Yote 53

I can't stand the mentality today in big time college athletics. It's all about getting "paid my fair share". I loved some of Leach's comments about treating these players like professionals if they want to get paid like professionals. Trades, cuts, etc. Welcome to the real world. My mind then wanders to Junior hockey. Oh how some people's heads would explode if they were more exposed to what happens in Junior hockey. Amateur, not getting paid, yet you get drafted and told where you are going to live/play, free labor to a for-profit Junior hockey franchise, can be traded and sent to live/play in another city, and the entire time you and your parents are just thrilled because you've made it to free-to-play hockey and it's saving you thousands of dollars a year. Now let's discuss Tier 3 Junior hockey where you get to pay for the privilege of getting treated like a professional athlete.

I think they are asking too low. $75 million for rights to 7 home games is just over $10 million/game. Should be asking $15 million/game and $105 million total package. I actually don't think $15 million per game is a crazy number for NBC to pay. Should be able to turn a profit on that. Makes sense for NBC to then go after a conference package to supplement that because it lowers the economies of scale and provides more programming. Basically, if you are in the CFB sports broadcasting game get all the way in. $75 million sounds like a lot but it is not when compared to the over $120 million/year/school payout the Big Ten is projecting. Now, I think this $75 million is only for ND football but I highly doubt the rest of their sports (I believe paid out through the ACC which they are a member of for all other sports) can come close to closing the $45 million difference. If Notre Dame doesn't get this football package it's the last pin pulled before CFB realignment chaos. If they can't stay in the same stratosphere financially they are going to have to look to join a conference, and it isn't going to be the SEC, and the ACC does not pay near enough. If it comes to joining a conference the logical choice is the Big Ten.

Was thinking of courses like this one just outside of Sioux City, IA near Homer, NE. First Peek: Landmand Golf Club - LINKS Magazine It has some design elements of a British links style course. So yeah, I see what you mean for faux-links style course. I've never actually played a true links style course, would be interesting.

The wind is the course defense at St. Andrews and there was no defense provided by Mother Nature this weekend. I have the same views as many of you about the course but after talking with the local golf pro at our course yesterday I've kind of changed my view. There is something nostalgic about how natural the Old Course is and how nature and weather shape the course and it's not manufactured by humans to play a certain way. Oh, and one day with little wind the course can be dominated but he next day if the winds kick up it will kick your butt. The diversity of different shots is interesting as well. Pulling a putter from some crazy spots. The pot bunkers. It's just different from the courses we all play. For one time every 7 years (give/take) I think it's great to turn a page back in time and contest The Open at the Old Course. In the end, low score still wins. While out this weekend I was thinking how it would be possible to replicate a links style course like that in the wind swept Great Plains of Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Use the natural lay of the wide open prairie, minimal earth movement, natural grasses, and make those large greens. We have plenty of wind here too.

The GOR is not going to hold simply because that contract the ACC has locked themselves into until 2036 with ESPN is going to cause them to fall further and further behind every year. They can't compete on $36 million payouts per team/per year when the BIG and SEC are over $100 million per team. The contract will have to be opened back up for renegotiation and when that does the GOR opens back up. If the ACC sticks it out until 2036 under the current deal just for the sake of the GOR binding them together they will end up so far behind they'll be irrelevant. Something will give.

The reason ND plays Navy every year is the Naval Academy saved the school from the brink of collapse during WW2 by picking the school as a site of a Naval college training program. Without that program the school's attendance would have collapsed to a few hundred students because all the boys were off at war and not in college. Notre Dame was an all boys school back then. Army used to be a national power back in the 1930's and the two schools played a lot but ND hasn't scheduled Army much in the last half century, a couple of games in the 80's, 90's , and 3 times since 2000. Air Force isn't really a regular on their schedule either. Used to be annually from the 70's into 90's but it's random anymore. Scheduling the service academies over the years was partly convenience because they were all Independents and partly Notre Dame's indebtedness to the Defense Department for saving the school, a favor that was returned by ND in the 60's by not kicking the ROTC programs off campus at the height of the Vietnam War like other schools did. Not even a Notre Dame fan and I know all this history and understand the "why" behind the service academy scheduling over the years. I don't know how you can hold it against the school for scheduling those games given the history. It's not like they have ever played an FCS school*. *Scheduled Tennessee State in 2023 for a $1 million payday. I'd call that one a political scheduling though as TSU is an HBCU. I doubt they'll ever be scheduling USD or UND or any schools like us.

