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Post by BeachbytheBay on Aug 7, 2023 16:52:21 GMT -5
I do wonder if they were approached by the Big Ten and said they weren't interested. Or that they were a package deal with Cal. You're right. People tune into Stanford. do they really tune in to Stanford, or does Stanford benefit from the games they schedule (USC, CAl, ND being 3 big guaranteed draws every year) - if all the teams just below scheduled ND every year, I suspect they might be #2 in the Pac-12
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 7, 2023 16:53:38 GMT -5
I would argue the reason Notre Dame is a national football brand is because they are a very famous and successful program which dominated college football in multiple generations and have spent the last 30 years playing all their games on national television. The basis of that goes back to the 20s and has strong ties to the Catholic fanbase, which still forms the large proportion of its alumni donors. You do not understand what a hold it has in the urban NE. It is literally the only football team most folks actually follow (maybe besides PSU). One can make the case that the reason there has been no traditional football power in the NE is because of ND. That also explains why the ties to California - since a lot of the fanbase migrated out there. Right. Notre Dame didn't dominate college football in multiple generations or have all its home games on national TV in a vacuum. Being the de facto university of many of the Catholics in the country had a lot to do with it. I would also argue that the Big Ten (led by Michigan and Fielding Yost) excluding Notre Dame was actually the best thing that ever happened to their football program, as it forced them to play all over the country, which dramatically grew their brand. If Notre Dame was accepted into the Big Ten 100 years ago, I don't think they would have become what they are today. I think Notre Dame's annual rivalry with USC is also part of the reason that both schools got so big. So really, they should probably thank the Big Ten in a weird way. But given that their exclusion was done out of malice, I can understand why they don't seem to want to let it go and have repeatedly fended off the Big Ten's advances.
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Post by surfvolleypolojock77 on Aug 7, 2023 16:56:05 GMT -5
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Post by BeachbytheBay on Aug 7, 2023 16:56:30 GMT -5
There's no way Stanford has the 14th-largest fanbase in the country. If they did, they'd have been invited to the Big Ten already. There may be a lot of people in the Bay Area, but not that many of them care about college football, much less Stanford football. also, why was Arizona such a big draw to the Big 12? probably the basketball aspect is my guess
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Post by surfvolleypolojock77 on Aug 7, 2023 16:57:36 GMT -5
The ACC makes the most sense as both Stanford and Cal both have the sports as what they have compared to the Big 10. It will be a coast to coast team.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 7, 2023 16:59:50 GMT -5
There's no way Stanford has the 14th-largest fanbase in the country. If they did, they'd have been invited to the Big Ten already. There may be a lot of people in the Bay Area, but not that many of them care about college football, much less Stanford football. also, why was Arizona such a big draw to the Big 12? probably the basketball aspect is my guess I think it was a combination of basketball and the desire to have another western school. Also, unlike Arizona State and Utah (two questionable additions in my view, and I'm doing my best to compartmentalize my disdain for Utah from my analysis), Arizona seems to want to be in the Big 12.
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Post by surfvolleypolojock77 on Aug 7, 2023 17:01:29 GMT -5
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Post by surfvolleypolojock77 on Aug 7, 2023 17:38:37 GMT -5
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Post by sclawman on Aug 7, 2023 19:03:47 GMT -5
The ACC makes the most sense as both Stanford and Cal both have the sports as what they have compared to the Big 10. It will be a coast to coast team. The Atlantic Coast Conference makes the "most sense" for Stanford and Cal. I understand your point, but it's still insane when you think about it
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Post by surfvolleypolojock77 on Aug 7, 2023 20:33:00 GMT -5
The ACC makes the most sense as both Stanford and Cal both have the sports as what they have compared to the Big 10. It will be a coast to coast team. The Atlantic Coast Conference makes the "most sense" for Stanford and Cal. I understand your point, but it's still insane when you think about it Cal and Stanford W LAX and Field Hockey teams travel to the East Coast frequently. So other sports can experience it as well
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Post by slxpress on Aug 7, 2023 21:37:20 GMT -5
Here’s leadership in action, folks.
I don’t really know what he’s supposed to say or do, but this is such a blinding glimpse of the obvious I don’t really know what to do with it other than be completely dismissive.
“Charlie Baker has made an official statement about the NCAA conference realignment situation.
The NCAA president released the statement to Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated and called the recent developments concerning.
‘I share concerns about the impact that the recent spate of conference realignment activities will have on student-athletes' well-being," Baker said in the statement. "The recent conference moves highlight what I found during my review of the issues facing the NCAA—the growing gap between well-resourced Division I schools and the rest of the division is highly disruptive for all of D-I and college sports overall. I believe D-I university and college presidents, commissioners and the NCAA should work together to explore ways to address the impact this growing gap is having on student-athlete well-being and the competitive equity issues across the division.’”
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Post by tomclen on Aug 7, 2023 21:39:38 GMT -5
They really don't want the brands to have anything to do with geography. That's why they just call it the PAC12 or the ACC or the WAC. They never call it the Pacific Athletic Conference or the Western Athletic Conference, just the acronyms.
The brass at the schools want to get as much money as they can. And they assume that having a national brand will always bring in more money. And the people in the media tell them that, so that the people in the media can always make more money.
