BYU folks do not consider themselves as being located outside of Salt Lake City (smile). They are located in Provo, a completely separate city, not a suburb of Salt Lake City at all. Provo is located about 30 miles from Salt Lake City. To provide a very apt analogy, Notre Dame would probably resent being classified as outside of Chicago. They are located in South Bend, about 30-35 miles from the southeastern Chicago city limits, not a suburb of Chicago....
8-)

First let me say i hope Arkansas stays in the SEC. I have hated them since they undermined the SWC.

If I were the SEC commish would go hard after FSU. If have heard that WVU is a candidate to replace Tulane. they would be soild, but not IMO ideal (I personally hope that the BE splits soon and the football schools cook up a sweet deal and lure Joe Pat and the Nittany Lions into the football only BE---what he wanted 13 years ago.)

I live in Texas and we aren't southeast. We are central but consider ourselves SW. I think TCU would love to get in but the SEC is an extremely well-run conference built of large state schools. While adding a school in Texas would make sense for recruiting, Unlike the MWC it isn't required for the SEC. I can't see TCU getting in.

I could see Clemson though. Their attendence is amazing and they would fit in in the SEC very well IMO. I think they would have more success in the eastern conference of the SEC than in the same division (presumeably) as Miami and FSU.

Memphis or Tulane would be the choices for the SEC. Plus if you replace Arkansas with Memphis, you would add Ole Miss and Miss State a rival. Memphis would help the league out with basketball, and they have the Liberty Bowl in which the SEC could add to their bowl lineup.

Plus Memphis would then laugh at Louisville and Cincinnati for getting into a better conference.

I think you have to be very careful about splitting markets up.

Memphis adds a third Tennessee school. Would the SEC gain much as far as fanbase by doing that?

The answer is:

I resign, convince the SEC schools except Arkansas, Mississippi State, and Vanderbilt to bolt the conference, get Texas, A&M, and Oklahoma on board, ensure they hire me as commish of the new conference, and watch the tsunami of TV money roll in. Show me the money! I'm also not stuck with "Southeastern" unless I think I still need it... I could call the conference "Fred" and get nine digits per year.

I could replace A&M with Florida State and REALLY kill 'em, maybe, but I had to throw in a little realism, and help out the west side of things.

Honestly, this wouldn't happen because Texas would balk, but not without getting someone fired for passing up that money.

I would say go after them in this order, regardless of who might throw a hissy fit...

1) Georgia Tech
2) Southern Miss
3) Clemson
4) Florida State

Then again you could tell South Carolina to go run back to the ACC (though that would probably be one of the most impossible things ever imagined), and just take Tech and Southern Miss.

No, but the Mississippi schools would lose an OOC opponent and maybe actually schedule somebody then.

Mississippi State just got done playing Oregon home and away. They had a series with Texas not that long back. The Mississippi schools OOC pattern is no worst than much of the rest of the SEC, and better than a couple of the conference kingpins.

Maybe spend some time urging Phillip Fulmer to attend media day. The SEC commish instituting the so-called "Fulmer Rule" will perhaps curtail the vicious tattle-tailing that has gone on before by those SEC schools with logs in their own eyes.

fulmer only told on bama to save his school from probabtion that p.o.s.

_________________
The Bear may be dead but he still hates Tennessee. Roll Damn Tide

Years later, but what they hey, I have more to say.

Financially, as currently constructed, I don't think the Big 12 could make it worthwhile for Arkansas to leave the SEC. But starting with the premise that Arkansas is out and presumably the Big 13 is going to be hunting for LSU, as SEC commish, I have to move decisively to save the LA markets.

I would convince the Big schools that the survival of the SEC as a dominant football conference, no as THE dominant football conference, rests upon running the conference as a business and not as a good old boys home.

Both Mississippi schools would be dropped. No need to keep 2 weak schools to be a bridge to LSU if LSU might bolt. Vanderbilt would be jettisoned to join the more sensible ACC. (There is a lot of talk of Vanderbilt delivering academic legimacy to the conference, but I think that is overblown. Look at the SEC without these 4 schools. Every University is at least a tier 2 national university. They don't NEED Vandy to carry their academic torch.)

