Instead of worrying about the Mexder futures that were expiring for my trade desk this afternoon, I was embroiled in a heated debate consisting of lengthy emails debating the pros and cons of Notre Dame joining a conference amongst former members of my dorm. Below is a transcript of those emails. My thanks to all those who unknowingly contributed to this column.
For the sake of privacy, the names have not been changed.
Shuttlecock (10:22am)"ACC anyone?"
La Bamba (10:48am)"The thought of not being independent is tearing me up inside. It looks awful. I can't go up against 'Cuse again and lose on the reg. They're just too stong. Too good."
Mattare (11:19am)"Notre Dame still does not have to join a conference based on what's transpired over the past few days. Swarbrick needs to be proactive in finding a good landing spot for our olympic sports, but football absolutely can stay independent if that's the path we want to continue on. The notion that our hand has been forced at this juncture is completely false."
Panzer (11:23am)"As far as landing spots for olympic sports, I think the pool would work best for the diving team and a sand pit would work well for all long jumpers/triple jumpers. As for the other sports, its not so much the landing that I'm worried about."
Mattare (11:25am)"That logic is infinitely wiser than any Kevin White used during his tenure."
Sharky (11:42am)"Say the Olympic sports find a way to work themselves out (landing in pools/sand pits etc) without the need for football to join a conference (is this even possible?).
I still dont think you can say at this juncture anymore we 'can absolutely stay independent', just like Texas can no longer 'absolutely' keep their network without some concessions. I think there are too many variables at play just to say we can remain with our status quo. I think it would be best to get our number one pick at a conference, rather than risk the whole landscape changing with us on the outside. I guess the counter argument could be the BCS right now is the the 6 conferences + ND, why couldnt it be the 4 Conferences + ND. I just think we've lost some sway in the past 15 years of mediocre football/slipping ratings."
C-Loss (12:03pm)"Setting aside the ND part of this, I don't get why there have to be 416 team superconferences. Because some sportswriter wrote about it? 16 teams makes no sense at all for football, there's only 12 games a year. What's the point of a conference where you play barely half of the other teams in a given year? Why stop at 16, why not 20 or 25? I don't get this magic 16 number.
ND should do everything it can to stay independent in football. My biggest concern is scheduling... If they go to 10 conference games there will be less opportunities for the other teams to schedule out of conference games with us. But a 12-0 ND team is not getting shut out of an 8 team playoff just because they aren't in a super conference. And if they stick with the current 2 team playoff (BCS Champ game), we're not getting shut out unless there are 2 other undefeated teams or we run into major scheduling issues where we have a Boise like schedule since no one wants to schedule ND anymore. I don't think this is likely at all."
Mattare (12:29pm) "In terms of football: Notre Dame hasn’t been relevant in the national championship race for 15+ years, but we’ve still got more sway than any other school because we still make other schools fistfuls of money. We’re the only sellout at Stanford every other year. We’re one of the only guaranteed sellouts at Purdue, Boston College, and sometimes even Pitt. We just drew over 110k for Michigan. We sold out Penn State (108k?) and North Carolina when we were HORRENDOUS. You realize the Pac-12 has a Notre Dame provision written into its bylaws to provide exemptions so that Southern Cal and Stanford can continue to play the Irish in November (because other Pac-12 schools aren’t allowed to schedule out of conference games after the third week of the season moving forward). Why? Because we make them money and provide big exposure on the opposite coast. You could argue they’re allowing the preservation of the ND-Southern Cal rivalry, but you certainly can’t make that claim about Stanford who we only started playing every year in the mid-to-late 90’s.
Glad C-Loss chipped in on the schedule before I sent this. The scheduling myth is just like the academic standard myth. We will always be able to find teams to play us as long as we’re willing to do home-and-homes for the aforementioned reasons (money and exposure). The Pac-12 has us written into their bylaws to accommodate our November games in California and I bet there will be provisions to allow Oklahoma and Texas to at the very least maintain their current contractual arrangements for games with ND if not permit it moving forward. Northwestern just broke Big 10 protocol and scheduled us in November because we were willing to do a home-and-home. I bet other Big 10 schools would as well. You’re telling me Boise State wouldn’t jump at a home and home whenever we wanted it? Same with everyone who’s left from the Big 12 and ACC. Even look at the SEC: Tennessee played us in November twice in ’04 and ’05. It can be done. It’s going to take work and creativity, but Swarbrick has already shown he’s adept to putting together compelling schedules moving forward and there’s no reason to believe that wouldn’t be possible with these new realignment shifts.