What do you think every other college football team's schedule looks like? Those "P5" schools are a tougher game than Louisiana Monroe or Austin Peay, oh yeah, both on Alabama's schedule this season as is Utah State. You act like every college program doesn't play a schedule that is half full of dogs. They all do. At least Notre Dame fills those rent a wins with P5 schools. Duke, Wake, Ga Tech, BC, etc. are part of the schedule the ACC hands them, but you don't take shots at Clemson who is actually in the ACC and plays those same schools. What about Ohio State this season? Arkansas State, Toledo...wow! Then in conference they play Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana... You act as if every other college football program schedules a killer schedule and ND ducks games because they can pick and choose being an Independent and that is just not the case. Their SOS falls right in line with other top programs in the country. For the record, I think they should join the Big Ten, but I don't hold them remaining an Independent against them because they actually do play a solid schedule (when compared to the rest of CFB) and do seek out big games.

I understand people's disdain for Notre Dame not joining a conference but the "soft schedule" thing is BS. ND generally plays a pretty solid national schedule that includes teams from all the P5 conferences. They're not afraid to ink games against anyone. This coming season they have Ohio State, Marshall, Cal, UNC, BYU, Stanford, UNLV, Syracuse, Clemson, Navy, Boston College, and USC. That's a schedule with some heavy hitters in there with OSU, Clemson, and USC. Yeah, Marshall , UNLV, and Navy aren't top 10 programs but which school doesn't play games like that? At least they are FBS. Overall that's a pretty solid schedule. Future schedules also include Texas A&M, FSU, Miami, Wisconsin, and Alabama amongst others. So yeah, they don't duck anyone.

I read somewhere this was a misreport and never happened. AZ/ASU/CU/Utah never met with the Big 12. Big Ten has no plans on further expansion as it waits on Notre Dame to make a decision. Everything is just kind of in a holding pattern. I think the Big 12 adding UCF, CInci, etc. may turn out to be a blunder. Say things do settle down for the Big Ten/SEC as they add OU/UT & USC/UCLA and just decide that is good enough for now, until the ACC GOR expires in 2036 and this all fires up again a decade from now. It would probably be better for the top of the Big 12 to leave and join up with the PAC (10) members and leave behind the new additions to the Big 12. Why give up the PAC 12 to join up with Cincinnati and UCF? I'd think Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Kansas State, Texas Tech, and Baylor would just join the PAC instead.

The PAC was futile and unable to monetarily capitalize on USC and UCLA (and to a lessor extent Oregon & Washington). The Big Ten has the tools to maximize the revenue potential of these schools. Joining the Big Ten is going to be an explosion in revenue for all of these schools. In market terms, the Big Ten just bought a legacy stock that has been depressed for years but has massive potential for growth. They bought a deep value stock. People still laugh about Rutgers and Maryland but those additions were market acquisitions that they can develop and unlock huge potentials for revenue growth. There is lots of potential there and now you see the Big Ten locking up major markets from the East Coast to the Midwest to the West Coast. NYC, Chicago, and LA are all now Big Ten turf.

Stanford? I don't understand why people point to Stanford as a Notre Dame rival. Recently, yeah, that series fired up in the 1980's. Notre Dame has a much deeper history with schools (in this order), USC (obviously), Navy, Michigan State, Michigan (the school that literally taught Notre Dame the sport), and Purdue. Each one of those schools is now in the Big Ten except Navy which would continue as an OOC game. Big Ten now offers Notre Dame a national schedule with historic rivals and a buttload of cash. Also, the academics at Notre Dame want in to the Big Ten for academic reasons. They voted to join years ago, it was the Athletic Dept holding out. The reasons for Notre Dame to remain Independent have all but been stripped away.

Buying Saudi oil is not my choice. I have no control of imports/exports. I have no control over whether the American government does business with the Saudis. I'd prefer we get out of that area of the world and stay out of it but that is not practical either from a geopolitical standpoint. Just so happens the world runs on oil and a crapload of it is located in the worst region in the world. I can tell you this, I vote for people that are pro-energy independence when it's my opportunity to vote and I'll just leave it at that. These professional golfers do have a choice and there lies the difference.

And then we went back again. Ugh.

