If I'm the SEC/ESPN, I would make this round of realignment to get to 20, broaden west a little, set your self up for 10 years until ACC teams get vulnerable and you have a better idea of what college sports will look like. Ideally you'd want to poach 4-8 more teams.
I would think it would be in their best interest to keep basketball in mind right now. If you're going to bigger conferences, you can't just have a bunch of dominate football teams. That will actually hurt your big blue blood assets if they are going .500 every year.
A bigger conference will turn into more conference games. Adding some basketball schools will help give your bigger programs a break every once in a while.
I would have ESPN spread a rumor that they're looking at USC, STAN, WASH & OR. That will scare the B1G into getting active. They can't lose all those AAU schools to the SEC.
In reality, the teams you really want is USC, the power school, then tradition rich & profitable basketball schools in Arizona and UCLA. Let the B1G snag the NW teams, you don't really want to go out that far anyway.
Then yeah I'm a homer, but adding KU would be the smart move to get you to 20. Basketball blue blood. Roy and K are gone. Self vs Cal every year could be as big as Duke/UNC is ESPN wants it to be.
20 teams is key in this I think because you get into the pods. The pods give you a 4-team conference playoff. It also helps you schedule so you can try and pump up your money-making blue bloods.
You want to try and limit it to 2 Powerhouses in each pod. USC/OU, LSU/Texas (A&M), Alabama/Auburn, Georgia/Florida. That should set each school up for 1 GOTW type game, then 3 "easier games". Scheduling the other "non-pod" games could be made a year in advanced and done so to see what makes sense.
Then in basketball, you've got some really good teams in conference now. Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, Florida. Those will get some eyeballs. ESPN will have a monopoly on college basketball as well, as no one will care about the B1G.
Oklahoma
USC
UCLA
Arizona
Kansas
Texas
LSU
Texas A&M
Arkansas
Missouri
Alabama
Auburn
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
Vanderbilt
Georgia
Florida
South Carolina
Kentucky
Tennessee
I would think it would be in their best interest to keep basketball in mind right now. If you're going to bigger conferences, you can't just have a bunch of dominate football teams. That will actually hurt your big blue blood assets if they are going .500 every year.
A bigger conference will turn into more conference games. Adding some basketball schools will help give your bigger programs a break every once in a while.
I would have ESPN spread a rumor that they're looking at USC, STAN, WASH & OR. That will scare the B1G into getting active. They can't lose all those AAU schools to the SEC.
In reality, the teams you really want is USC, the power school, then tradition rich & profitable basketball schools in Arizona and UCLA. Let the B1G snag the NW teams, you don't really want to go out that far anyway.
Then yeah I'm a homer, but adding KU would be the smart move to get you to 20. Basketball blue blood. Roy and K are gone. Self vs Cal every year could be as big as Duke/UNC is ESPN wants it to be.
20 teams is key in this I think because you get into the pods. The pods give you a 4-team conference playoff. It also helps you schedule so you can try and pump up your money-making blue bloods.
You want to try and limit it to 2 Powerhouses in each pod. USC/OU, LSU/Texas (A&M), Alabama/Auburn, Georgia/Florida. That should set each school up for 1 GOTW type game, then 3 "easier games". Scheduling the other "non-pod" games could be made a year in advanced and done so to see what makes sense.
Then in basketball, you've got some really good teams in conference now. Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, Florida. Those will get some eyeballs. ESPN will have a monopoly on college basketball as well, as no one will care about the B1G.
Oklahoma
USC
UCLA
Arizona
Kansas
Texas
LSU
Texas A&M
Arkansas
Missouri
Alabama
Auburn
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
Vanderbilt
Georgia
Florida
South Carolina
Kentucky
Tennessee
