Conference realignment

[Da Coach]

The 3 commissioners from the Big Ten, ACC, and Pac-12 announced late yesterday that they have formed an "Alliance" which aims to "stabilize a volatile environment" in college football. The details are scarce, and so far there are only verbal agreements, no contracts, and nothing in writing, but some of the comments I heard are that they claim this is necessary to "save college football" from the actions of the SEC poaching Texas and Oklahoma from the Big-12.
Oddly, the Big-12 was not involved at all in this "Alliance". That might to be somewhat of a death knell for what is left of the Big-12.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-fo...-sec-back-off/
https://www.espn.com/college-footbal...nt-environment

As always, this move is mostly about football, mainly FBS, which is where the schools get most of their revenue. However, it will have a significant effect on lower-level football schools and on non-football schools.
How will this affect the mid-major schools like Bradley? Hard to say at this early stage, but another comment from the 3 commissioners yesterday was that "the scheduling component for football and women's and men's basketball will begin as soon as practical while honoring current contractual obligations."
This suggests the "Alliance" will lead to more scheduled games in men's and women's basketball among the members of these 3 Power Conferences (Big 10, ACC, & Pac-12), which would obviously lead to fewer chances for mid-majors to get games scheduled against the big boys, and few, if any, chances for mid-majors to appear on national TV.
It's possible that in time the 68-team NCAA tournament will evolve and contain fewer, maybe no, mid-major at-large teams, and possibly could even be modified to include fewer mid-major auto-bids. IMO, there is no way this is good for the mid-majors.

[Scoretable]

i think it is time for a separation. Power 5 conferences play each other during season and stage their own NCAA tournament. It will become the NBA division 2,
and look like the NBA model, which has sacrificed team play. Mid majors compete during basketball season and stage their own NCAA
tournament. The product could be more attractive by necessity, and include more team play.. NCAA will want to help, as their power position is slipping.

The 8 seed Loyola win over number 1 seed Illinois in NCAA 2021 tournament can be used as my example. A better team coached team easily outplayed a team loaded with power 5 players. I know, anecdotal!

[bradleyfan124]

i think it is time for a separation. Power 5 conferences play each other during season and stage their own NCAA tournament. It will become the NBA division 2,
and look like the NBA model, which has sacrificed team play. Mid majors compete during basketball season and stage their own NCAA
tournament. The product could be more attractive by necessity, and include more team play.. NCAA will want to help, as their power position is slipping.

The 8 seed Loyola win over number 1 seed Illinois in NCAA 2021 tournament can be used as my example. A better team coached team easily outplayed a team loaded with power 5 players. I know, anecdotal!

I think that's the wrong course of action. That is what the power Conferences want. They want the separation of what they think are the money schools ( elite) and the Mid - Majors. The NCAA tournament would lose its attractiveness. People like to see the big boys get knocked to reality when they get beat. David versus Goliath. Keep it as is. I think you will see the Big boys devour themselves in greed fighting among each other. All the good players cant all play at the "Big Schools". There are enough good players to go around so the smaller schools can still be successful

[houstonbrave]

I am not a legal expert by any way but wouldn’t the conferences getting together to agree not to schedule mid majors be an antitrust violation ?

[Da Coach]

I am not a legal expert by any way but wouldn’t the conferences getting together to agree not to schedule mid majors be an antitrust violation ?

The NCAA argued they were exempt from anti-trust laws in the recent case involving Name, Image, and Likeness rules. The Supreme Court didn't buy it.
I am not a lawyer, either, but I am not sure this scheduling issue would fall under the same kind of scrutiny. Schools and conferences have always had the rights to determine who they schedule. The way I see it, it wouldn't be much different than the rules that every conference has that require members to play each other member twice a year. In this case, their Alliance would dictate they play a certain number of games against members of the other Alliance conference teams. Right now, there are a number of conferences involved in "challenge series" against other conferences. It seems they could frame this similar to that.

[64NIT]

Basketball will evolve into two sub-classes within D-1, like what football has, and there will be two championship tournaments with most of the attention going to the high majors. This will be an unfortunate development for mid-majors.

