and sustainability. They've figured out they almost have a license to print $$, and want to keep the party going as long as possible. The P2 (and their enablers) are like drunken trailer trash who just won the lottery. ** Edited by HokieNoVA at 6/25/2024, 9:16:35 AM

need to be herded, or they will kill the golden goose.

are capable of landing this plane? University presidents? Fans?

Isn't this the same as what was called "venture capital" which puts "investments" into risky projects with low early payments but increasing payments at a fairly rapid rate? If so how does that help say a Big 12 or ACC? doesn't the burden of the repayment trump the value of an excess of money up front? How do you see it working?

it's not the case. Private capital will go to the marketplace and but firms that are undervalued, have been mismanaged, and have potential for substantial growth. People associate them with vultures that buy, cut up, take their profit, and move on. This is partially true, because there are many instances where this has happened, not only in the past, but as a business model for some. Read a little on Red Lobster to get a pretty good idea of what CAN happen. Then you have the NHL, NBA, and many others who brought in Private Equity (Capital) to manage and grow their brand, NIL, and copyrights in regards to international sponsorships, apparel, and other non core business's. This allows management of those teams to focus on what they are good at - which is basketball and hockey. It has been enormously successful as the revenue from the non core business's have grown since those portions of their business were taken over, and managed better than the owners could. Hope this helps try to explain my position.

1- PE comes in with management that either takes over or has at least a heavy hand in financial management which like your Red Lobster is not dedicated to the conference or any team within it. So if financial circumstances dictate that like Red Lobster, a sell off of a team or bringing in a new one would mean no more to PE than what to eat for lunch. And all this is assuming the initial mover worked. 2- This is essentially betting on growth above current levels to not only pay the interest but the principal as well. That is a huge risk also. Do we really want our leagues to be "Red Lobstered?"

merchandise? Are these fees making as much money as they can? Who in an athletic department has the experience and knowhow to sell stadium rights (as an example)? Is an athletic department set up to run a "for profit" business? Take Ohio State as an example. Their athletic revenue rises to $270M per year, and miraculously, their athletic budget rises to $270 per year - going to great lengths to not show a profit? Do schools or athletic conference have the expertise to go international? Did the NBA? Yet, that is exactly what the NBA did, using PE's expertise, connections, experience, and management. keep in mind, there is risk/reward for both parties. Without knowing any of the details, one can only speculate - but PE would only buy a % of a conference if they felt it was undervalued, and they could take that portion and manage it to different levels. There are probably many different ways to do that for a conference and the teams. It could be the apparel, and other revenue streams that are not realized yet. I would not dismiss the notion out of hand - and keep an open mind. It could be a win win, but there just isn't enough info to know. Right now, it was just an announcement that the B12 is looking to sell 10% to 15% of the conference to a PE firm - no other info was provided. I know what I would do to increase the value of the B12 - but I'm a fan, and like many, know what I would like to see. reality tends to be a bit different though.

other than the period in the late 90s and early 2000s when the NCAA grew a pair and started punishing the blue bloods, which actually created some parity and gave us a chance to see what it's like to be relevant, the same dozen schools have controlled CFB and won about 90% of the championships in whatever form they took for all that time. The only real difference is they are saying the quiet part out loud now and the 90% that always had no shot now are admitting they have no shot.

fan bases don't want NFL Lite.

That's pretty much what they want.