Attendence would be a big part of this:
Rough numbers 5 year attendence averages:
2 Tennessee 107k
5 Georgia 86k
6 LSU 86k
7 Florida 85K
8 Auburn 83K
10 Alabama 82K
13 South Carolina 80K
23 Kentucky 64K
27 Arkansas 55k
37 Mississippi 49K
48 Mississippi State 42K
60 Vanderbilt 35k


Let's look at LSU playing a road game. If a school like vandy brings in 35K a game for home attendence at $20 a ticket (for ease of math) that means each game would yeild gate revenue around $700K. Now contrast that to a team that averages 85K a game for in conference play. Using the same math, they make 1.7M per game. It is almost like the SEC is leaving 1M on the table each game by playing schools in the second attendence tier like Vandy when they could be playing first tier attendence school like Georgia in a smaller conference. Now travel benefits do help some, but not that much.

Tier 1 attendance schools that fit the SEC profile, FSU (81K) and Clemson (76K) would be brought in to ensure maximize game attendance.

Both schools help in terms of market share too, bringing more NC and FL TV viewership. (Clemson pulls SC and NC viewership).

Additionally both schools are tier 2 acedemic schools and are average to large public land grant universities.

With the exception of OLe Miss's home DMA Memphis, Mississippi's TV markets happen to mostly fall within state lines, and frankly due to the lack of success of the two SEC Mississippi schools and the greater success experienced by Southern Miss, it is very possible that the best evaluation of Mississippi is to look at them as a state without a dominant school, instead just containing 3 defacto regional schools who for the most part only pull their native and neighboring TV Markets.

Even if you work from the idea that Miss and Miss St. own TV locally only, their state only has 2.9 Million people. The SEC member's homes states currently have 56.6M people. Mississippi provides 5% of the population, but takes 2 servings of the SEC's 12 slices of pie = 16.666%.

Mississippi St is in the Columbus TV Market, home to 186K TV sets. Ole Miss is at least more compelling because their native DMA is the Memphis DMA (#47 nationally with a healthy 667K TVs.) Again, I'd tend to think both schools have very limited draws outside of the state --- Ole Miss & Miss St. probably split the Miss DMAs with S. Miss, although Ole Miss certainly has the potential to become more of a traditional a statewide institution as the state's flagship university and in the best DMA.

Looking at ALL Miss DMAs (INCLUDING Memphis AND Southern Miss' areas of influence), dropping the two Miss Schools would cost you at most about 1.57 M TV sets.

Vandy is the Nashville DMA, and #2 to Tennessee at best in the rest of the state. Frankly, Nashville is still going to want to watch Tennessee play anyway, so the arguement as to what would be lost by kicking out Vandy is near irrelevant.

Clemson delivers the #36 greenville market (800K+ TVs) and it could be strongly argued might also deliver the neighboring#25 Charlotte football (1090K+ TVs) market. Historically it has been significantly more successful than South Carolina and is probably the #1 resident school in terms of football popularity in the NC/SC region. I'd argue the South Carolina is a weak state school and like Ole Miss doesn't dominate the state. Clemson does. In that regard, I think the Greenville DMA (SC/NC) should be considered a new market to the SEC. So add 1.89M TVs for both DMAs.

Florida, the most populous state in the region with over 18M people, is in play. It may not look like it, but if you look at each of the TV Markets, public school are entering FBS Division one and fighting to steal TV viewership by building bases in the more populous TV markets. South Florida (and the Big East) are attempting to establish themselves in Tampa (Florida's #1 Market #13 Nationally w/1.8 TV sets). FIA and FIU (and The Sun Belt) are fighting the U of Miami and the Dolphins to build followings in the Miami Market (Florida's #2 Market and the US's #15 Nationally w/ 1.5M TV sets.) Central Florida (and CUSA) are trying to build followings in the Orlando Market (Florida's #3 Market and the US's #19 Nationally w/ 1.4M TV sets.)

UF is ligitimately a school with statewide appeal accross all markets, but so is FSU. Both schools IMO probably have similar interest levels accross the state. Adding FSU would probably bring in (conservatively) 1/5 of florida's college football state viewership. Florida has 7.235 M TVs, so 1.447 M more TVs.

That would be dropping 3 additional schools that bring in 1.57M unique TV sets along with Arkansas's unique lost 921K TV sets (shreveport & Monroe would still be a legit LSU markets) bringing the total TV set losses to 2.491M. My SEC would bring in 2 schools that bring in (conservatively) 3.337 M TV sets, for a net growth of 846K TV sets. Additionally, Arkansas & Mississippi are very poor areas, which decreases the value of their viewership.

So in otherwords the TV contract would probably increase in value (probably by at least 10-15%), and there would be fewer mouths to feed.

