I've gone on record before, but feel like now that it's inevitable I should reiterate. I don't want the SEC to get bigger. I don't want it now, I don't want it in 2011. Things are copacetic right now. Life is good. Peaches. Why scramble the eggs when you're used to eating omelettes?
But there's at least a 50-50 chance that by this time next week we'll all be talking about the SECs new landscape. So stick these in your pipe.
- Keep in mind that this all started because there's one conference made up of 12 teams that couldn't function together. The SEC decision will come out of ONE place, the SEC office. In the midwest on the other hand you have schools working against each other, different vantage points, different levels of satisfaction with their current situation. Perhaps most importantly, you have athletic departments in vastly different areas of wealth/debt.
- Fact - Texas has the biggest draw AND THEY AIN'T COMIN'. Slive should just back away from the table and let the little boys try and win this insignificant pot. TAMU, OU, Missouri and Baylor are small stacks. Live to play another day.
- Once the Pac-1X and Big Televen 2.0 finish expanding, isn't there a chance they end up contracting? Sure, the money may add up initially. But how much is the Nebraska AD gonna like cutting checks to cover the womens' softball team to travel all the way to Columbus OH as opposed to...Lubbock? And how about the Okie State AD in the same situation with his golf teams heading out for Eugene OR as opposed to Lincoln NE?
- Many argue that Slive needs to focus not on the here and now, but on ten years from now. Expansion is the future they say. Well, what evidence is there that these supermegasupreme conferences will work? Is a Pac-1X with Texas and Oklahoma better than the SEC? Is the Big Televen 2.0 with Nebraska and Louisville better than the SEC? If you answered yes, Nurse Ratched will be around with your lithium shortly.
- Others argue in favor of expansion simply because it leads to the next inevitable step, a playoff. I'm against that as well, but would rather not turn this into a bash the BCS post. Just because the BCS is bad for college football doesn't mean the bowls are. I'll be the first to admit I'm a traditionalist, and if everyone would just take a step back we'd all realize that somewhere along the way we lost the fact that this isn't the NFL and it's actually okay that over a hundred teams aren't the champion. (And really...would a playoff take away the gray area? Would it create the undisputed champion everyone craves?)
- Come on Dawgs. Do you really want ACC teams in our backyards? Or hand me down Big XII teams? Does it help the conference to have coaches like Beamer, Fisher and Mike Sherman racking up frequent flyer miles going to the fertile HS campuses more than they are now? And don't even get me started on the nerds. They sell out their stadium once every other year and you want them in the Southeastern Conference? Take your head and slam it against the North Avenue ticket office window until you get a clue.
- In the end this all just smells like the SEC copping a squat just because Jim freakin' Delaney pulled his pants down. The SEC ain't broke. Leave the tinkerin' to the little boys who still can't recruit a kid who can outrun his momma. Leave the fixin' to the conferences sick of hearing about their teams operating in the red. We're operating from a position of strength. We're hitting on all cylinders.
In short, put the wrench down Commish. After all, those others making headlines are the ones trying to catch up to the bar we've already set. College Station is a road I used to live off of. It's not an away conference game venue.
That's my three cents. What's yours?
Some other readings I'd recommend as we wait this weekend out:
That's my three cents. What's yours?
Some other readings I'd recommend as we wait this weekend out:
- cocknfire's summation
- Mr. SEC has been all over it, but here Pennington ponders the toughness of the SEC
- And The Wiz writes about one of the more interesting sidenotes to all this expansion stuff, the demise of the Big XII
- And our friend Exile puts Nebraska's decision under a microscope
4 comments:
Couldn't agree more! Thanks for putting this out there!
Not that it matters, but I'm pretty sure Lincoln, NE is about the same distance from Lubbock, TX and Columbus, OH. Certainly it has to be comparable to Austin, TX. However, I understand your point.
Nebraska to the Big 10 is Brilliant. It is a long time coming and is completely due to UT's desire to maximize their revenue without being smart enough to understand how to "lift all boats."
Really - This whole mess makes me appreciate the revenue sharing structure that the SEC has had in place. I don't want change, but if change must come (and it is inevitable because the revenue pie ain't getting bigger - only our slice getting smaller)then the SEC is best positioned to protect both our near term and long term revenue.
It will be interesting to see what UT does on Tuesday/Wednesday. We'll see how smart they have become. I don't really want UT in the SEC, but from UT's perspective they fit much better into the SEC's revenue model than the PAC-10's.
Partial agreeance. There's no need to rush, but at the same time, we (the SEC) don't need to be completely idle, either. My main hope is that if Mike Slive decides to move, he does so in a way to preserve rivalries as much as possible. Nothing against Texas A & M, but it is going to take awhile to get a fire in my belly about them. We already have fires about GiT, Clempscum, and others, and these folks already recruit locally. Much has been made about TV markets, but imo, we market nationally anyway, and the only school that would truly add to our TV appeal is ND and they ain't coming south.
I agree wholeheartedly on the expansion craze but not because I am a traditionalist. There is simply no reason for the SEC to expand. The Big 11 and Pac 10 needed to expand because quite frankly their product was subordinate to that of the SEC (and the Big 12 IMO).
I've been trying to figure out the magic of 16 teams in a conference and I'm yet to understand what makes that number so compelling.
The Big 11 is fine on the revenue side because they have their own network and if the SEC does anything, I think that should be their #1 priority.
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