Tap the brakes, says Mark Cuban

What is the worldcoming to when Mark Cuban is the voice of reason?

I have always considered Cuban to be someone who overflowed with big ideas and out of the box thinking. It seems to me that nearly everything he says or does is either absolutely brilliant ( his computer business ) or unbelievably bone headed ( signing Shawn Bradley to an extension ).There is no middle ground with him. I cant decide which category this falls into. I lean toward thinking he is right on the money in this case

The one point that most fans who want Super Conference tend to forget is that College Football is a zero sum game.

Lots of teams will lose more games than their fans are accustomed to. It will probably shake out, and be like a min-NFL where “parity” abounds, and that may speed up the process to a playoff, but still there will be some adjustment for fans.

I appreciate what Cuban says and agree with most of it. But I think superconferences would actually bring better competition, especially once they finally solidify major college football down to the 60 or so teams needed to more effectively give us a champion that has earned their trophy on more or less equal footing with the other teams in the league.

The current iteration of the MNC is based largely in some ridiculous calculus that makes all perfect seasons equal even if one team didn’t win a game against a team in the top third of the football pecking order. I could care less if Texas never goes perfect again, if it means better games and a realistic shot at the championship by proving worthy at the end of the year. I am tired of scheduling patsies, but I completely agree with it under the current abortio of a system, or winning the preseason polling to ensure your edge over other teams at the end of the year beauty contest. I want to see Texas winning games in January against the best teams in the country in a playoff, not hoping Art Briles votes us higher than OU to overcome our computer numbers in hopes of getting one of two measly spots at the big table.

problem I have with the new super conferences is that they don’t play enough teams out of conference and when they do, they’re terrible teams.

“Basically, Cuban argues that super conferences 1) will not produce the revenue that schools think they will, 2) hurt football scheduling rather than help, because some games will be pushed onto smaller platforms, 3) hurt records because easy n-c wins will be reduced, 4) kill or limit traditional rivalries (that would be you, A&M), and 5) cause teams that are used to winning to not win as much as they expect.”

I can’t speak for every school out there, but, from the point of view of Texas, I think Mark Cuban’s conclusions are mostly incorrect.

Regarding #1, Texas realignment with any conference will raise the net take of all the other member schools, providing more money for every conference team, most likely significantly so. As for Texas, its LHN already puts $300M+ on the table with speculation on this board of a potential value of $1B if things work just right. Who knows? — Maybe Texas cuts a deal where it keeps all or most of the LHN as well as participate in the conference network? This speculation his does not even begin to factor in the value of a superconference playoff system, which is the ultimate goal of realignment.

Cuban’s second point — games on smaller platforms — is exactly why a school might want to have its own network: To take advantage of Tier 3 games. However, I wonder about this point on its own merits. How can a Texas v. Purdue, or a Texas v. Washington State get pushed onto a smaller platform? For that matter, how does, say an Oregon State v. Texas Tech get pushed onto a smaller platform than, say, a Texas Tech v. Louisiana State, or Texas Tech v. Kansas State? Maybe I’m not getting what Cuban means, but there’s no way aggy going to the SEC, for example, is going to cause them to wind up on a “smaller platform.”

The third point — easy non-conference wins — misses the whole point of realignment. Superconference realignment is about setting up a playoff system of at least 4 tiers: Intra-conference divisional playoff, superconference playoffs semis, superconference playoff finals, and the NC game. Non-conference games are, more or less, irrelevant, except as preparatory for conference games. Pretty much like they are now, except in a superconference playoff scenario, non-conference W-L doesn’t matter. In the superconference scenario, it’s wins in the conference that matter, not polls. In fact, it could be argued to be exactly the reverse. A team could want challenging non-conference games to toughen them up for their conference schedule.

Realignment might well bite into “traditional rivalries” — Cuban’s fourth point — true. However, take Texas, for example. If Texas had gone to the B10 last year, what Delaney was rumored to have been dangled before Texas was one less conference game per year so that Texas could preserve the RRR, as well as aggy on T-Day, plus, if ND also joined, a yearly crossover game. If true, realignment between Texas and the B10 would have strengthened Texas’ rivalry portfolio, not weakened it. This year, folks don’t seem much to care for the aggy T-game, given that aggy is going east, wanting instead to substitute ND. The result with respect to rivalries might be different for other teams. However, rivalries come and go, old rivalries die and suddenly there are new rivalries. Just ask aggy.