[bradleyfan124]

Basketball will evolve into two sub-classes within D-1, like what football has, and there will be two championship tournaments with most of the attention going to the high majors. This will be an unfortunate development for mid-majors.

It will be an unfortunate development for all of college basketball

[Da Coach]

Basketball will evolve into two sub-classes within D-1, like what football has, and there will be two championship tournaments with most of the attention going to the high majors. This will be an unfortunate development for mid-majors.

That seems like one of the most likely outcomes, but there are others.
Regardless of what happens over the next few years, almost certainly the NCAA's college basketball revenue will shift more and more to the Power 6 conferences (just as the football revenue already has), and the mid-majors will get less and less. I think we'll see some Di schools drop down or even out of the NCAA, or form a new association. And it seems likely there will be more smaller schools who drop sports, or maybe drop athletic programs altogether.

FCS football is very expensive for those schools who play in that lower division and get little or none of the huge pot of FBS money, and don't get much TV or ticket-sale money. I have to think we'll start seeing mid-major schools dropping football, which will have a domino effect leading to women's sports being dropped.

[64NIT]

With this development by these conferences and with the recent decision to pay/compensate players, the Power 6 conferences will become nothing more than farm teams for the NBA, more so than they already are.

[Da Coach]

Despite rumors, the Pac-12 today announced they will not consider expansion at this time.

https://twitter.com/pac12/status/1430966984393457664

I wonder if this was part of their verbal agreement "Alliance" with the Big Ten & ACC?

[Fetz86]

For the PAC-12 I think it really simply comes down to none of the teams they could reasonably be expected add increase the amount of money each school would get in media rights, and would only add to the travel costs for the non money sports.

[Da Coach]

Update on conference realignment-
The Big 12 added 4 new members- BYU from the West Coast Conference, and Houston, Cincinnati, and University of Central Florida from the American Athletic Conference.

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2021/09/03/big-12-conference-new-schools-join-byu-houston-ucf-cincinnati/5721822001/

Now the AAC is looking to add new members-

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/sports/2021/09/08/big-12-expansion-ucf-houston-cincinnati-byu-aac-commissioner-mike-aresco/5778621001/

[64NIT]

Options for the AAC:

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/options-for-american-athletic-conference-after-cincinnati-houston-and-ucf-leave-aac-to-join-big-12/

[Da Coach]

As the major conferences undergo changes, there are mid-major conference schools looking to change conferences, too.
Austin Peay of the Ohio Valley Conference is reported to be planning to switch to the Atlantic Sun Conference-
https://www.nashvillepost.com/sports...1a166822e.html

APSU becomes the 3rd Ohio Valley Conference team this summer to switch to the Atlantic Sun Conference, joining Jacksonville State and Eastern Kentucky, and it might signal that other OVC teams are looking elsewhere.
The A-Sun Conference is reported to be looking into expanding to as many as 16 schools-

https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/1438847018672304132

And note this comment from the top article linked above-

Should Austin Peay leave, the OVC would be on shaky ground. Belmont and Murray State have long been coveted by the Missouri Valley Conference, and with the Govs bolting to the ASUN, it might not be long before the Bruins and Racers are out the door.

So maybe MVC expansion is in the near future?

[Fetz86]

Let’s go get Murray St, Belmont, Milwaukee, and one more. Lipscomb or Oral Roberts or someone.
Obviously St Louis would be the dream, but I don’t see them leaving the A10 even if it makes more sense. Dayton is the same case. It’s too bad Minnesota only has the one Division 1 school, Minnesota State would fit right in with all the other x-State Universities we have.
Maybe with the AAC’s loses even Wichita St could want to come back, much to their fans dismay . No UConn, Houston, Cincy and they could still lose Memphis if the Big XII goes to 14. Suddenly not such an attractive conference anymore, and having to go all the way to Tampa, Greenville, NC, and Philly makes for some long road trips.
The schools being mentioned as the AAC targets being mostly Mountain West schools and UAB. I don’t see why the MWC schools would be interested at this point.