Wally also said in that interview that Maryland would "continue to be part of the ACC for many years to come." (so ymmv on what dribbles out of his pie hole) He wasn't the only lawyer in the room when that passed (overwhelmingly), and obviously opinions on its enforce-ability differ. The ACC IS playing hardball and the amount of the fee is currently being litigated (the question really is whether the actual payment is going to $40-50 mil or more like $5-10 mil. since they're obviously going to settle once it's clear where the courts lean). Regardless, there's a payout coming to the ACC and the B1G is loaning the money to Maryland, it's a little bit of a deal sweetener, but it's still money Maryland is going to eventually pay. They're not getting extra money to spend now . . . (nor do they look likely to get out of the red even with the increased revenue, the Maryland AD has the spending discipline of a meth addict)
Supposedly the Big Ten is giving Maryland a travel stipend of between 20 and 30 million. This was negotiated by Kevin Anderson the AD.
Does anyone with their ear to the ground have any insight as to when the final push toward completion of realignment will come about? It's been pretty quiet for over a year on this topic. I am especially interested as any effects on women's soccer. The ACC has 15 schools... when will it make sense to complete the 16? (Connecticut? Vandy?) With the addition of Maryland and Rutgers will the Big 10 be happy at 14 schools? Is the WCC stable at its present ten schools? Is the PAC 12 looking to pluck of a few more?
There are no imminent expansion plans in the WCC. Seattle always seems on the horizon to join, but Gonzaga wants to keep the Seattle TV market for basketball. If Seattle joins, league rules give territorial rights. BYU is dependent on where the football program goes. If they stay happy as Indies, the rest of the sports won't move.
If the Big Ten were to snatch away UNC and Virginia from the ACC (which was their original plan about a year ago), then the Big Ten would be the best conference in the nation for women's soccer. What a powerful 16-team conference that would be (they had 8 programs that made the NCAA tournament last year, now add in Rutgers and Maryland to that, and then UNC and Virginia soon). They'd be Top-heavy with: UNC, Virginia, Maryland, Penn State, Michigan (as they've been very good lately) Middle-heavy with: Nebraska, Rutgers, Illinois, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc. Bottom teams are still competitive: Iowa, Indiana, Michigan State, Purdue, Northwestern But Iowa had a good year last year (as did Indiana). Iowa made it to the Big Ten tournament championship game (Indiana made it to the Semifinal). So the conference already has lots of parity. And you can even argue that Nebraska should be included in the top heavy section, but they need to be more consistent from year to year.
Realignment has mostly settled for a few years, a few teams might move around like BYU, but it won't affect the overall landscape too much. Once the GORs expire in about 10 years we'll see a new round of realignment.
I basically agree with this view, but everything will change if the NLRB (national) affirms the NLRB (Chicago) decision that scholarship athletes are employees of the school and, thus, allowed to form unions.
For what it's worth here is my list of conference moves for 2014: SCHOOL..............OLD CONFERENCE .....NEW CONFERENCE Appalachian.........Southern............Sun Belt Chicago State.......new program.........Western Athletic Colorado College....Conference USA......Mountain West East Tennessee St...Atlantic Sun........Southern Georgia Southern....Southern............Sun Belt Howard..............Independent.........Southwestern Louisville..........American Athletic...ACC Maryland............ACC.................Big Ten Mercer..............Atlantic Sun........Southern Rutgers.............American Athletic...Big Ten Texas-Pan American..new program.........Western Athletic Western Kentucky....Sun Belt............Conference USA
Elon..................Southern............Colonial Davidson.......Southern......Atlantic 10 VMI........Big South...........Southern
I, too, have heard talk of UNC and Virginia making moves to the Big Ten. Honestly, big moves are all about the $$ which means expanding TV markets. Rutgers and Maryland open the NYC and D.C. markets. That is why I happen to think that if the Big Ten were to expand, they would go after NC State and Georgia Tech to expand into the Triangle and Atlanta metro areas. I also don't see the Virgina/Va. Tech and the UNC/Duke rivalries being broken up. Too good for all parties involved. Just one midwesterners opinion, by the way.
