I think we'd still invent heroes in college athletics. So you remove the cream of the crop, in our eyes, we'd still immortalize the guys who win on the NCAA level, even if they don't end up as all-pros at the next level. For example, the best of the best in basketball go pro immediately... we still make huge deals/folk heroes out of guys that play and succeed in college. But I can see where the casual fan interest would drop off.
Just to be clear - my comments are entirely about the entertainment value of college football, as opposed to fairness/etc. I agree with A_3PO on college basketball too - I think keeping players for 2 or 3 years would be great for the sport. Not necessarily fair, but great for my personal entertainment value.
Agree completely....it is semantics at this point. I'm more interested in seeing if this is Mizzou leaking this to see if the Big 10 will get off it's ass and invite them. I don't think there's much question Mizzou prefers Big 10 to SEC.
Academically, yes. But the athletic people are pretty sold on the SEC, and Mizzou's success is rooted in Texas and Southern recruiting. I don't think it's a slam dunk what they'd do, if both offered. By the way, breaking story from the Oklahoman: http://newsok.com/source-removal-of...article/3605958?custom_click=headlines_widget If you think about it, it makes sense, and obviously goes along with what Max is hearing. The biggest issue with the Big 12 has been poor leadership from Beebe. If he's out, and equal revenue sharing can be agreed on, and you could pluck, say, West Virginia and Louisville (weakened Big East) along with BYU... there's no reason that league couldn't thrive. We'll see.
Are you hearing anything about WVU being a target for the Big 12? To me, that's a potentially big get (bigger than BYU) that could sell folks on a reformed Big 12 being legitimate. They're obviously shopping themselves, given weakened Big East...
absolutely. WVU has been torched by ACC and SEC...told they're not going to be invited there, under any circumstances. I hear of targets, though...nothing definite...WVU is always in top 3 targets i hear...along with BYU and probably Louisville. i was told a while ago that "assuming OU commits to stay, BYU would join tomorrow if they got an invite."
... And finally, members of the Big XII are getting to the heart of the issue with Dan Beebe and one member having control over the conference. The Source in that article is right in that it has already cost the conference Texas A&M because we already have both feet out the door and are not looking back. That said, if A&M wasn't considered a cry-baby months ago when all these issues were brought up and other member institutions had the fortitude to stand up in protest alongside A&M, these "changes" could have happened long ago and we could have made the conference stronger a long time ago. That truly is a leadership issue from Dan Beebe down to the other member institutions. Too little too late for A&M, but if Texas makes these concessions and they get a leader that does not serve one institution alone, they might just save the Big XII at the last possible moment and keep it a top tier conference.
WVU is the biggest market in the country that hasn't been claimed (outside of Notre Dame). You instantly get a perenially ranked football and basketball program. If they pull that off (with say BYU and/or TCU), then the Big 12 starts to look pretty damn good.
yeah, the non-Texas schools need to back the crap up on the "we don't want another texas school" argument. adding BYU, WVU and TCU would be huge...a better alternative to adding BYU, WVU and Louisville. i would be thrilled with that.
Yup. West Virginia and BYU aren't quite A&M and Nebraska in prestige, but their on-field results over the past decade are every bit as quality. I think you need both, but if you can pull it off, along with equal revenue sharing and a new commissioner... I think it's better for the big schools (MU included) than going elsewhere.
Well, there's a reason why nobody's clamoring to claim WVU's market; I could cite demographics but I'd rather just allude to the opening portions of Silence of the Lambs. Heh...Texas A&M's 1 top 25 finish in 10 years is a tough one to match.