The SEC reportedly had a record financial distribution of $122M to its member schools in 2006-2007. For easy math, lets say that $120 or so was normal for the current SEC. Eliminating the four teams with the lowest per game attendance helps per game attendance. Adding what would probably end up being 1 M new TVs to your TV package also helps total revenue. Adding 2 of the 16 top schools for football attendence in the NATION helps. It also shrinks the footprint, reducing travel costs. But lets say all of my mechanations only succeeded in matching the conference's total revenue of $120M. It is still the difference of splitting it 10 ways (12M each) vs. 12 ways ($10 m each). Additionally, it opens the door to future expansion if USF, UCF, FAU, or FIU mature into powers and start cutting into your florida lifeblood.

This conference would still be the financial champion, ensuring the SEC could retain it's western anchor, the financially challenged LSU.

Future expansion hinges on the amount of TV markets a university can deliver for an SEC channel. Just look at how much money the Big10 is getting for the BTN ($1.10 per customer). Therefore, I would think that expansion would be in this order:

1 - Texas and Texas A&M.

This gives the SEC 22 million more people for the SECTV

2 - FSU

This depends on how much the SEC can charge in Florida because you have 2 ACC teams there meaning, will the SEC be able to charge the $1.10 that the BTN charges even though Florida is shared? Florida has a population of 18 million or say an increase in 9 million if they can only count '9 million' because of just having UF there.

3 - Virginia Tech

Virginia has 8 million plus it would give you access to Washington DC DMA

Hmm...

This would be a toughie.

Va. Tech won't leave the ACC now that they put pressure on the State Legislature to join.

William and Mary, ODU, and VCU are also designated state flagships, but VCU and ODU don't play football, and William and Mary is even less of a football school than Vandy.

The Tobacco Road schools (Even NC State) Won't leave the ACC, so that means that the best you could do in North Carolina is ECU, unless UNC Charlotte got a football program.

Clemson doesn't want to leave the ACC, so that leaves Furman, College of Charleston, and the Citidel. None of them are big time enouth.

Georgia Tech doesn't want to leave the ACC, so the SEC is stuck unless Georgia State manages to start a Football Program. Well, if the SEC promises Emory membership if they upgrade, would they do it. Yes, it's an HBCU, but what better way to make a statement about something like this?

Florida State seems content in the ACC, and Miami doesn't want to join, but how about South Florida? Even Central Florida has a larger student body than any SEC school except Florida.

Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi each have two schools, so they won't get a new school.

Tulane and UNO both are restricted to the Greater New Orleans area. That Leaves Louisiana-Lafyette, Louisiana Tech, and Southern, which has better football attendance than Vanderbilt. Of course, Southern is an HBCU, but like my arguement with Emory.

Texas won't leave the Big XII (except for the Pac 10) unless either Texas A&M or Oklahoma does too. Texas A&M isn't beyond the pale of possibility, but what about Houston? It could easily replace the Arkansas market just by itself, and has a larger student body than any SEC school except Florida.

Financially, I agree this would be the best move for the SEC, but I really doubt UT wants to be a part of the SEC. UT has control issues and in the SEC they would be expected to play nice and follow the conference lead. I don't see that happening.

Ut has a good mix of power, money, and control in the Big 12 and would have that in a new conference. I don't think the SEC could offer what UT can acheive without them.




It's a good question that hopefully someone with a media background could clear up. If Florida is considered a school with statewide pull, the assumption is that people in every one of florida's media markets would want to see them on broadcast TV.

I would think if the business models change to each conference having pay per view stations that you really almost don't care about market viewership, you would only be concerned with the number of fans who buy your conference channel. In that instance it makes perfect sense to add FSU who is strong in florida and nationally.





I think VA and VT would also be a nice duo to add to expand the SEC footprint. When you consider the fact that they own the Virginia fanbase and Virginia includes a number of nice markets, including a big chunk of DC (so throw that in too for a total of almost 4% TV households), that very well might be one of the better and more realistic adds the SEC could make.

I want to respond to a number of ideas you have put up here, but please don't take it as me being jerky (I have dealt with one guy who was like that on this forum in the past), I just want to discuss it further.




I live in Texas and saw Arkansas and then UT walk away from one of the most storied conferences to ever exist, the SWC. We all saw BC go from suing the ACC to leaving to join the ACC overnight. I think you relaly have to look at it and say if a school KNOWS it can make more money elsewhere it will consider it.