Cuban is a really smart man. In the case of realignment, however, I will have to agree to disagree.

I’m tempted to like the TX/OK 4 going to the PAC-16 and am sympathetic to Bill Powers’ affinity for the strong academics on the west coast. Why should UT continue to coddle TAMU’s desire to pretend they’re astronomers by letting them partner with McDonald Observatory? There will be serious scientific collaborations through the PAC-16. And UT and OU will make it a much better conference and both will have an annual opportunity to make a run at the national championship. But similar to other reservations expressed in this forum, I do have a nagging concern that the development of super-conferences is bad for the game. Among other reasons, the mid-majors, like the MAC and the MWC, have been incubators for good coaching. If those conferences whither, not only will it be a lot harder to find the jewels in the haystack for the next level, but the competition from below for innovative coaching will suffer. Change will happen more slowly at the majors. Creative destruction is healthy, as we are now seeing in Austin.

It will be beautiful when it happens. 4 conferences of 16 teams, 2 divisions of 8 teams. 7 games in your division, 4 from the other side, one OOC game. Of course playoffs are a necessity at this point. Win your division and you are in your CCG, also known as elite 8. Win your CCG and you are in the Final 4. Yes we will lose more games, everyone will, but they will be better games and they will be more valuable.

Mark Cuban is right.

Mark Cuban for President!

If Aggie had not been so greedy they never would have left the conference. Hows that for turning the tables. Aggie is ranked the highest since 98, a top 10 team. Next year they will be LSU’s kitty litter.

srr50 said: " It will probably shake out, and be like a min-NFL where "parity" abounds, and that may speed up the process to a playoff, but still there will be some adjustment for fans."

This. 4 16 team conferences with 2 8 team divisions in them sounds awfully close to 2 conferences with four 4 team leagues. Superconferences will lead to the NFL-ification of college football and, frankly, I’m not sure how I feel about that yet.

I envision 12 game schedules where you play 7 (same division) +4 (other division) plus some poor non-major conference cupcake each year. Games like LSU-Oregon and OU-Florida State during the regular season will cease to exist.

Of course it allows a pretty easy playoff — 4 conference championships, a semifinal and a final, then let the other winning teams play in bowls. But 16 team conferences will either lead to 4 fairly insular leagues that ultimately meet in December/January, or alternative to the 7+4 is a 7+2 or 7+3 conference schedule concept (where the third is a permanent rival), but then, as an example, we’d only see USC in DKR once every 8 years.

…. and meant to add, as much as I love following this stuff and predicting how the game theory will play out, I think 16 team conferences are probabyl ultimately harmful to a lot of the reasons we like college football.

Of course, I’m of the opinion that we should go back to the pre-BCS system where conferences were locked in as opposed to a playoff. The 2004 bowl schedule would have been absolutely amazing:

Rose – Michigan/USC
Orange – OU/Va Tech
Sugar – Auburn/Texas
Fiesta – Utah/Cal

Instead, we got one classic game (TYVY), 2 blowouts and a snooze fest.

Pittsburgh doesn’t get in….

I doubted would only see USC once every 8 yrs. I would think Oklahoma would insist on having 1 game per yr in California for recruiting reasons. Texas would probably jump n that as well. My guess is a move to the PAC 12 would create a southern and northern division.
South: Texas, TTU, OU, OSU, Arizona, ASU, USC, and UCLA.

As for Cuban saying get used to losing more games, that is true in this scenario. South division would have 3 of the top 10 programs all-time and 1 (UCLA) that is top 20. Probably forming the toughest division in football.

Most of Cuban’s points are at least potentially valid. But my take is, a super conference system is no more permanent than the current one. So if it doesn’t work, there will be tides of change sweeping again. The point I would disagree with is that the Big XII is viable, because I just don’t think it is, and haven’t since last summer. A 10 team model was never going to work for the League as a whole (even if it DID work for OU/Tex), and I give credit to Aggy for simply being the first one to figure it out. Beebe should have been leading the charge to make it the FIRST super conference, instead of buying into the networks’ plan. Now, there simply isn’t the stability or desire on the part of potential teams to join this Titanic. Texas’ best play is to hitch a ride on the Sooner Schooner now.