I just like the pagentry and tradition attached to college football. Yes it fading away fairly rapidly with the dissolution of rivalries and overwhelming control of TV dollars, but it is still there to some extent. Those are the things that made me a college football and why I switched as a kid when the Oilers left from NFL to college. I do realize that money/payment issue litter the entire swath of college football even into the "golden years", and it will be difficult for a NCAA without more power to truly find rule breakers and level the playing field, but for every player and story about a rule breaker there are numerous stories of student athletes getting a chance to shine when no one expected them to our while facing extreme odds. I just don't feel that will be as present in a "semi-pro league". On top of that semi-pro leagues/minor are very, very expensive. MLB gets away with them by paying those players very little and giving them extremely little health benefits. I seriously doubt on average most teams do much better than breaking even. The NFL also has an age limit for a reason, because it is very hard for a younger person to stand up to the grind of the NFL and to hope that with the age comes some level of maturity that the money invested in the player won't be lost. How do you that for younger players than 21? A semi-pro league would likely involve more strenuous workouts than college which require the facilities, trainers, nutrionists, etc greater than colleges provide. But to how to minimize the stress on the players so that they do not have shorter NFL careers? These are not easy questions to answer, and all the answer would require a very large investment by whomever does this. A semi-pro league would only make money if it had TV time, and there is no way the NFL would allow it to occur in the fall. For whatever reason, multiple "semi pro leagues" in the spring have failed. The AFL has survived, but how much of a money maker is it really? Even with "better athletes" in the league prior to the draft, there is little to suggest to me that such a league would be highly profitable in the spring. You may try to say the semi-pro league could be done be university-sponsored. But this provides a huge issue because these are state run institutions, so they can not be "for profit" businesses and have to abide by all the regulations that come with state institutions. You think all the state legislatures will allow the universities equal footing? Combine that football pays for all other athetic activies and how is that done? If the football program is separate from the NCAA, wouldn't it paying for other athletes and their facilities be against NCAA violations? Wouldn't also go against Title IX violations in donations to different sexes now that 75 male sport positions under the university are lost? There are so many issues that come into play with semi pro leagues that make them not feasible, ill-conceived and lose the charm that college sports brings. Now I totally agree that the current NCAA model to approve atheletic scholarships is behind the times entirely. All education funding is still operating on principles prior to the influx of technology and electronic gadgets revolutionizing how teaching and school environments run efficiently. Their payment strategies are behind the times for what an average student truly needs to succeed in class. On top of that, they truly underestimate the stress of a being a student-athlete. I was friends with softball players, soccer, track, equestrian, baseball, and basketball scholarship athletes in college and most of them were the hardest working people I know. Say what you want about how much they went to school and whether they actually had to study, but they had practices/workouts organized by the coaches or not at least 30 hrs a week. They were some of the busiest people I ever saw. You cannot simply pay for their tuition very minimal other aspects of their schooling when these students are effectively working a high-demanding part time job all the time. It is just not feasible.
Holy crap... Pickens sounds about as wacky as me when I post on this forum with all that nutty verbiage.
literally just got an email that said this: West: Texas, Tech, OU, OSU, BYU, Baylor East: Mizzou, KU, KSU, WVU, Louisville, ISU if they choose to go to 14, TCU in the West and Cincy in the East get added. NEW COMMISSIONER IS A FOREGONE CONCLUSION. -- again, none of that is official or "done"....it's just from a very well-placed source.
I say be super aggressive and go to 14. TCU would bolt in a second since the Big East would be all but done. UH over Cincy makes much more sense aside from academics but adding 2 Texas schools won't sit well with the Texas schools.
Nate Silver had a very interesting blog entry on the viewing demographics of college football. Rutgers may have access to New York for example but that doesn't actually make it a great market. Southern markets in the SEC outdraw major city teams in massive numbers in terms of TV viewing. There's a reason why the SEC dominates ratings despite containing schools that aren't exactly in traditional media markets. West Virginia's problem with the ACC is its academics aren't very good and for the SEC, Missouri gives them access to the Midwest. West Virginia also has a pretty bad (and somewhat justified) reputation in terms of the people who follow them. West Virginia may be a nobody school with a poor academic record but they have the largest viewing audience (adjusted for college media markets) of any of the remaining teams in play. Yes its not optimal but you won't find a better team remaining outside of Notre Dame. (which again is another example of a school having a huge media market outside of traditional big cities) This isn't about getting the top markets in the country anymore. It's about getting what remains and keeping the Big 12 together. Texas just wants its tv deal and OU apparently is getting stiffed by the Pac 12 so they might have to settle too. In that case, might as well jump on what remains out there in college football.
That's a good football conference. It's not as good as it was before Nebraska left, but it's better than it was without Nebraska but with Texas A&M. Adding WVU also makes it a more entertaining football conference.