I think the ACC Grant of Rights a year ago (last April), pretty much cancelled thoughts of ACC teams going to other conferences indefinitely.
Essentially so, but as I read it schools have granted their TV rights through the 2026-2027 season. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/co...2/acc-grant-of-rights-conference-realignment/
Is the AAC adding any new teams this year. Losing Louisville and Rutgers will put this conference to most likely a one bid conference unless someone upsets UCF in conference tourny. They are left with only 8 schools I think. UCF being the only school left making the tourny and the only school with a decent RPI for an at large. UConn, S Florida, Cincinnati, Memphis, SMU, Temple and Houston are the other 7. Any others coming in? If not this is an average conference.
Will the Big East be adding any teams?? Marquette and Georgetown will carry the RPI for the conference. They need DePaul and St. John's to have the same success this year as they did last year or this could be a 2 conference bid into NCAA tourny. Villanova and PC will look to I prove with new head coaches in place and with their success will come more at large bids for the Big East. These schools need to play a few elite programs to build RPI and give them a chance at a quality win.
You just did a great summary of why the Big East split was a really bad idea, but evidently football and basketball couldn't get along.
The conference reorganizations that started following the 2012 season continued to play out after the 2013 season. Looking only at the 2014 season here are the 2014 regional playing pools I've identified. My system puts teams within the regional pools (which are not entirely geographically based) within which the play either the majority or the plurality of their games: Middle Region: Big 10, Horizon, Mid American, Missouri Valley, Ohio Valley, and Summit conferences, plus St. Louis from the Atlantic Ten conference Northeast Region: America East, Atlantic 10, Big East, Colonial, Ivy, Metro Atlantic, Northeast, and Patriot conferences, plus Temple from the American conference, plus independents Delaware State and NJIT; and less St. Louis from the Atlantic Ten conference Southeast Region: ACC, American, Atlantic Sun, Big South, Big Twelve, Conference USA, SEC, and Southern conferences, plus independents Francis Marion and South Carolina State; and less Temple from the American conference Southwest Region: Southland, Southwestern, and Sun Belt conferences West: Big Sky, Big West, Mountain West, Pac 12, WAC, and West Coast conferences The following table shows the percentages of games each region's teams play against teams from the five regions: These percentages relate to the RPI's problem rating teams from the different regional playing pools within a single national system.
Thank you for assembling the data. As the costs associated with football and men's basketball increase (and some of those costs get mirrored in the non-revenue sports), I would expect the cost pressures on the non-revenue sports to increase and that out-of-conference travel would be an easy target for cost cutting. So, with a few exceptions, in the near future, I would not be surprised to see teams only playing OOC games that were within a bus ride from campus. I would also expect that the conferences where the campuses are widely spread apart to find ways to limit in-conference travel.
That may be true in the East, but out West there just aren't that many teams within a day trip bus ride from Campus. Portland has maybe four or five schools in that category even if you stretch to Washington, a 2 1/2 hour bus trip each way. at The U of Washington, one( SeattleU) unless you count that same trip. The reality is that much past that and you either fly or spend extra days away. That's actually always been an issue when it comes to tournament time and why NW teams have had to travel to areas with a greater density. Oregon is 300 miles N-S and 400 E-W and has 3 D1 teams.
I was interested to see how the conferences do in terms of playing teams outside their regional playing pools. For the regional pools I'm using, see post #119 above. (I've recently edited that post, since I figured out that the Sun Belt teams really are in the Southwest and not the Southeast regional playing pool.) Here's a table that shows the percentages of games the conferences play in the different pools: This illustrates, among other things, how very isolated some of the Northeast regional playing pool's conferences are from teams in the rest of the country.
And it would appear fro your data that the (with the exception of the WAC) the same could be said of West region schools playing the Southwest region.
And the eastern 1/2 of Oregon is a dark skies site, one of the darkest places in the USA. Dry ranchland, no rolling hills of fertile loess piling up since the last Ice Age. Cows can moo (in the dark) and not hear each other ... Probably there's a not-so-weak correlation: U.S. universities serve the local people first, ergo any sufficiently dense population will have a light-polluting, stadium-building, all-night-studying (ahem) campus or two spring up. N.California is almost like that, too