The SEC's TV revenue dwarfs what the ACC can generate. That means that The SEC could raid the ACC if they chose. The reality is the SEC is making huge money now, so they can AFFORD to retain the historic rivalries their fans treasure--- and conferences like the ACC can make pretty good money living in their shadow.

If you look at the money a school puts into their athletic department you can see the tierings of universities. Every one of them wants to move to the next tier, which requires more TV revenue and exposure which usually only comes if you upgrade your conference affiliation.




Well, I think it has more to do with the fact that they own those markets in the first two cases, and So. Miss has little to offer marketwise.




Which southern? I think all of the other Louisiana schools really should be division I-AA schools, if the NCAA had guidelines that allowed Division I-AA schools to be profitable --- they don't --- but in any case, I can't think the SEC would consider any of them.




While there was talk of UT and A&M going to different conferneces when the SWC broke up, I don't think there is any way UT goes anywhere without A&M today. Both alumni bases would fire, hunt down, and kill the presidents and ADs who would allow something like that to happen. Even if they wanted to do it, the alumni in the legislature would make it too painful for either school.

Houston is an interesting idea. They were a target of the SEC with A&M back in the day. They operate in an NFL killzone, so if the SEC admitted them, they would certainly be the lowest attended school in the SEC, but that said, they would have healthy numbers. At least in the 30-40's. Probably a horrid football team and a solid basketball school. They would allow the SEC to capture the huge Houston Market 2.05M (1.818%) TV households, recruit East Texas better, and would be an easy win for LSU, the western division giant.

If you are talking competition, there is no way you look at Houston. But if you are talking money and a straight replacement for Arkansas, Houston makes a world of sense for the SEC.

If there was really some incentive to expanding beyond 12, west is probably the direction to go for the SEC. Imagine this scenario:

SEC West - Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Louisiana State, Arkansas
SEC Central - Mississippi, Mississippi State, Alabama, Auburn, Vanderbilt
SEC East - Kentucky, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida

Designated non-division rivals for football:
Alabama - Oklahoma (W), Tennessee (E)
Auburn - Texas (W), Georgia (E)
Arkansas - Mississippi (C), Kentucky (E)
Florida - Texas A&M (W), Mississippi (E)
Georgia - Aubrun (C), Oklahoma (E)
Kentucky - Arkansas (W), Vanderbilt (C)
Louisiana State - Mississippi State (C), South Carolina (E)
Mississippi - Arkansas (W), Florida (E)
Mississippi State - Louisiana State (W), South Carolina (E)
Oklahoma - Alabama (C), Georgia (E)
South Carolina - Louisiana State (W), Mississippi State (C)
Tennessee - Texas (W), Alabama (C)
Texas - Auburn (C), Tennessee (E)
Texas A&M - Vanderbilt (C), Florida (E)
Vanderbilt - Texas A&M (W), Kentucky (E)

The catch would be getting the NCAA to allow the SEC to have a four-team football playoff, and permanently short-circuit any hopes of a national playoff. The BCS would probably also have to allow three teams from one conference to play in the BCS.

Big Ten:
West - Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota
Central - Michigan, Indiana, Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern
East - Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan state, Rutgers, Maryland

ACC:
North - Syracuse, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Boston College
Central - NOrth Carolina, NC State, Wake Forest, Duke, Virginia
South - Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State, Miami-FL, Virginia Tech

Big 15:
East - Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, Central Florida, Iowa State
South - Texas Tech, Baylor, Oklahoma State, Tulane, Memphis
North - Air Force, Wyoming, Boise State, Kansas, Kansas State

WAC:
Pacific - SJSU, Hawaii, SDSU, Fresno State, Nevada
Moutain - Utah State, Utah, BYU, Idaho, UNLV
Central - Houston, TCU, New Mexico, New Mexico St, UTEP

Conference USA:
West - Tulsa, SMU, Rice, North Texas, Arkansas State
Central - Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss, MTSU, ULM, ULL
East - UAB, East Carolina, Troy, FAU, FIU

Mid-American:
West - WKU, Northern Illinois, Ball State, WMU, CMU
Central - EMU, Toledo, BGSU, Miami-OH, Ohio
East - Marshall, Temple, Buffalo, Kent, Akron

Pac 12:
North - Washington, WSU, Oregon, OSU, Colorado, Colorado State
South - UCLA, USC, California, Stanford, Arizona, Arizona State

Independents:
Notre Dame, Army, Navy