Major Applewhite out at U of H ?

[Gigem]

All very good points gentlemen, I'm glad that somebody in American can have a civil discussion about a hot topic. 

Did you see that Fox is dropping the Big 12 CCG from their TV packages?  Where will it land?  Would it be on the LHN?   

[longhorn320]

probably ESPN

It was Fox not ABC that dropped the game

[Mr Tulip]

All very good points gentlemen, I'm glad that somebody in American can have a civil discussion about a hot topic.

Did you see that Fox is dropping the Big 12 CCG from their TV packages?  Where will it land?  Would it be on the LHN?  

I don't know exactly what they mean by "dropping". They had the rights to even numbered years, so next year makes no difference. I haven't checked to see if Fox as a company still retains the rights, and they just propose making it regional, or if they're relinquishing it altogether - in which case I'd expect ESPN/ABC to throw in a couple of pennies to buy up the missing years before then.
It may be dawning on them that a CCG for a round robin league is a flawed idea, and that no one outside of the immediate fan base is interested.

[BrownCounty]

why do you think Texas or OU would leave the B12?  And where would they go?

Exactly...

* The PAC idea is losing stock every year.  Arizona schools would likely come this way first.
* The SEC is likely the most sensible for money and geography, but the competition would be brutal.
* The B1G is fine for academic elitists, and easier for Texas to dominate on the field - but we play baseball, not hockey.  And so much for neighboring rivalries.
* The ACC.  Uh, no.  We're not going to fly over the SEC.

So that's leaves staying with the B12.  Which seems more likely now that before.  If Nebbie and Arky would defect and come over, I would be fine.  If it stays the way it is now, yawn.

Texas leaving the B12 is not a done deal like we used to think.  But I do trust Del Conte.

[CousinFreddie]

For some related reasons, I don't see Oklahoma leaving the XII any time soon either.  Of course, I'm just some fan over here on the east coast and have no idea what the OU brass are thinking, but this is just how it occurs to me.  The Sooners continue to have competitive matchups with several XII rivals, and they are either old Big 8 rivals or newer SWC rivals (that were always kind of in the background, e.g. all those games with TCU prior to the Frogs joining the XII).  So, that's nice; it's always good to keep those rivalries alive.  But ... what's really important is how well OU has done lately overall.

I mean, let's face it, OU has won four straight conference titles in the XII and been in the playoffs now 3 times out of 5 years that CFP has been going.  It'd be nice to see them actually win one of these playoff games of course, but at least they've played them competitively (if one overlooks the 2nd half vs Clemson 3 years ago, and the 1st quarter vs Bama this time).  Last year was probably the biggest miss.  We had Baker and were every bit as good as any of the other playoff teams - but just didn't win the UGa OT, durn it all.

The salient point is - would OU fare better than this in a different conference?  Highly doubtful.  I think that's the main metric.  I don't really think keeping rivalries with OSU or Texas are the main concern any more.  It would be a shame to lose either, but I think if Oklahoma saw a better option in another conference, I believe they would go, either with or without Texas or OSU.  It's just that at the moment, there are no better options, and in fact most options look worse. 

[utee94]

The assumption was always, that the B12's financial distributions would lag, and therefore Texas and OU would want to leave.  In reality that hasn't played out.  The B12 financial distributions actually lead both the PAC and the ACC.  They lag behind the B1G and SEC, but as the cable subscriber model erodes and diminishes, that gap will narrow.  And even if it doesn't narrow significantly from where it is today, the switching costs and increased costs of logistics involved in going to ANY other conference, will always make it difficult for Texas to leave, and at least somewhat similarly difficult for OU as well.

If ever the football programs at all schools were decoupled from the other sports, I think we'd probably see some major changes in the conference landscape.  But unless/until that happens, we've likely reached a pretty stable point.  The financial bubble is bursting, cable subscriber model is dying, so the financial incentives for making moves are decreasing pretty quickly.

[utee94]

I don't know exactly what they mean by "dropping". They had the rights to even numbered years, so next year makes no difference. I haven't checked to see if Fox as a company still retains the rights, and they just propose making it regional, or if they're relinquishing it altogether - in which case I'd expect ESPN/ABC to throw in a couple of pennies to buy up the missing years before then.
It may be dawning on them that a CCG for a round robin league is a flawed idea, and that no one outside of the immediate fan base is interested.

The 2018 B12 CCG brought in the second-most viewers out of ALL of the CCGs, behind only the SEC.  So I sincerely doubt it's going to a regional network.  You'd have to think neither OU nor Texas are likely to make the game in the future to believe it won't receive good ratings.  
http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/

[CharleyHorse46]

Nobody on this thread knows for sure how things will shake out.  Some things to consider:

1. The Big 12 CCG did well this year because It was Texas-OU. 70% of the TVs in the Big 12 are in Texas, and the University of Texas is the most popular (and polarizing) Big 12 school in Texas.  OU has a big following too.  If Iowa State and Baylor are in the CCG, only a fraction of the Texas - OU audience is tuning in.