I don’t know if the model will be 7 divisional and 4 other division games.

It might work better with 7, rotating 2, and leave 3 non-conference.

The key to the whole deal, though, is a 4-tier playoff system. There’s the excitement and the money.

My point is that a 7/2 or 7/3 model means there are teams that would only come to Austin (and we’d only visit them) once every 8 years.

Cool. Once every 8 yrs for Oregon to be in Texas is probably once too many

I have a thought…Has Cuban ever negotiated a TV deal before, because he comes across as clueless in that blog entry.

Please make it stop. Or consider this – if A+M didn’t leave for the SEC this year, when would it have the chance to get into a super conference? Which conference would it be? Come super conference time, the Big XII will fall apart – we know that. OU and OSU will be headed in one direction – probably west. You will be headed to the PAC16 or the Big16. Would the PAC want A+M over BYU? Would the Big16 want A+M over ND?

Would Texas have insisted that A+M comes with them as a package deal to whichever super conference they choose to join? Probably not.

A+M looked after themselves.

As for Mark Cuban – he would probably be exactly the same if he were working in a computer store. His blog seems pretty shallow though – scheduling and non-conference wins surely can’t be that high on the average fan’s agenda. Rivalries, yes but A+M will happily replace Texas, TTU and BU with the pigs and LSU. The Texas game is probably gone for ever.

Agree with Cuban 100%. Superconferences are the dreams of foolish people. Why these people continue to put their hands over their ears and start screaming at the top of their lungs when confronted with the reality that it will be more difficult to advance to the better postseason games is because, well… they’re foolish. The smart teams will get themselves into a solid (here’s the rub) smaller conference of 8 to 12 teams.

@XOVERX, I agree with you about Texas’ tide floating everyone else’s boat, but that’s because in an equal revenue share conference, Texas subsidizes the others. That same logic may not be true for A&M.

srr50’s statement about wins and losses being a zero sum game is true, but that concept is generally true of college football viewership and TV revenue as well. Alignment into superconferences will not appreciably increase viewership. It only makes sense if the conference can take money away from somewhere else making existing member schools richer while leaving those remaining outside poorer. Again, with Texas, this makes sense since the current revenue share Texas collects is significantly less than what it brings in for the B12. SEC, PAC-12 and B1G see this subsidy money and want it for their own members. This level of greed makes the LHN look downright philanthropic.

A&M at $20 million/year in the B-12is probably overvalued (my guess only), and it only improves if they start beating existing SEC members. So what gain does the SEC see in adding aggy if it doesn’t increase member revenue share? I really don’t get it. Perhaps the SEC sees aggy as a cupcake it can ad without lowering the revenue tide, but this seems a really clumsy way to go about the business of easing the road to the postseason.

I don’t doubt that superconferences will wield more power in controlling college football. However, it’s not difficult to forecast anti-trust action or congressional interference to break that influence up. We’ve already seen similar attempts under the current BCS system, but it will get much worse after alignment. And it’s for this reason that superconferences may be less stable than the current smaller league configuration.

Does Cuban’s Aggie wife share his sentiments?

I don’t think college football needs “super conferences” to come about. It seems more a domino effect of teams often having a belief, rightful or mistaken, they’ll be better off in another conference. Is the grass greener if you exchange a known set of problems for an unknown set? Perhaps, but it isn’t like a given school will arrive at a perpetual state of bliss in their operations.

I think it’s a little strange to remove the regional aspect and extend the travel when you don’t have to, but I’m not as attached to those things as some. Unless the federal government for some reason outlaws it, I won’t be surprised if the concept eventually happens.

Seems to me this super conference talk usually spills over into creation of a playoff system and splitting off from the NCAA entirely to form some other governing body. Of course, I don’t know how large a playoff system can be if you intend to create an exclusive membership club, and many fans seem to express in an outsized version. And if you are baffled by the lack of punishment metered out by the NCAA to institutions of major infractions, do you honestly believe they’ll be more severe on themselves?