I have REALLY gotten into golf the last couple of years for several reasons. The largest one being is these guys are out there hunting and keeping what they kill. They earn every penny. There are no holdouts, contract disputes, pay me more money, NIL, fair share, etc, etc. These PGA guys go out, play, make the cut, finish as high as they can and get paid. There is something democratic about it all. Another reason being I can (kind of) simulate what these guys do out there. There is no chance for me to play football again. Pickup hockey, huff n puff leagus, slow pitch softball, maybe, amateur baseball. Theoretically I could work on my golf game, enter a US Open qualifier, get to the US Open, win it, and end up on Tour. I know, not realisitc, but I saw quit a few guys on Monday qualify that will be teeing it up with the big dogs next week. Can't do that in other sports. All this talk of money and these guys selling out to the Saudi Tour, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I used to like some of these guys, no more. But let's also take a look at the guys that have crossed over. Some of these guys lack character, have been accused of cheating, and some we've know to always be egotistical and all about the money. I've lost a lot of respect for these guys and am disappointed, especially in Bryson, I actually liked that guy. I thought he had a good personality, kind of a big oaf, but sincere, and worked hard. Now look at the guys who have stayed and are speaking out like Rory, JT, and Scheff. Confirms to me who I should be pulling for. The irony is that these defectors who claim to be "contractors" have in essence sold out their individual contractor rights to become contracted employees of the Saudi Tour and some have pledged to the tour full time. That's an employee. I'll be watching the RBC Canadian Open starting tomorrow. Will not watch a single LIV event.

Don't see that going away because that would remove a barrier of entry into the exclusive D1 club. I could see the P5 schools adding more layers of compliance in order to separate themselves from us "D2 schools".

How does this even happen when you have the Big Ten dropping dump trucks full of cash into your AD coffers and the conference is on the verge of inking a BILLION DOLLAR TV deal? Maybe the president of the U of Illinois needs to start asking some questions about that athletic dept. Butt loads of cash with nothing to show for it. No on field results, no facilities, absolutely nothing. Where does all the money go? (oh, I know where it is going, the school is siphoning it off to fund the academic side)

Is the city building this for an ECHL team or is it really for UGA? Smells a lot like Coralville Events Center/Xtream Arena in Iowa City. You don't just drop that kind of money on a facility designed for hockey for an ECHL team. Yet, Coralville it seems did just that. Even though I think the long game was for eventual Univ of Iowa D1 hockey. Maybe it still is, I think COVID killed that or set it back several years. I'm wondering if the long play is UGA D1 hockey.

I should have known that I was setting that one up on a tee for this place.

Sioux Falls Fairgrounds. Yankton 4H building. Been there and smelled that. Blech. There should be a law about mixing livestock and hockey smells.

You can only spend so much on football but, if we're going that route, hockey is one of the few revenue positive sports. So adding hockey would make a few more bucks to toss into the football coffers. Or use the hockey revenue to pay for women's sports and less football money going to support them. Either way, more money for SEC football.

Norman is 20 miles away and OU just hit the SEC money lottery. I fully expect SEC schools like Georgia and a few others to start D1 programs before Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and the rest of the Big Ten get around to it. Texas or A&M starting a program would not shock me at all.

We can't rely on WIU for Summit Football. Like was said previously, they may just be OVC bound anyway. I don't think we should worry about it. The MVC has shown no ambition when it comes to football. In fact, the MVC was an FBS conference and voluntarily stepped back in the 80's and Wichita State even shuttered their program. Those schools care about basketball and fielding a just solid FCS football program. They are fortunate to have the recruiting areas of the Midwest that has a lot of football talent that can play at the FCS level. So they come by the talent simply based on location. The MVC schools are happy with the MVFC arrangement, and it just happens to be the best FCS conference in the country. It will be fine.

They didn't "need" Murray. Murray could have taken their football program elsewhere, including non-scholarship and to the Pioneer League or as an affiliate to another football conference as several conferences are looking for members. The SU example is a better example because they were twisting in the wind in the Great West.

No idea. Haven't really asked much around here because at this point it really doesn't matter, besides, everything down here is talking about spring football and talking about new MBB and WBB coaches. We're kind of focused on our own house, which is probably the way it should be. As for the article, I'm actually sick of the MVC schools being whiny b!tches about this 'no' vote. Murray State is not a good football school so it is perfectly legitimate that some schools would have an issue adding them to a FOOTBALL ONLY conference. And the whole, we scratched your back thing. If the MVFC did not admit USD we were off to the Big Sky with UND, offers in hand. NDSU and SDSU would have been following right behind us as the Summit would have collapsed at that point. WIU would have moved to the OVC with a Summit collapse. The MVFC would have been left with 6 schools. The MVFC (MVC schools) voted to bring in USD (and eventually UND) out of self-preservation. They needed us to survive and thrive, whether they want to admit that or not. None of us needed Murray State and bringing them in doesn't exactly up the bar for the conference. So it's not exactly the same, scratch our backs and we'll scratch yours, thing.

Lacrosse is not greater than baseball but it would be a more natural fit for a northern school than baseball because I'm pretty sure you can still play in crap weather.