P5 Confs moving to 20 game Conf schedules Hurts Mid-Majors

[Rogers101]

Good luck trying to convince mid-major ADs to not take buy games. They need the money.

Understood in football, but is the $$ in basketball buy games that much? I'm asking because I honestly do not know.

[Snaggletooth]

Good luck trying to convince mid-major ADs to not take buy games. They need the money.

Understood in football, but is the $$ in basketball buy games that much? I'm asking because I honestly do not know.

Schools are making $50,000 to $100,000 on each "buy" games. MVC schools can take a couple buy games and pay for their coaches salary.

[unipanther99]

Good luck trying to convince mid-major ADs to not take buy games. They need the money.

Understood in football, but is the $$ in basketball buy games that much? I'm asking because I honestly do not know.

Schools are making $50,000 to $100,000 on each "buy" games. MVC schools can take a couple buy games and pay for their coaches salary.

Still coming back to take swipes?

[BirdsEyeView]

Good luck trying to convince mid-major ADs to not take buy games. They need the money.

Understood in football, but is the $$ in basketball buy games that much? I'm asking because I honestly do not know.

Schools are making $50,000 to $100,000 on each "buy" games. MVC schools can take a couple buy games and pay for their coaches salary.

The sad life of a Shocker fan. Nothing better to do.

[TheAsianSensation]

We're starting to see television dictate schedules.

Let's grab the Big 10 as an example.

In an 18-game schedule, you have 18 conference games and 10 non-conference "games" (yes there's more than 10 non-con games overall but let's keep this example simple). The network who owns the right to the conference controls the broadcast of the 18 games, plus all home games among the 10 non-con games. A typical P5 team might reserve, say, 7 of those 10 games for home games and 3 for road/neutrals/tournaments. 7 home games times 14 teams means 98 non-con games owned by the networks having rights to Big 10 games, along with 126 conference games. 238 games of inventory.

In a 20-game conference schedule, the conference schedule jumps from 126 to 140. Each school has 8 non-con games left to schedule. In order to get from 140 to the same 238 games of inventory, each school needs to average 6 home games in the non-con (6*14=84, 84+140=238). Meaning each school has to sacrifice one home game and one road game compared to previous years. Note that the schools can't go on the road more....because that means the networks who are paying millions of dollars are now losing inventory.

Now which games do you think get sacrificed? Well, Michigan St isn't giving up their neutral site series with Kansas, Duke, UK, etc. Most elite programs aren't giving up their showcase games. Likewise, most teams aren't reducing the number of cupcakes they play. They still need a few easy wins a year (as much as we like to harp on SoS, it's perfectly normal to have 3 or 4 bums a year).

Now look at the new selection committee changes. Road wins are emphasized even more, and home wins are de-emphasized. Now, scheduling and beating UNI or Illinois St at home doesn't have as much value. Don't need to bring in elite mid-majors at home anymore, because some of that value in that win is down.

The flip side of this is that going on the road to UNI now has infinitely more value, as that road win is a legitimate resume boon. But notice how the average number of road/neutral games for these schools went from 3 to 2. Are these schools going to give up P5 @ P5 games to fit in a mid-major home-and-home?

And now look at it from the networks' eye. Let's say Purdue has a choice to either play, let's say Wake Forest, or Illinois St in a home-and-home. The networks are going to step up and want Purdue to play Wake. That's one year out of two in which the network gets the rights to a Wake @ Purdue game. The networks won't want a Illinois St @ Purdue game as much.

And now think about who owns everyone's rights. Mostly ESPN, with some CBS, FOX sprinkled in. Now in that example above, ESPN might have the rights to both ends of that Wake/Purdue series. Yes, they could own both ends of a ISU/Purdue series too, but now that's money going to the MVC instead of the ACC. And if ESPN spent eleventy billion dollars on the ACC, they expect first consideration to go to their heavier investment.

This is ultimately what's happening. The networks want to optimize their inventory. It just so happens that the mid-majors are in the wrong spot on this optimization. And the selection committee just unwittingly helped the networks out. If your opponent has to be Top 30 instead of 50 in order to count as a Tier 1 win at home, why bother scheduling mid-majors? Mid-majors rarely get into the Top 30. We as a group just lost value. Yeah, we can provide value as a Top 75 road game, but the networks have already squashed that as a viable strategy for the P5.