Texas has some sway, but it pales in comparison to ND’s brand—that’s not hubris or arrogance, that’s just reality. Swarbrick needs to operate knowing that which would be a stark contrast to White’s approach, which led to be bullied and come out on the wrong side of a deal with—of all schools—Purdue. We can maintain independence, it’s just a matter of whether we want to go to the necessary lengths to ensure it. There’s always going to be a spot for us in the Big Ten if “Armageddon” finally comes. We’re never going to be completely left out in the cold because we would bring too much value for people to just freeze us out—money rules everything and we’re the golden goose. Plus, it’s not like even if it goes to 4 16-team super conferences that a playoff is going to suddenly arise. In order for that to happen the 64 teams would have to break away from the NCAA which isn’t going to happen in this lifetime.
In terms of Olympic sports, that’s the much tougher riddle to solve and where Swarbrick will earn his money. Does he take the bull by the horns and try to spearhead a new conference? Does he attempt to slide into the Big 12/Big East mess? I think that colossal fustercluck is weak enough that ND could flex its muscle and join in everything but football. That obviously isn’t an option for any other major conference, but it’s certainly worth trying in this instance. One intriguing (albeit farfetched) idea was presented a couple years ago on the blog Domer Law.
http://domerlaw.blogspot.com/2010/04/conference-talk.htmlI could absolutely live with that conference (with minor tweaks…get out of here Loyola, Chicago) for our Olympic sports. It would require us nuking the A-10 and poaching some other schools as well, but it still intrigues me and most importantly gives us a legit conference with 15 schools that have no D-I football team. Added bonus: the conflict CLoss (a die-hard Hawks fan) would deal with when ND played St Joe’s in basketball."
Sharky (2:34pm)"You guys keep mentioning money, money, money, but is independence really the catalyst in providing all that money. Without really searching too deep, I feel like our NBC tv deal gives us less in TV revenue then each individual team in the big conferences (Again this is something I've heard, I dont have the facts on that). If you search Forbes most valuable football teams, we are no longer number 1 (It seems like Texas has clearly overtook us in that regard).
Scheduling: I agree won't be a problem, plenty of teams will always want to play us
Brand: Yes I believe we are still number 1, but again, is that really an independence thing?
I think the best thing to do would be to join a 'independent' conference with Texas, Oklahoma, BYU, etc, where we are affiliated with them (meaning we play these teams every year, but there's no conference) and each team does not have to share their revenue. But, it seems Texas is set on joining a conference.
So basically, which I think was my original email way back when today, do we join a 'weaker' conference for our 'olympic' sports, just to remain independent in football. I personally wouldnt, and that's also because I really don't see the perks of staying as an Independent any better than joining a conference. I dont see Independence as meaningful as it once was to ND. The money is in conferences now, and if we could maintain relations with NBC and the ACC, i bet it creates more revenue. Branding: I believe playing in a conference championship game against FSU, ontop of still ending the season with USC would be a huge boost to the ND brand.
The only drawback to the conference is we are maxed out at scheduling 2 awesome Non-Conference games (it would be USC, Navy, one other good team). But within conference play, if it is ACC (we woud play FSU, Miami, VATECH) every year, and if we join Big Ten (We'd play Mich, OSU, Nebraska, Penn State) every Year. I feel like both schedules are ridiculously good (whether its our independent or conference schedule)."
Mattare (3:46pm)"I’m talking about money for other teams, not us. Money is driving all of this but it shouldn’t govern what we choose to do. You’re correct, the NBC contract makes us significantly less money than how much Big 10 schools allegedly make off the BTN and it’s less than the newly negotiated major conference contracts as well. But we’re not hurting for money and there comes a point where passing up dollars to preserve “the brand” in a specific way becomes more valuable in the long-term.
A good example is Augusta National with The Masters. AN probably makes ¼ of what they could off of The Masters because they want control of every last detail from the times the tournament is broadcast to the camera angles used to the graphics on the telecast even all the way down to terms used on the air to describe fans (patrons) and rough (2nd cut). They could bid out that tournament and come away with an ungodly television contract. Instead they have a one-year contract every year with CBS. They could sell PPV packages that would allow tv viewers to see every shot of every round that could make them an absurd amount of money. They could charge more than $1.50 for a pimento cheese sandwich on the property. They could have more than 2-3 sponsors every year.