It's what made college football so great - not being like the NFL. I am an OSU fan/grad and have been going to college games at all levels since my first game in 1971. There is NO ONE I know of in Michigan, Ohio etc. who desires CFB to be like the NFL. We want as many schools as possible to be competitive and keep some semblanceIt's what made college football so great - not being like the NFL. I am an OSU fan/grad and have been going to college games at all levels since my first game in 1971. There is NO ONE I know of in Michigan, Ohio etc. who desires CFB to be like the NFL. We want as many schools as possible to be competitive and keep some semblanceIt's what made college football so great - not being like the NFL. I am an OSU fan/grad and have been going to college games at all levels since my first game in 1971. There is NO ONE I know of in Michigan, Ohio etc. who desires CFB to be like the NFL. We want as many schools as possible to be competitive and keep some semblanceIt's what made college football so great - not being like the NFL. I am an OSU fan/grad and have been going to college games at all levels since my first game in 1971. There is NO ONE I know of in Michigan, Ohio etc. who desires CFB to be like the NFL. We want as many schools as possible to be competitive and keep some semblance of the sport we love in tact. College football is a way of life in Columbus. Why do you think we shun the NFL talk the past two time they tried to enter the Columbus market (the last time in the mid-80s with Lamar Hunt thinking of moving the Cardinals to Columbus before moving to Phoenix)? We don't want anything to do with an NFL team here. We have Cleveland and Cincy for that.

Lamar Hunt tried to puchase the Cardinals once in the 60s and once in the 80s. The Bidwell family ended up keeping the franchise and moving it themselves to Phoenix. Prior to that in 1985, Lamar Hunt wanted to buy the franchise and drop it in a proposed downtown Columbus NFL stadium near where Nationwide Arena sits now since 1990-2000. The proposal for the stadium failed miserably as no one wanted an NFL team in Columbus, especially with the residents of Franklin County, Ohio having to foot the bill for the stadium.

Lamar Hunt was one of the founders of the AFL, he and his heirs have owned the Chiefs since 1960, the AFC championship trophy is named after him. He wanted to buy an NFL team in the late 50s and move it to Dallas, maybe it was the Cards. After the Colts left Baltimore there was talk of the cardinals moving to Baltimore, there was a bar with. Baltimore Cardinals t shirt on the wall in the early 2000s ** Edited by mancunian at 6/26/2024, 2:52:00 PM

foes that they've always played. I think the 10 SEC teams pre-SEC Championship Game expansion to 12 would sooner just play the original 10 schools. Ditto for the original Big Actual Ten.

it up. I love this feature.

How long until "middle tier" of SEC schools (Florida, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Auburn, Arkansas, and Tennessee) realize that half of all teams in any conference finish below .500 and find themselves in that tier regularly. If winning sells seats, non P-2 may just be more fun.

predetermined. How many teams are really in contention in the SEC to win it? Extrapolate that to all conferences. The blue bloods have always wanted to stay at the top, and they are uninterested in real competition. Tell me a university that needs to spend close to $300M a year on athletics? Maybe that is the answer here, cap what a university is allowed to budget for athletics - and let the universities of the P2 keep their profits for things like, I don't know, education.

You spoke first of pro sports and how it can be interesting for fans because of its parity, but then spoke of college sports and how the results are already decided because of the wide discrepancy of resources amongst its participants. I kind of understand your points, but…pro sports leagues have basically 32 teams, generate massive revenues and split it equally. The TV $$ that goes into a pro league props up its best markets with more coverage just the same as college sports, but it doesn’t matter as much because its properties are most all located in major metropolitan areas and viewership and fan support is built in league wide. There are no Dukes or Wake Forests or Vanderbilts or Rutgerses or Northwesterns in pro sports. College sports don’t follow that model. They generate massive revenues, sure, but the participants are so large in number and because there is no firm central management of the system, there has been infighting for the resources for so long that the schools with the most power have seized control of the resources. (Partially at the behest of the media companies that pay them, I understand) Now, there are a large number of fans that support the overall number of schools in college sports, but many are - insignificant - when it comes to generating revenue. We all know and can list the college fan bases that don’t support particular sports. So…why should they get equal revenue to an Alabama or an Ohio State? From a purely capitalistic sense, they shouldn’t. However, we also understand what makes college sports attractive, and making the Top 10 programs earn way more than programs 11-20 who then earn way more than programs 21-30, and so on, isn’t a good way to run the operation. So where we are at right now is determining the programs who are all in to play football. And I think it’s more about figuring out that number right now, before we can even try and get to implementing any type of parity. Is it the 70 schools in the P4? Is it 60 schools in an P3? Is it 48 teams in an P2? Who knows… But everybody willing to pay their players $20-$30M probably getting on the boat. The ones that don’t……. The key will be to implementing parity in some way once the number has been set.

