Ohio State AD Gene Smith says 'pause button should be hit' on CFP expansion.

[Buckaineer]

Ohio State AD Gene Smith says 'pause button should be hit' on CFP expansion. Others fret over ESPN's grip on football​

Ohio State AD Gene Smith says 'pause button should be hit' on CFP expansion. Others fret over ESPN's grip on football.

The notion among many leaders around the sport: Why allow ESPN access to the most valuable set of rights around the sport without other bidders to drive up the price?

sports.yahoo.com

The combination of uncertainty in the environment and a building skepticism over the power being collected by ESPN and the SEC after recent realignment moves have prompted a more cautious approach to expansion. The exploration of growing from a four-team model to 12-team model was announced in early June and is being deliberated on, with a decision expected in the fall.

“I think the pause button should be hit,” Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith told Yahoo Sports. “We need to evaluate the landscape and what it’s going to look like. We still need to evaluate the 12-team playoff. We don’t need to rush into that when there’s legitimate concerns that need to be addressed.”

 

[Buckaineer]

A little more....
Right now, ESPN has exclusive negotiating rights because it owns the contract. The idea of bringing those rights to open market has only increased around the sport now that ESPN rode shotgun on the bold and expensive move of Texas and Oklahoma leaving the Big 12 for the SEC. (The Big 12 was mad enough in the wake of losing its two alpha members that it sent ESPN a “cease and desist” letter and alleging in an interview that ESPN “provided incentives” for another league to “destabilize” the Big 12.)

The acquisitions of OU and Texas fortifies SEC as the dominant brand in the sport, as it owns the SEC Network and all of the SEC’s relevant television rights starting in the summer of 2024. (ESPN also runs the ACC Network and owns the conference's rights through 2036, but that deal is widely viewed as so lopsided toward ESPN that it’s an impediment for the league’s future.)

The notion among many leaders around the sport: Why allow ESPN access to the most valuable set of rights around the sport without other bidders to drive up the price?

 

[TownesVanZandt]

😂
They actually want to put a limit on how many schools from one conference get in

B1G has to be the largest group of bitches in the country
Should stop touching people without permission in that conference before worrying about CFP

 

[Buckaineer]

and this....
It behooves everyone not named the SEC and ACC [for the CFP rights to go to market],” said a Power 5 athletic director outside the Big Ten. “It’s in all of our best interest [of other leagues] to let the contract through and go to open market. Why would a streaming service want to bid on a league like the Big Ten or Pac-12 to carry the regular season if they are going to just hand it over to ESPN for the playoffs?”

The discomfort around the country with ESPN owning the entire playoff sets up the stakes for an undercurrent that will define the next iteration of conference realignment and the next generation of college sports — the ESPN and the SEC vs. Fox and everyone else. The biggest unknown in the TV market is if another traditional suitor (CBS, NBC) or streaming service will join Fox in the fray.

 

[TownesVanZandt]

😂

Back on this shit again.

Attacking ESPN.
Get caught up in a media war

 

[KingCoal]

😂
They actually want to put a limit on how many schools from one conference get in

B1G has to be the largest group of bitches in the country
Should stop touching people without permission in that conference before worrying about CFP

Gene Smith just shoved your stupid words up your fat a$$. You keep flapping your gums about what the B1G has to do now, but the B1G, the highest TV revenue conference in America, doesn't have to rush into doing anything. This is about what your fake favorite school is doing to your real one, and doesn't have anything to do with the B1G, but your pain causes you to want to deflect and divert.

 

[TownesVanZandt]

Not anymore, Queenie

You really are a dummy

 

[Buckaineer]

Pac-12 Leaders Suggest Realignment Response as SEC Growth May Compromise CFP Expansion​

Reaction Out West: Realignment May Pose Challenges to CFP Expansion

The Pac-12 is staking its own claim in the realignment war, promising a response to the SEC's imminent growth.

www.si.com

excerpt:

For two years, a group of CFP executives worked to create a model that they presented to decision makers and have disseminated across college football. Their 12-team proposal, largely celebrated across America, appeared on the fast track to approval in a September meeting, potentially within two years of replacing the current four-team model.

And then, in a seismic and stunning shift, the Big 12’s two biggest brands, Texas and Oklahoma, started the process this week of joining the SEC. Pac-12 leaders here at the conference’s annual media day say the move compromises the expansion model and will almost assuredly delay its approval, even potentially resulting in wholesale changes to its structure.

In fact, league administrators believe the SEC’s chess move, while calculated and cunning, will start a responsive chain of significant changes across the landscape of American college sports........



It’s clear who the bad guys are this go-around: commissioner Greg Sankey and the Southeastern Conference, brandished by some here as the person and the entity that helped destroy a conference, pushed college football into a mess of disruption and compromised the expansion model.


Sankey was on the four-person working group that created the 12-team proposal, leading some around college athletics to question his motives as one of few who knew that his league could soon expand.

“It’s fishy,” says one.

“It’s insider trading,” says another.

While some say the SEC wisely and secretly leaped ahead of everyone else in the next wave of realignment, others describe the move as unnecessary and harmful to college sports. The SEC burned already charred bridges and even ruined personal relationships, they say.

As a result, high-level decision-makers are contemplating a retaliatory move. Does the Pac-12, Big Ten and others form an alliance against the big, bad SEC?

“We will have a response,” says one Pac-12 administrator.

 

[Buckaineer]

Pac-12 commish leads voices suggesting College Football Playoff expansion be paused amid SEC additions

With Texas and Oklahoma further strengthening the SEC, playoff expansion may be reconsidered

www.cbssports.com

By taking Texas and Oklahoma, SEC and ESPN -- exclusive partners in the conference's media rights deal -- damaged Fox's investment in the Big 12. Fox splits rights with ESPN in the Big 12, Pac-12 and Big Ten.

To some, the takeover was bigger than realignment. It was a significant business maneuver.

That's why one high-profile AD tells CBS Sports he has "major issues" with the 12-team expansion as proposed.

 

[TownesVanZandt]

FOX hired Bob Stoops and RJ Young
They were that confident that they could at the very least get OU
Anyone who says anything else is clueless

 

[Buckaineer]

FOX has a contract with the BIG 12. With OU IN IT. They weren't trying to ADD OU, they are ALREADY under contract with FOX through 2025 now.

So, hiring Stoops made sense, after Ohio State's Urban Meyer left Ohio State.

Any other reading has an agenda behind it......

 

[Buckaineer]

Ohio State AD Gene Smith says 'pause button should be hit' on CFP expansion. Others fret over ESPN's grip on football​

Pete Thamel
Fri, July 30, 2021, 5:25 PM

Ohio State AD Gene Smith says 'pause button should be hit' on CFP expansion. Others fret over ESPN's grip on football.

The notion among many leaders around the sport: Why allow ESPN access to the most valuable set of rights around the sport without other bidders to drive up the price?

sports.yahoo.com

ESPN's broadcast dominance of college football​

Smith is perhaps the most powerful athletic director in the country and a former member of the CFP committee. Smith’s point is tied, in part, to potential changes in the fundamental structure of conferences and overall college athletics. Essentially, it's difficult to determine access when there’s little certainty as to what leagues will look like. There’s also NCAA governance issues, as it’s uncertain what the collegiate leadership model will look like in two years.

Other leaders around the country have expressed a skepticism toward the financial value of allowing ESPN to continue to be the sole owner of the most powerful rights in college football. The College Football Playoff is, essentially, a television contract with ESPN that runs through the 2025 season. ESPN owns all of it now, which includes three playoff games and other New Year’s six bowls.