirable brands from the ACC? I don't see any way the ACC can possibly keep up.
But will that be enough for the "New B12" to actually compete with the B1G and SEC, when the deltas in TV contracts reach $50M-$70M
per school, per year? No way. And the ACC will be even further behind. At that point, there will be two definitively separate tiers within FBS/D1-A, even without some manufactured "breakaway."