The only viable option for mid-majors is the neutral site tournament, but we're already seeing the MTTs shut off that valve by moving to smaller 4-team tournaments with added on cupcake games. Because all the MTTs are competing for television time themselves, and can't afford to take a mid-major who can ruin their TV revenue by knocking out their precious P5 team.

Games against mid-majors are no longer good business practice for P5 teams. And the selection committee just accidentally helped them make the decision easier.

[Mikovio]

Just more reason for the MVC to expand. Get annual home and homes with a quality team like Murray State for everyone.

[uniftw]

In a 20-game conference schedule, the conference schedule jumps from 126 to 140. Each school has 8 non-con games left to schedule. In order to get from 140 to the same 238 games of inventory, each school needs to average 6 home games in the non-con (6*14=84, 84+140=238). Meaning each school has to sacrifice one home game and one road game compared to previous years. Note that the schools can't go on the road more....because that means the networks who are paying millions of dollars are now losing inventory.

Now which games do you think get sacrificed? Well, Michigan St isn't giving up their neutral site series with Kansas, Duke, UK, etc. Most elite programs aren't giving up their showcase games. Likewise, most teams aren't reducing the number of cupcakes they play. They still need a few easy wins a year (as much as we like to harp on SoS, it's perfectly normal to have 3 or 4 bums a year).

A prime example of this is Iowa.

Their current average opponent is 130 in the RPI - UNI's is 144. Here is Iowa's current OOC this year
Chicago State - 332
Alabama State - 334
Grambling State - 345
UL-Monroe - 290
Wyoming or South Dakota State - 117 or 140
Viginia Tech - 33 (ACC/Big 10 Challenge)
Iowa State - 100
Southern - 265
Drake - 287 - rotates with UNI every other year at a neutral site
Southern Utah - 336
Colorado - 77 (neutral)
Northern Illinois - 246

That's 223 average for the OOC. Taking out the MTE possibility and the ACC/B10 - games they don't schedule and it's 282. There is 1 top 100 team in there, and it's Iowa State which is a yearly game as part of an all sport series between the two schools.

Outside of that game their best gaame is Northern Illinois at 246 and the average is 304.

Go to 20 games and that Big 4 classic with UNI, Drake, Iowa State and Iowa is gone (currently contract expires in 2019 on it anyway so that will stop being a thing). Colorado type games probably go away as well.

The entire Big 10 follows that lead. When it comes to computers they start to push everyone but them out of the computer. Computers are built on trying to connect all teams. By playing less OOC games there are less ways to connect anyone but the conference teams. It becomes a circle of propping themselves up in a computer and a way for other teams to fall behind in a computer as well as with resume building games. Those games go away so you don't get the "We beat Team X from the B10". Those games go away from your RPI.

The move of the ACC and B10, with the Big East, PAC12, SEC and probably B12 not far behind, is nothing other than a way to strangle everyone else out of the NCAA tournament.

[tribecalledquest]

Still coming back to take swipes?

Why not? Gregg Marshall still is.

[BCPanther]

Asian is exactly right. Nailed it.

As far as MTE's, in the past 8 years UNI has basically had their pick of anywhere they wanted to go. Played in multiple ESPN events, a Vegas tourney, the Paradise Jam twice and this year is the second trip to Battle 4 Atlantis. But looking forward they're having a tough time finding an MTE as they are good enough, typically, to beat the middling mid-major. I assume a lot of Valley schools are finding the same thing.

Hell, look at the Battle 4 Atlantis pairings this year. They've guaranteed that they'll get 3 P5s in the semi-finals, barring a monumental Western Kentucky over Villanova upset and they've thrown a bone to the SMU-UNI winner to get there as the 'mid-major' rep though we all damn well know that they'd much rather have the AAC and SMU in there to justify the dollars they are giving to that shitty league. Its so blatant that UNI/SMU has been relegated to ESPN3 and the entire consolation side of the bracket is ESPN3.

[Snaggletooth]

Still coming back to take swipes?

I never left, I'm now a SWMO fan. 10 Year extension for Lusk!