2. There’s no revenue gap for Texas and OU at the moment.  The B1G hands out $51m.  Texas gets $37m in 1st & 2nd Tier plus at least $15m in 3rd Tier.   The SEC hands out $47m.  OU gets $37m plus $9m.  Not enough of a difference to worry about.

3. But what if the gap widens, the LHN contract ends, and the GORs binding the Big 12 goes away.  Tell me Texas and OU wouldn't listen to the B1G.

[utee94]

1) The same is true of ANY conference championship game.  The B1G CCG suffered in 2018 because it had Northwestern in it, but didn't completely tank because Ohio State was there.  But imagine if it were  Northwestern and Indiana?  Imagine if the SEC CCG were Mississippi State and Vanderbilt?  Ratings would suffer similarly.

2,3) The main driver for any "widening" of the revenue gap would come from the conference networks.  But as the cable subscriber model erodes, there's no reason to think that gap will widen, and in fact plenty of reason to believe it will diminish.

[CWSooner]

1.  A CCG after a round-robin season is an abomination.  It's a guaranteed rematch (unlike what teams in the other four P5 conferences necessarily face), which means it devalues the regular-season game.  And a rematch is a bummer for the winner of the first game.  I hated seeing OU lose to Texas in October, but it would have been even worse to have won that one--the traditional rivalry game--only to lose to Texas in the CCG.  I imagine Texas fans felt that way.  I'm sure Nebraska fans felt that way back in '78 when Nebraska beat OU in Lincoln only to receive a rematch in the Orange Bowl as their reward.  IIRC, with 2 weeks to go last November, OU, UT, WVU, and ISU were still in the running for the CCG.  I think I remember that ISU-WVU was a possibility.  And if WVU hadn't tanked, the 'Eers could have been in the CCG vs. either OU or UT.  That would have been better than vs. ISU as a national attraction, but not nearly as good as OU-UT.  As a national game, OU-Texas moves the needle like no other match-up in the Big 12.

2, 3.  I don't have facts at hand to argue the revenue points, but I would hope that if the B1G came calling, or more likely hinting, OU at least would listen and respond with a request for membership.  And not primarily for the football revenue.

It wouldn't kill me if OU and UT ended up in different conferences as long as they agreed to keep the annual game in Dallas.  But I think the B1G would be more likely to hint non-AAU-member OU's way if the potential for a package deal were there.

It also wouldn't kill me if the Big 12 continued to bump along.  But I think WVU is a point of instability.  I'm sure when they joined the Big 12, they anticipated--or at least hoped for--another team or two in the Eastern time zone being added.  Now that that seems to have been nothing but a pipe dream, if I were WVU, I'd be trying to find another home.  Granted, their options seem to be nil, but that doesn't mean that they aren't dreaming of going elsewhere.

[utee94]

Oh I certainly agree with you on the CCG after a roundrobin, C-Dub.  It's stupid and redundant,

But the B12 now fears that the committee doesn't care that a roundrobin creates a more difficult schedule, and doesn't care that playing nine conference games also produces a more difficult schedule than playing eight.  The B12 believed that mumbo jumbo from a few years ago about the committee needing to see a "13th data point" when they actually just wanted to put a helmet school in over TCU or Baylor.  Clearly the committee didn't care about the "13th data point" when they put OU into the CFP in 2015, nor did they care about it this year when they included Notre Dame.  It only matters to them when they're trying to eliminate non-helmets from consideration.

Additionally, the B12 wants the money from a CCG.

So unfortunately it's here to stay.

[Mr Tulip]

Proximity is the bane and unfortunate fact of life in college football. We like stuff that happened recently, and weight it both consciously and unconsciously ahead of all other data points. The Big 12 needs something to get excited about at the end.

Given the current weight of the Big 12's teams, playing TX/OU at the end would be ideal. Since a big part of that game is the Texas State Fair, that isn't an option (nor would I really want that to happen). OU still has Bedlam, and most years that game against oSu has the capability to realign the Big 12 standings. It's good to have it at the end. Really, Texas needs a team like that to play at the end - a decent sized rival with the capability of causing a shift in the standings.

Eliminate the Big 12 CCG and play those two games on "Championship Saturday" right before the final CFP poll. I guess you could extrapolate it out and put all 10 teams in action that day. You're almost certain to end with matchups that might move the needle.

[FearlessF]

Really, Texas needs a team like that to play at the end - a decent sized rival with the capability of causing a shift in the standings.

where are the Aggies when you need them?

[utee94]

where are the Aggies when you need them?

He specified, "with the capability of causing a shift in the standings," and not "a guaranteed win for the Longhorns" so the Aggies aren't really applicable.