Now it’s not a perfect comparison, but I think it works. Notre Dame would stand to make way more money than we do right now if we were in a conference, but we don’t need it. We’d stand to make more money by having seven or eight home games like OSU every year, but it’d be at the expensive of having a good, national schedule. We’d make more money by bullying schools like Wake Forest and Northwestern into playing at neutral sites instead of their home stadiums, but you can argue that’d be at the expense of some code of ethics. How much money could we make by allowing a sponsor to advertise in the Stadium? There’s a reason we don’t.
The Forbes list has us as the #3 most valuable football program (behind Texas and OSU), but if I remember correctly it was somehow weighted to favor schools with bigger enrollments (I’m not quite sure how that makes sense in terms of value, but I do remember someone doing a calculation of money generated per student in the school and ND’s was still the biggest…maybe it was just the effect of the football revenue? I don’t remember, but regardless we still make an absurd amount of money).
I’d love for Texas to join us as an independent, I just don’t think they have the cajones or desire to do it because conference membership is all they’ve ever known.
We’ll have to agree to disagree about the value of being independent. Notre Dame’s national popularity was forged by being an independent. Right now we basically set our own course in terms of scheduling, television deals, BCS provisions, etc. Once you give an inch of that up you can never get it back (see: Kevin White’s beyond moronic BCS concession in 2004 that has to date cost us $8mil). If we regionalize ourselves by jumping in a conference—and that’s exactly what joining the Big 10 would do over time—you kill a huge part of what made ND unique. Instead of sitting at a table of one making decisions that are best for the university and it’s football/athletic programs, we’d be sitting at a table of 16 with 1/16th the power. Sure, we’ll be allowed to keep our NBC contract on this go-around, but when it expires who says the remaining members can’t go “you have to give it up or we’ll boot you and all your other teams from the conference”? Then we’re completely screwed. We still have a ton of leverage and clout right now. That’ll dissipate as soon as we join a conference.
This entire process of realignment is created and sustained by greed. Conferences with 16 teams each and essentially zero geographical ties make little to no sense for just about every sport (the ONLY way they make sense in football is the fact that it makes more money…in every other regard it’s pretty terrible). Why not try to fight this and carve out a niche for all of our other sports that makes sense on every level while maintaining football independence? Swarbrick was a huge player—if not the most influential—in calming the seas last year. It’s time for him to step up and be even more pro-active this time around."
Sharky (4:45pm)"I still dont think you are painting a picture of why independence has greater value anymore than joining a conference. You wrote: "scheduling, television deals, BCS provisions" as the main three reasons, as well as forging our popularity back in the day, and leverage at the tables.
I think scheduling is still fairly even being in a conference as and independent. Maybe even conference has the edge because its a higher probability we have bigger games during the middle and end of the season, plus a conference championship game.
Television Deals: I'm not good at arguing this point. I just feel like being on 'NBC' doesnt really have as much sway as it did 15 years ago. If our games are on ESPN2, B10 network, yes it doesn't sound as cool, but I feel like more people are going to tune into the b10 network to watch us play Wisconsin, then NBC to watch us play W Michigan. I think matchups dictate ratings now that for the most part. It is cool having inside stories on ND (like our professor, more interviews with our players that nbc has access too), but I dont know if most people really care about that. So my belief is go for the better deal when it comes to tv. I think that should be dictated by money (isn't that originally why we signed up with NBC?)
BCS provisions: You acknowledged our deal sucks now, so joining a conference won't hurt that.
More popular: Yes, being independent back in the day made us more popular. A big reason is because it allowed us to travel across the country. Again, thats not an advantage we hold over others now. Many choose not to play games coast to coast, but really the only way to get more popular is to win nowadays.
I'm just not convinced ND joining a conference ruins our uniqueness. We are unique because we are Catholic (that won't change), we have the most storied history (that won't change), we graduate our players (that won't change), we have a national fanbase (that won't change), we dont have naming rights on our stadium/jumbotron (that won't change), we consistantly have a tough schedule (that won't change). What conference votes will there be made that might not be best for our univesity (scheduling night games/adding a 10th conference game/splitting revenues (but ND doesnt care about the money suppposedly).
Joining a power conference is better for other sports, but that doesnt seem to be much of the focus here. If you are worried about geography, join the Big 10 over ACC."
Julie (5:36pm)"Do any of you have real jobs?"
La Bamba (5:38pm)"With 99 weeks of unemployment? Absolutely not. It's called "finding myself."
Mattare (6:10pm)"I’ll dissect your thoughts piece by piece.
I still dont think you are painting a picture of why independence has greater value anymore than joining a conference. You wrote: "scheduling, television deals, BCS provisions" as the main three reasons, as well as forging our popularity back in the day, and leverage at the tables.
