StevensTechU wrote:Frankly, it's not a matter of what conference we'd like to see the Ducks in. The money is the only thing that's relevant. If Oregon stays in the Pac-12(10), they're going to fall even further behind the B1G and Southeastern Conference schools, which is already a gap of tens of millions of dollars per year.
Yeah, if we can leave, we probably should. It still feels like we'd be outside looking in if we ended up the the Big-12, though. Unless the two conferences did at least partially merge with UA, ASU, Colorado, Oregon, Stanford, Utah and UW joining.
Do that and then have a Big-12 vs ACC matchup for the championship?
How can we possibly close that money gap?
Both Phil Knight and Pat Kilkenny are super successful businessmen. You'd think they could come up with something?
One thought I just had is that moving to the Big-12 would give all teams who left much more national exposure. The Big-12 teams almost all play in Central time, so half of the teams would be playing in that time zone every week. For those that aren't, the fans of the existing Big-12 teams will surely stay awake to watch their team if they're on the road in Pacific Time.
Also, that would also give us more late night exposure on the east coast because of the one hour time difference between Eastern and Central Times.
There may be ways to pull this off. Create and sell a Big-12 network (that would include Pac-12 schools) and make it available as part of a cable package.
In addition, make a point of scheduling several games per year from the new Big-12 with Big-10, SEC and ACC schools.
That said, by increasing the level of competition between all conference schools, you'd almost leave the NCAA, or whoever's running the show, no choice but to expand the playoff to at least 8-12 teams.
THAT would bring in a large amount of revenue!
Just thinking out loud.