Still, the thing I’d most like to happen in college sports doesn’t require super conferences at all. I’ll just segue into that since it is what they should be talking about instead.

An eight team playoff series that co-exists with the bowl system is possible and should be adopted for the next BCS contract. 2014?

The majority of bowls are pointless outside of television contracts, tourism, and ticket sales. Cha-ching! I guess you could still include rewarding a team and its fanbase for an above average season except it has been revamped as an average and above season.

All bowl supporters out there can continue their love affair with the system in conjunction with a playoff. People still need countless hours of football to make it through the holiday season evidently, and teams like extra weeks to practice in preparation for their next season.

Take the top 8 teams in the BCS poll at the end of the regular season as your seeds. This number yields the cream of the crop as to which teams played well in a regular season where “every game is meaningful,” allows for the slightest of hiccups, and sets up a gauntlet to crown the eventual champions.

You wanted that regular season to mean something, right? The top ranked team in each match-up gets home field for first round excepting the 4 v. 5 game played at the site of the previous season’s national championship. The remaining rounds are played in place of the other BCS bowl games and they rotate just as the current championship game does.

Changes I’d want the BCS to enact in conjunction with this plan:

No limit on eligible teams from a single conference—Your conference will likely get zero to three in on meritocracy.

No more automatic qualifier or “BCS” conferences—See previous. If you don’t have a team that qualifies, your universities attempt to improve their teams and/or schedules going forward.

If school presidents come with the old “the season would be too long and our players need time to study” complaints, offer to remove that extra game the NCAA approved in the last decade and banish all conference championship games. That would maintain the maximum games per season, but fat chance they’ll agree to that.

So I guess we’re keeping those extra games and making things tougher on the poor student-athletes, but in the end you get a definitive national champion each year and more dollars out of the three Ts than the BCS has ever made before. It’s like they own a money tree!

If the NCAA finds major infractions later, your BCS payout must be returned and the title goes to the university that made it the next furthest in the series. Tiebreakers would go to the highest seed in a nod to that meaningful regular season.

Nobody pipes up about making the regular season have much impact in college basketball, but it too could do this with a streamlined field of 16. That’s even less likely to happen.

Back to topic.

How super can a conference be if it contains Washington State, Minnesota, Iowa State, North Carolina State, or a university within the borders of Mississippi? Maybe it’s to let the other conferences know, while super, they are still flawed in athletic competition. No one ever mentions throwing these types out to add better from the free agent pool, but my definition of super would include strengthening the quality of play (as Cuban alludes to) and/or the television footprint and not just increasing the quantity of teams in the conference.

I know, charter members, politics, and such. Ruins that boomerang shaped Texas to Midwest to East Coast 14-team super conference made up of current members of the Big XII, Big 10, and Big East I daydreamed of last year. That monster had fantastic football, very good men and women’s basketball, and fairly good baseball combined with a ton of major markets and households. Truly super? Better than current configurations I thought, but is a made-for-TV super conference really ideal for the schools within it? Maybe not.

Apologies for the length. I felt like typing.

I sort of feel a playoff would have stopped this sort of merger mania years ago. Superconferences are obviously a play for more money, but as a side effect they also increase your chance of being one of the two picked for the championship. In the 4 superconferences model, each conference can feel confident that in any given year one of their members will be in the title game. This is purely a side effect of the money grab, but if we already had a playoff, based on the 6 power conferences, the money college football would be rolling in would be obscene and no conference would want to move to expand beyond 12 teams for fear of being the one who killed the golden goose. The only issue to resolve is what to do about the 60+ teams not in a power conference.

Srr50 says the fans will not like the adjustment to parity (fewer wins, more losses for UT) that the super conferences will bring.

The coaches and college presidents are going to have to make even bigger adjustments in the face of falling LHF contributions and possibly falling season ticket sales during longer down cycles.

quote: A&M finds the possibility of the Longhorns striking it rich with the LHN so distasteful that it thinks its best move is to high-tail it for a rougher football landscape that offers the exact same third-tier option to its members that made it so mad at Texas in the first place.
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You guys just don’t get it. That’s not the (only) reason A&M is leaving. I’m not sure if you will ever admit it.

