BE MB thread discussing recent comments by new BE Commish John Marinatto who claims that he has been approached by other conferences who have expressed an interest to expand to 16 members,like the BE.
He doesn't identify the conferences nor their level of play.Is it likely that there are FBS conferences that are really interested in expanding to 16 members?Link at http://ncaabbs.com/showthread.php?tid=377136

Repost of Tim Stephens Orlando Sentinel article from(previously posted in another thread) last summer regarding 16 team conferences at http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports ... or-th.html

The NCAA playoff structure model involves no more than half Automatic Qualifiers (AQs), and at least half of the bracket filled by At-Larges.

Let's assume a 16-team bracket with 8 AQ's and 8 At-Large Teams.

The 12-team conference just doesn't plug into this concept very well. 12 is a burden... the conference championship game often is a re-match of an intra-conference regular season game. HOWEVER... go to 16, have a round-robin for each 8-team division, and then have BOTH division winners get an AQ into the bracket above.
This works if you have 4 16-team super conferences.

If the BE agreed to be digested by the Big Ten + ACC, and the Big Twelve somehow split between the SEC and Pac-10, what do you get ?

Problems. There are more than 4 x 16 teams in the BCS conferences.
8 + 12 + 12 + 12 + 11 + 10 + Notre Dame = 66. So they might have to pay off 2 teams to go into non-BCS AQ conferences).

Say the ACC were to gobble up 4 from the BE (South Florida, Rutgers, Syracuse, UConn). ACC= 16

The Big Ten becomes the Big 16 by digesting Notre Dame + the rest of the Big East (Notre Dame, West Virginia, Pitt, Cincy, Louisville) Now we have "the Big 16"

The SEC expands westward to take in Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State. SEC=16


Now we have a problem.... A huge geographic gap between the Pac 10 and the 8 remnants of the Big XII. Plus that's 18 teams.... not 16.

One Solution.... Have a west coast 8 team conference with one AQ, and a mid-west 8 team conference with one AQ.
Have the Pac 10 return to the Pac 8 (not sure who to buy off.... Washington State and Oregon State ???)
Then the Big "Eight" is now Iowa State, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, KU, K State, Baylor, and Texas Tech.

Alternative... buy off Baylor and Texas Tech, and put the remaining 6 in the Pac-16 East with Arizona and Arizona State.


Non-BCS Conferences -
WAC (9) loses La Tech and New Mexico State, takes San Diego St and UNLV, to stay at 9.
MWC (9) loses San Diego State and UNLV, adds New Mexico State and UTEP to stay at 9.
CUSA West (6) loses UTEP, adds up both La Tech, Baylor, Texas Tech, and becomes 8 (some room to expand with SLC up-grades).
CUSA East takes Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee from Sun-Belt and becomes 8 (some room to expand with SLC upgrades).
SunBelt (after South Alabama starts football) has 8 remaining FB schools, ditches non-FB schools (Denver, UNO, UALR)
Mac is at 13 (including Temple)... toss in Army, Navy, and get Youngstown State to upgrade and you have 16 to split into two 8's....

There are 8 At-Large Slots (I think the NCAA has adopted this kind of structure to avoid anti-trust, and molify the non-major conferences). The four big conferences will routinely get most of the At-larges, however, everyone has access to them, and can advance by winning all the way to the National Title (a la the basketball tournament).
GUARANTEE an at-large slot to any UNDEFEATED champion of the non-AQ conferences.

It's far from perfect, but anyone who gets into the bracket of 16 will have a shot at going all the way, something they do NOT have now. Every game in the tournament is meaningful. Right now BCS bowls that feature schools other than #1 vs. #2 are irrelevant to the National Championship (unless you call it the "BCS debate", since the BCS doesn't settle the matter on the field).

My read is that this is just spin...a commish from a conference whose members make less per school than other conferences is trying to make it sound like all is 110% great. Best case scenario, maybe a commish from the MAC asked a question about 16 teams, since they are at 13.

But if these words were true, what moves make sense:

I wonder if it was the BE model where perhaps a 12 team conference like CUSA wants to make the east schools happy again with some basketball only members like Charlotte, St. Louis, Richmond, etc to get to 16.

* The only powerhouse move would be in the SEC: expand to 16 with Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and OSU. You add some big markets and the SEC is clearly in charge.

* ACC: 16 teams with Rutgers, UConn, Syracuse and Louisville. It would be 16 schools for all-sports, not just basketball...not ideal.

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If this ever happened it would probably go more like this...

Big 10 adds
Notre Dame
Rutgers
Syracuse
Missouri
Pitt

SEC adds
W.Virginia
Louisville
Memphis
Cincinnati

ACC adds
UConn
S.Florida
C.Florida
E.Carolina

Pac 10 adds
Utah
BYU
UNLV
Fresno St.
Boise St.
Nevada

Big 12 adds
Colorado St.
TCU
Houston
UTEP
New Mexico

10 auto-bids 6 at-large (Big East becomes a basketball conf)

C-USA adds
W.Kentucky
S.Alabama
FAU
FIU
UTSA

WAC adds
San Diego St.
Wyoming
Air Force
N.Texas
Montana
Texas St.