what is the real value and how is it created and measured? Are the same blue blood teams appearing in the playoffs and on TV creating the increased value or is the value at least somewhat driven by the interest of fans of all schools no matter how remote their school's shot at the title might be? Going forward might gambling interest be a substitute for school loyalty and interest? A lot of questions to likely be answered in the future. One thing we do know is true minor league sports lag the pros in interest and money. Collegiate sports has long avoided the moniker of being minor league sports and that differing perception has likely played a part in driving interest. That distinction is being rapidly removed with the landscape changes and I believe the powers that be will find maintaining interest levels more difficult than they might have imagined. Not impossible mind you, just a much heavier, creative lift.

In my younger years I went to bed with an earpiece in my ear and listened to my favorite baseball team on the radio and the occasional times they were on tv. I religiously watched the World Series (with most of the games on during the day). The third baseball strike pretty much ended all my interest in baseball. Then I saw Super Bowl V and got hooked on football, watching as much as i could (I had a limited number of tv hours allowed to include one favorite show) and that continued well into the 90s (with no limits 😆). But then money pretty much ended pro football for me. Now i basically only watch playoffs on). In junior high I started watching college basketball in earnest and specifically the NIT/NCAA tournaments were high value. Upon arriving at VT, college sports became king, football jumping basketball to become my primary interest. I watched VT struggling with independence in football and as a second class citizen in the Metro Conference. I was pleased when BE football appeared, but watched basketball continue to struggle with conference identity. Then, along came the ACC! Hallelujah! We had finally reached where we should have been ages ago. Everyone stepped it up, and pro football was abandoned during the season. The glory years continued from the BE in football and we overachieved. Basketball did okay and it was certainly better than anything since the old Metro days. Things were great, great until NIL, transfer portal, and new conference alignment discussions became the centerpiece of college sports. Other than the championships, I’ve lost a lot of interest in other college games. Money has made it predictable. Other than VT, I’m starting to doubt I’ll be following much of anything anymore. Money and greed has killed my interest, pretty much as it did for pro sports. I’m realistic in believing no one will miss me, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one.

I'll always follow VT and want them to win regardless of what, where or who they play, but planning Saturdays around CFB is done. Watching other major teams use to be great - in our hey day we might be playing them down the road and I was curious on how individual matchups might stack up - even if that was next year's schedule. Now good chance those matchups won't even exist, it could be a whole new list of players. I'm done. Doesn't mean I won't watch some college football - and even "follow" VT and go to a few games (mainly for tailgating with family/friends), but it no longer is a passion. Greed - on all sides - interceded and they keep asking for more. As an entrepreneur I'm fine with that - but don't act surprised when I say enough and find other things to spend money on. And yes, they probably won't miss me either. College coaches have always made more money than much of society would like, but greed has expanded exponentially. IMHO the difference is: At a head coach's stage in life you'd have to pay me a lot to do what college coaches do - time commitments, little job security, etc. When in college, if I had had the talent, I would have played on the VT football team for free and loved every minute of it - and yes I know the time commitment for athletes is significantly different now.

The minus 1 degree slope down is now at about 60 degrees, it takes lots of effort to maintain control. Baseball was largely while I was a kid playing little league and my early teen. I had some heroes,

Should be colleges refusing to pay athletes a dime other than for academic scholarships.

It's fashionable to blame greedy athletes for all of this, but any collegiate programs that wish to step off of the semi-pro bandwagon are free to do so at any time. And yet...

Do you happen to be a pathological perpetuator of untruths as well? 😁

Packer fan because of Carroll Dale. Dodger fan because of my dad. VT fan my whole life and Beamer being from my hometown turbo charged that. Knew all the coaches, players (both O and D depth charts). Climbed up the Hokie Club ranking. With age comes the realization that sports is not the be all and end all of human existence. All these changes coming only puts sports in its proper place in my life.

And that hasn’t been because VT didn’t have any money.