****The official NEW new conference realignment thread.****

[Saul Good]

the second thread has been pronounced dead.

[BigCatDaddy]

Originally Posted by DaKCMan AP

Not when it's so unbalanced. Look at the current BCS rankings. The SEC has 3 of the top 4 and 6 of the top 10. A conference that has 60% of the top 10 teams in the country would only get 1 seed in a playoff? That's madness.

I don't care about BCS rankings. I care about finding the best team on the field. The SEC champion should play the champion from other conferences. Why should the 2nd place SEC team get a shot to beat the 1st place SEC team? That doesn't seem fair to the SEC conference champ to me. I'm not sure why it's a problem determining the best team in the country on the field.

[ArrowheadHawk]

Originally Posted by DaKCMan AP

Not when it's so unbalanced. Look at the current BCS rankings. The SEC has 3 of the top 4 and 6 of the top 10. A conference that has 60% of the top 10 teams in the country would only get 1 seed in a playoff? That's madness.

No, that's awesome. Send Arkansas and LSU to the big 12. That would solve this.

[DaKCMan AP]

Originally Posted by BigCatDaddy

I don't care about BCS rankings. I care about finding the best team on the filed. The SEC champion should play the champion from other conferences. Why should the 2nd place SEC team get a shot to beat the 1st place SEC team? That doesn't seem fair to the SEC conference champ to me.

If you care about finding the best team then you wouldn't limit it to just conf. champs. Not all teams play each other in conferences and it comes down to tiebreakers. Alabama didn't play Florida this year. Georgia didn't have to play Bama, LSU, or A&M from the West. It's not as simple as conf. champ = absolute best team and conf. champ from conference A > non-conf. champ from conference B.

[DaKCMan AP]

Originally Posted by ArrowheadHawk

No, that's awesome. Send Arkansas and LSU to the big 12. That would solve this.

Why would Arkansas and LSU want to move to an inferior conference?

[BigCatDaddy]

Originally Posted by DaKCMan AP

If you care about finding the best team then you wouldn't limit it to just conf. champs. Not all teams play each other in conferences and it comes down to tiebreakers. Alabama didn't play Florida this year. Georgia didn't have to play Bama, LSU, or A&M from the West. It's not as simple as conf. champ = absolute best team and conf. champ from conference A > non-conf. champ from conference B.

Every team in an 8 team division would play those teams in their division so you at least have that. It does get a little hairy on non division games, but if you don't lose a game then you don't have to worry about it you would automatically win your division and advance to the conference championship game. This system is much better then using a BCS formula to guess who might be the top teams.

[alnorth]

Today for some reason, I keep reading, over and over again, GT to the Big 10 soon. Several boards, not even waiting to see if Maryland wins in court.

[O.city]

The whole Conference champs only argument is BS. Look at College Basketball. The Conference tourney winners get auto bids over teams that they are clearly worse then.


You have the perfect system for the thing. Take the top 8 BCS teams and play it out.

[Infidel Goat]

Originally Posted by alnorth

It gets worse if the courts determine the ACC buyout is punitive (a widely held belief) and Maryland gets off paying less than the $52 million./[/url]

Serious question: why is the ACC buyout seen as punitive but the Big 12 buyout is not seen in that respect by you?

p.s. I know I'm not quoting you above--but it's an sentiment you and many others have hinted at before...

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Infidel Goat

Serious question: why is the ACC buyout seen as punitive but the Big 12 buyout is not seen in that respect by you?

p.s. I know I'm not quoting you above--but it's an sentiment you and many others have hinted at before...

The Grant of Rights is a property transaction, just like selling a car. The schools which signed it, sold a real, valuable product and they got paid for it in the form of a better contract. Property Rights are more protected and sacrosanct in this country than anywhere else in the world. Unless you are the victim of fraud or something like that, once you sell your car and sign it over, you cant change your mind the day after, and the schools which sold their rights to the Big 12 cant change their mind. The only way to unwind it is if the guy chooses to sell you the car back or the conference chooses to give the schools their TV rights back. (edit: or if enough schools vote to dissolve the conference, which depending on who you talk to means either 6 or 8 votes to dissolve. Good luck with that)

The exit fee is supposed to compensate the conference, but at $50MM it is really a punitive penalty designed to punish. Maryland didn't even vote for the penalty, it was imposed on them and they received absolutely no benefit from that penalty. The problem is that the exit fee must, legally, be a good-faith attempt to compensate the conference. The exit fee is liquidated damages, which courts recognize, but it must be intended to compensate the conference, it can not be so ludicrously high that it was really intended as a punishment.

The ACC will have to argue in court that Maryland leaving damaged them so badly, that $50MM is a reasonable rough estimate of their loss. Maryland will point out that the TV contract was not impacted and they replaced them with Louisville.

[alnorth]

Another reason why the exit fee is worse, is that its in place forever and even increases every year, next year it wouldn't be $52MM, it would be some higher number. The GOR expires in 13 years.

[Buck]

It might be time for a new version of this thread.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Buck

It might be time for a new version of this thread.

Perhaps with either the poop icon or "funny stuff" icon.

[RustShack]

I don't think the ACC has a GOR, thats why they can break up and the Big12 more than likely wont.

[Infidel Goat]

Originally Posted by alnorth

The Grant of Rights is a property transaction, just like selling a car. The schools which signed it, sold a real, valuable product and they got paid for it in the form of a better contract. Property Rights are more protected and sacrosanct in this country than anywhere else in the world. Unless you are the victim of fraud or something like that, once you sell your car and sign it over, you cant change your mind the day after, and the schools which sold their rights to the Big 12 cant change their mind. The only way to unwind it is if the guy chooses to sell you the car back or the conference chooses to give the schools their TV rights back. (edit: or if enough schools vote to dissolve the conference, which depending on who you talk to means either 6 or 8 votes to dissolve. Good luck with that)

The exit fee is supposed to compensate the conference, but at $50MM it is really a punitive penalty designed to punish. Maryland didn't even vote for the penalty, it was imposed on them and they received absolutely no benefit from that penalty. The problem is that the exit fee must, legally, be a good-faith attempt to compensate the conference. The exit fee is liquidated damages, which courts recognize, but it must be intended to compensate the conference, it can not be so ludicrously high that it was really intended as a punishment.

The ACC will have to argue in court that Maryland leaving damaged them so badly, that $50MM is a reasonable rough estimate of their loss. Maryland will point out that the TV contract was not impacted and they replaced them with Louisville.

Thanks, Al. I frequent an ACC board, and I think the consensus on that board is that the exit fee will actually stick (teams continue to pay the Big East, for instance). It'll be interesting to watch in the coming weeks, months, years (or decades, I hope).

[BigCatDaddy]

Originally Posted by O.city

The whole Conference champs only argument is BS. Look at College Basketball. The Conference tourney winners get auto bids over teams that they are clearly worse then.


You have the perfect system for the thing. Take the top 8 BCS teams and play it out.

I prefer to take polls and computers out of the whole thing myself but to each his own.