Sun Belt adds
Lamar
Georgia So.
Appalachian St.
Jacksonville St.
Georgia St.

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The SEC has way too much cache $$$ right now to settle on that group. they could likely get the top Big 12 schools to join. And academics will come into play. You will NEVER see ECU, USF, UCF etc in the ACC. If told they had to boot Maryland or accept those 3, they'd pack the Terps bags in a minute.

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The SEC would not under any circumstances and the Oklahoma schools. I've said for years that the SEC would likely add just Texas and TAMU for the west, and then expand east for North Carolina and Duke to bulk up in basketball. The carolina move would destroy any perception that the ACC is a basketball conference and make the SEC the undisputed #1 in hoops.

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Do you ahhhhh......realign?

Why would the SEC not include Oklahoma? What historical relevance/fact is behind that or is just your opinion?

As for Duke/UNC...academics come into play and marketplace. That said, I personally don't see Duke or UNC leaving the ACC for the SEC. Florida St. wasn't in favor of the SEC over the ACC, so it's doubtful that the (2) schools that BRAND the ACC would leave for anywhere.

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Why would the SEC not include Oklahoma? What historical relevance/fact is behind that or is just your opinion?

As for Duke/UNC...academics come into play and marketplace. That said, I personally don't see Duke or UNC leaving the ACC for the SEC. Florida St. wasn't in favor of the SEC over the ACC, so it's doubtful that the (2) schools that BRAND the ACC would leave for anywhere.

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Point is Quinn this won't happen cuz when you need to add 4,5, or 6 schools to a conference you're gonna weaken your overall brand.

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['08 NCAA BASEBALL CHAMPS]

SEC would add Texas, AM, OU, and Florida st.

I agree. Unless you are clearly upgrading. For instance, if Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and LSU asked CUSA for invites, CUSA would expand to 16.

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Agree this is likely just some spin, to rationalize the ugly hybrid situation that the Big East finds itself in.

And in a vacuum, right now, given the BCS structure and money as currently exists, no power conference feels any urge to expand with schools that lower the average revenue per school within that conferenece.

Having said that, one of us could easily construct a business model built around a 16-team tournament bracket and appropriate realignment of the various conferences that would SIGNIFICANTLY increase the PER SCHOOL revenue for all of the D-I FBS football schools (for any given team, for any given conference, for the entire D-I FBS) !!!

There is THAT MUCH money being left on the table when you compare the TV rights to a well-structured 16-team NCAA D-I FBS football tournament vs. the current BCS + minor bowls.

During the recent renewal of the BCS (when ABC/ESPN took the Orange, Sugar, Fiesta, NC games away from Fox, to go along with the Rose (which ABC already had), Fox offered considerably more money to televise a 5 + 1 format.

How / why are the colleges electing to preserve the staus quo, when there is so much more money out there ?
Some how the Bowls are dishing a ton of kick-backs and perks to the proper college presidents who make such decisions.
It's absolutely irrational how the current set-up is being perpetuated.

The talking points of Harvey Perlman, John Swofford, etc. are so stale and inane -
Save the Bowls (Who cares ??? the colleges owe them NOTHING !!!)
What about our student athletes and their academics ? (D-1 FBS did not hesistate to add a 12th game every year + conference championship for SEC, Big XII, ACC, CUSA, MAC)...

When you see the situation defying common economic logic, something is clearly afoul.

If I'm a President of an SEC school, and somebody offers me twice as much money to change the BCS format, I'm all over that idea. Would it likely grant greater access to a MWC school ? Well yes, in all likelihood. But most of the at-large slots will continue to go to the power conferences (just look at the NCAA basketball tourney). So if the overall money is DOUBLED (let's say), and the SEC's share of the total drops by 5-10 %, my school still comes out WAY ahead (like .9 X 200 % = 180% = an 80% increase in revenue). You can quibble with the exact numbers, but it's hard to miss the point.

Is there that much money there ?

I grew up outside of Pittsburgh and love the Steelers. But if the NFL season ended with bowls, I only would definitely watch the bowl my Steelers play in, and have only a passing interest in the others. However, the NFL has a well-structured tournament, so I DEFINITELY have an interest in AT LEAST all of the AFC playoff games. I watch them, and the advertisers sell me cars, beer, soda, fritos, shaving cream, Viagara, Cialis, Levitra, Flo-Max (I'm getting aroused now !).
I watch 'em all !!!! With that kind of viewership, you betcha the TV rights will be way higher !!!

A playoff just seems inevitable at some point here, and if the conferences have to do some restructuring to make it happen, it'll happen EVENTUALLY.

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