Did any of the state-owned or state-supported schools do any surveys or focus groups to see what their customers think?
Did they ask the people who donate and buy season tickets, the parents who pay outrageous tuitions? Or even the people who watch games on TV?
I've heard you can only squeeze so many eggs out of the golden goose.
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Post by davethecoug on Aug 7, 2023 21:53:49 GMT -5
I may be a Washington State University Homer, but Wazzu has more media value than many people on this forum are willing to admit.
In n00b's post above, Wazzu had the 6th highest TV viewers in the Pac-12 from 2015-2019. And I recently read that WSU also had the 6th highest TV viewers in 2022.
According to Wikipedia, the population in the state of Washington is approx. 7.8 million. That is more than many/most Big-12 states (including Colorado, Utah, and Arizona).
The University of Washington does not have a lock on college sports fans in Washington. People (and media) often imply that UW "owns" the Seattle media market (Seattle is never listed as a WSU media market). But the situation is not so simple. During Pac-12 Network broadcasts of matches between UW and WSU in Seattle, the PBP broadcasters often comment that there are a lot of WSU fans in the arena that must have traveled from Eastern Washington or Pullman. The fact is that all those WSU fans live and work in the Seattle Metro area. A majority of WSU's student population is from western Washington and the largest WSU Alumni base is also in western Washington. Hence, the reality is that Seattle sports fans follow both schools. UW is certainly more popular in the state, but WSU is still very popular in all corners of the state.
For those that don't want to go through all the pictures, the data is as follows:
1. Washington State University 22,700
2. Seattle Seahawks 18,661
3. Law Enforcement Memorial 11,755
4. University of Washington 11,127
19. Seattle Sounders FC 2,210
22. Seattle Mariners 1,793
23. Gonzaga University 1,635
24. Eastern Washington University 1,505
Many people on this forum like to disrespect Washington State University due to it's small town and remote location. But the Population of the State of Washington, dedication of fans, and the spread of fans across the state makes for a more complex media calculation.
The current situation is certainly sad for me. Let's hope that WSU lands somewhere that allows them to compete and that they don't take too big a financial hit so that they are able to keep the majority of coaches and staff. Then... we'll see what happens in the next round of Conference Realignment.
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Post by bbg95 on Aug 7, 2023 22:11:40 GMT -5
Catholic, sure. Northern, not really. Notre Dame is a national brand. Their current pseudo-conference has a lot of schools in the South. OK, you are right that ND football is a national brand because of the link to catholicism and there are catholics everywhere. But the core fanbases are concentrated in the Northeast and upper tier of the Midwest, where Catholics (particularly of european heritage) predominate. They will want to keep playing Navy, and one of the Michigan's or Purdue, maybe Northwestern, every year, plus probabl yone other midwestern team. They will want to keep playing USC and Stanford, as well as different high profile teams all over the country because they are a national catholic brand. They don't want to be tied-down to a specific region or a specific set of opponents beyond that precisely because they are national, and they are particularly not going to want to be tied to a region that is not predominately catholic. The SEC is a proudly and totally a southern conference. Great football, crazy fanbases, but it's too restrictive in it's geographic footprint for ND and catholics are not common in the SE at all. More importantly, ND football doesn't need the SEC, or the B1G, until the issues mentioned in that post above start to be real. The other sports, the national brand is less of a concern and the local fanbase is more important. I can't remember why they left the Big East - but I do remember the whole conference kind of went through a convulsion due to mismanagement. I think they like the ACC because they still get to play BC, Syracuse and Pitt which are traditional northeast rivals from the Big East - as was Miami in the later years. UNC, Duke, Virginia all have strong fanbases in the NE as well and have good programs. The ACC is the closest thing to a top notch NE conference as you can get. I think ND likes decoupling their football from their other sports. I don't agree that the ACC is a "northeastern conference" when 11 of its 15 schools are in the South. I agree that Notre Dame doesn't want to be restricted to one region. They don't want to be in a conference for football at all. The ACC deal gives them the flexibility to fill out the rest of their schedule how they want. As for why they left the Big East, it was likely due to the instability of that conference at the time, as it was raided by the ACC. As for perennial opponents, I think the only ones that Notre Dame truly cares about are USC and Navy. Notre Dame seems to deeply care about history. Both USC and Navy were there for them in their time of need, and they haven't forgotten that. I think they only play Stanford for convenience, and UCLA could replace them.
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Post by horns1 on Aug 7, 2023 22:27:59 GMT -5
There's no way Stanford has the 14th-largest fanbase in the country. If they did, they'd have been invited to the Big Ten already. There may be a lot of people in the Bay Area, but not that many of them care about college football, much less Stanford football. also, why was Arizona such a big draw to the Big 12? probably the basketball aspect is my guess Low-hanging fruit. While Colorado was the first PAC school to accept a Big 12 invitation, they were previously a member. Arizona has been a member of the PAC for decades; getting them to bolt was the first domino which would open the floodgates for other PAC schools to follow. In all honesty, the pickings were slim for Big 12 expansion. I think the additions of Colorado, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah were the best they could do based on geography, state institutions, and who needed a new home and didn't snub their noses at the invitation.
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