I think scheduling is still fairly even being in a conference as and independent. Maybe even conference has the edge because its a higher probability we have bigger games during the middle and end of the season, plus a conference championship game.Look at our schedules from the 90’s look at our schedules for the next five years. Ignore the ones drawn up by Kevin White. Teams we’ve played and are scheduled to play: Texas, Washington, Georgia Tech, Southern Cal, Arizona State, LSU, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas, Miami, Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Florida State, UCLA…talk about nationwide, compelling schedules. Kiss that goodbye in a conference.
Television Deals: I'm not good at arguing this point. I just feel like being on 'NBC' doesnt really have as much sway as it did 15 years ago. If our games are on ESPN2, B10 network, yes it doesn't sound as cool, but I feel like more people are going to tune into the b10 network to watch us play Wisconsin, then NBC to watch us play W Michigan. I think matchups dictate ratings now that for the most part. It is cool having inside stories on ND (like our professor, more interviews with our players that nbc has access too), but I dont know if most people really care about that. So my belief is go for the better deal when it comes to tv. I think that should be dictated by money (isn't that originally why we signed up with NBC?)We have our own national television network. There is one school that has an entire major network devoted solely to it and it’s Notre Dame with NBC. That’s pretty powerful, it’s just that we’ve been so mediocre to crappy over the past fifteen years that we haven’t really taken advantage of it. This is once again about branding, not necessarily grabbing for the biggest wad of money. Was money the original reason for signing with NBC? It was certainly a big factor I’m sure, but it also provided us exposure that had never even been fathomed previously. Things have changed since then (obviously), but I think the NBC deal suits us just fine right now and will be extraordinarily valuable when we start posting top ten finishes consistently again.
BCS provisions: You acknowledged our deal sucks now, so joining a conference won't hurt that.Kevin White is an idiot. That being said, we still have a specific automatic qualifier provision for ND written into the BCS despite White handing away our boatloads of potential cash. That disappears in a conference.
More popular: Yes, being independent back in the day made us more popular. A big reason is because it allowed us to travel across the country. Again, thats not an advantage we hold over others now. Many choose not to play games coast to coast, but really the only way to get more popular is to win nowadays. Agreed that winning is the most important thing. But the fact that we “barnstorm” and play all over the country is something that’s unique and once again distinguishes us. Does it help recruiting that we can tell recruits moving forward that we’ve got a game in Texas, California, and Florida (that will be monsters if we’re good) over the course of their four years? You can debate that, but I say it can’t hurt in a world where we need every last inch in recruiting battles.
I'm just not convinced ND joining a conference ruins our uniqueness. We are unique because we are Catholic (that won't change), we have the most storied history (that won't change), we graduate our players (that won't change), we have a national fanbase (that won't change), we dont have naming rights on our stadium/jumbotron (that won't change), we consistantly have a tough schedule (that won't change). What conference votes will there be made that might not be best for our univesity (scheduling night games/adding a 10th conference game/splitting revenues (but ND doesnt care about the money suppposedly). I don’t know what to tell you if you don’t see how it cuts into our uniqueness. Right now the college football world has provisions in everything that
Independence is a huge part of our identity and that “storied history;” abandoning that moving forward will change how future generations view the history we write from this day on. In terms of conference voting: don’t put your fate in someone else’s hands when you have the ability to completely control your own—which we still do. Joining a conference is the lazy way out. If the spineless Monk Malloy along with an incompetent AD (Mike Wadsworth…though not to the level of Doc White, White has a Phd in incompetence) could stand up to the Big 10 like they did in ’99, then someone with the juice of Fr. Jenkins accompanied by someone with the smarts of Jack Swarbrick can navigate this turmoil and bring us out the other side of it in a way that preserves everything we value.
Joining a power conference is better for other sports, but that doesnt seem to be much of the focus here. If you are worried about geography, join the b10 over acc.I mean, this entire plague known as super-conferences has nothing to do with other sports. If it did then one of the top five college basketball programs of all-time (Kansas) wouldn’t be sitting on the sideline completely helpless as the new landscape takes shape. What good does this new realignment really bring fans or the student-athletes? Nothing, it’s a giant money grab. There are some delusional people that see this as the next step toward a playoff, which is completely ridiculous.
Notre Dame should fight against what’s become a ridiculously non-sensical trend of super-conferences. Once we take the plunge into them there’s no going back and we head down a path of becoming “just another school.” No, we’ll never devolve into an also-ran and the name will always carry weight, but it will lose something—and that’s something we should fight against tooth and nail."