Nebrask, Colorado, Missouri, A&M, now OU and OSU are all trying to get away from Texas. see a pattern?

Hot dam, let’s just wait and see before we definitively say that OU/OSU are trying to get away from Texas. They can do anything they want of course, but why haven’t they done so? You could be right, but my money is still on UT/OU remaining together in any possible scenario. We’ll know soon, but if you’re like me, not nearly soon enough.

It is not in UT’s best interest to share its revenue and dilute its power by joining a super conference. Remember that the guy pushing super conferences, Jim Delaney, has been the single most powerful enemy of a playoff system in college football. Guys like Delaney and the PAC’s Scott are primarily interested in increasing their own power. Power in college football is a zero sum game (i.e. more power for the conference commissioner means less power for UT) .

Scheduling is way too inflexible already, why would we want to make it even more rigid by scheduling almost exclusively games with other conference members? There should be more interesting and challenging OOC games, not fewer.

I do strongly agree that a conference oriented playoff system (i.e. a playoff comprised of league champions) is absolutely critical. This would encourage playing interesting OOC opponents since getting to the MNC would no longer involve an opinion poll.

To summarize: college playoff of conference champions for MNC is good, joining a super conference is bad for UT.

“Srr50 says the fans will not like the adjustment to parity (fewer wins, more losses for UT) that the super conferences will bring.

The coaches and college presidents are going to have to make even bigger adjustments in the face of falling LHF contributions and possibly falling season ticket sales during longer down cycles."

A playoff system and strong OOC opposition will lead to more losses for UT but the games will be much, much more interesting. UT playing a patsy is super boring and a waste of time. Much better in terms of fan interest, preparation for conference play, and TV revenue to play a competitive OOC schedule.

Why should anyone believe the realignment changes being talked about will lead to parity? The NFL has parity because it actively seeks parity. It has parity mainly because of the structure of its player acquisition system: the top teams pick last in the draft, the worst pick first. Not only does nothing like this happen in college football, but just the opposite happens. Texas has 5-10 first round picks EVERY YEAR. Give a pro team that many first round picks year after year after year and their historical record will resemble Texas’ historical record.

Unless the Alabamas, Ohio States, (non-probation) USCs, etc., are all put into one conference, they’ll continue to dominate whatever conference they’re in. With few exceptions, talent wins. So unless something changes drastically in the way the talent is divvied up, then Texas, in the long run, as far as competing for national championships goes, has little to worry about.

20% of UT fans are eat up with the idea that better is made up of marquee games and the closure that a playoff would bring them.

Cuban and Srr50 are right that 80% of UT fans care much more about winning 10+ games year in and year out and very little about quality of schedule and closure.

ADs and college Presidents are going to find out what they should already know. Just look at our own beloved AD selling tickets to 4 or 5 of our home games at less than half face value after only one down year.

And then there’s Missouri, which all but stuck out at its tongue last year at its fellow members in anticipation of a Big Ten invite that never came, and now can’t wait to follow A&M into the mouth of the SEC whale.

Actually, that seems untrue. Missouri is in no hurry to join the SEC. There may be a few delusional and silly fans who want to go that route, but the people I know and the administration are opposed. With prejudice, too.

Some key points about playoffs:

• You don’t have to go to a super conference system to have a playoff to determine the MNC
• Playoffs encourage playing interesting OOC opponents because you are no longer penalized (in the quest for an MNC) by losing OOC games
• Playing strong OOC competition better prepares you for conference play
• It is easy to show that fan interest in competitive OOC games is much stronger than playing a patsy because the TV ratings and fan attendance are much stronger (i.e. more revenue) for the competitive OOC games
• Playoffs will generate much more TV revenue than playing a single bowl game
• Playoffs avoid the problems (such as poll voter ignorance, stupidity, and lack of knowledge) of polling based systems to determine the MNC game teams. The players should determine on the field who is going to play in the MNC, not poll voters.

Whoops, I should have typed “conflict of interest” rather than “ignorance” in my last point.

Kafka, I agree with much of what you say, but can you offer some evidence for that playing strong OOC competition better prepares a team for conference play? I am all for playing better games in the OOC if it doesn’t effect our ability to get the MNC, which is why I favor a playoff, but I don’t think stronger OOC competition will strongly correlate with better conference performance in any statistically meaningful way.

Ricky: “The only issue to resolve is what to do about the 60+ teams not in a power conference.”

That’s why I proposed eliminating automatic qualifier conferences altogether. The big boys would still get the most invites, but it encourages those universities in large conferences experiencing down periods and “Cinderellas” from the smaller conferences to make smarter hires and scheduling decisions to advance their programs to that level in the future. A rise to prominence or at least significance (Boise/TCU/Utah) and a return to glory (Alabama/FSU) are encouraged with this move. The current BCS conferences would still get the lion’s share they do now.

Worst case scenario for the big boys is that three of the smaller teams have a good season at the same time. At least one of those teams would likely take a step back the following year due to graduations, early entry to draft, or coaching changes. On the opposite side of the same coin is eliminating the cap on a particular conference’s amount of teams reaching the BCS. Again, worst case scenario is probably three teams (say OU, TT, UT a few years ago) get in in one season. Neither scenario is likely to happen much, I’d just like the deserving teams to have that opportunity should it occur. I could be off but I believe the top eight that outlier year would have included the three Big XII teams plus Alabama, Florida, Penn State, Southern California, and Utah. Just an example of what could have been.

Kafka,

Those polls that people fret over aren’t all that far off when it comes to the top teams. The degree of difficulty expands when debating the teams further down. That’s why the playoff system I outlined could use the existing polls and successfully seed a bracket using it. You’re not likely to find a team deserving of a national championship match outside the top eight. They’ve already stumbled a time or three. In fact, some years the teams at six through eight may not be quite as good. Generally speaking though eight seems to be the number that both weeds out the pretenders, still includes all the legitimate contenders, and fits nicely in a bracket annually. Imagine that prestige the Rose Bowl considers itself to have multiplied many times over and ending with an honest to God championship squad that earned it on the gridiron.

Why should UT continue to coddle TAMU’s desire to pretend they’re astronomers by letting them partner with McDonald Observatory?

A couple things:

The partnership is with the Department of Astronomy at UT, not with McDonald, per se.

The answer in the large sense, as I understand it is money. In the more specific sense (again, as I understand it), George Mitchell.

Ricky: “The only issue to resolve is what to do about the 60+ teams not in a power conference.”

That’s why I proposed eliminating automatic qualifier conferences and the limit on teams from a single conference altogether. The big boys would still get the most invites, but it encourages those universities in large conferences experiencing down periods and potential “Cinderellas” from the smaller conferences to make smarter hires and scheduling decisions to advance their programs to that level in the future. A rise to prominence or at least significance (Boise/TCU/Utah) and a return to glory (Alabama/FSU) are encouraged with this move. The current BCS conferences would still get the lion’s share they do now.

Worst case scenario for the big boys is that three of the smaller teams have a good season at the same time. At least one of those teams would likely take a step back the following year due to graduations, early entry to draft, or coaching changes. On the opposite side of the same coin is eliminating the cap on a particular conference’s amount of teams reaching the BCS. Again, worst case scenario is probably three teams (say OU, TT, UT a few years ago) get in for one season. Neither scenario is likely to happen often, I’d just like the deserving teams to have that opportunity should it occur. I could be off but I believe the top eight that outlier year would have included the three Big XII teams plus Alabama, Florida, Penn State, Southern California, and Utah. Just an example of what could have been.

Kafka,

Those polls that people fret over aren’t all that far off when it comes to the top teams. The degree of difficulty expands when debating the teams further down. That’s why the playoff system I outlined could use the existing polls and successfully seed a bracket using it. You’re not likely to find a team deserving of a national championship match outside the top eight. They’ve already stumbled a time or three. In fact, some years the teams at six through eight may not be quite as good. Generally speaking though eight seems to be the number that both weeds out the pretenders, still includes all the legitimate contenders, and fits nicely in a bracket annually. Imagine that prestige the Rose Bowl considers itself to have multiplied many times over and ending with an honest to God championship squad that earned it on the gridiron.