GFG

I completely agree with that. This move can be beneficial to both parties and I think they'd find a way to make it work for both sides. The B1G clearly knows how to do the business side of things. If the B1G wants UND then UND will get a fair offer.

Notre Dame and Johns Hopkins get no financial incentives because they wanted to keep their primary media contracts in return for no financial incentives from the B1G. If UND lets the B1G have primary media rights they can get revenue share from the B1G

My bad, I misinterpreted your comment a bit. This isn't as much about financial matters at it is interest (which could help financially with tickets/merchandise). If UND loses one of the major draws they have every year to a conference with Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan that they themselves could have joined it could cause problems with a lot of fans. It can make casual fans start to lose some interest. On the contrary, you would likely see interest among those many casual fans skyrocket with Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State and Notre Dame coming to Grand Forks every year. Those big names may not necessarily mean a ton to the UND hockey die hards, but to the larger majority of casual UND hockey fans it can make a difference because they like to see their supposed "small" school in Grand Forks competing with the large, top level universities.

Everyone knows UND is the NCHC. But you can truly say you get as excited to play Mankato as you do Duluth? UMD is arguably UND's biggest conference draw now. I would say it's basically a fact that UMD and Denver are easily the top 2. You would be completely okay with dropping UMD and having Mankato take their place? Because I think you'd be in the minority

I believe you're correct. They won't take ASU. There's a reason the B1G was the first conference out of the running for them. They wanted nothing to do with them because they don't want more unproven programs in their conference. They want a strong conference that the fans will get behind and the best way to do that is to add UND. There's no other choice that's even a close 2nd. UMD and Omaha as negotiating tools is a strong move because it makes UND officials consider the fact that if they say no to joining they're very likely going to lose one of those 2 conference mates. And I think you can cross out Omaha, because if they actually want UMD they'll get them in a heart beat. They're part of the University of Minnesota system and would jump at the chance to be in the B1G with Minnesota. Would UND officials want to stay in the NCHC with no UMD and an addition of either ASU or Mankato? IMO, interest takes a big drop for them at that point.

Every now and then they'll show a game on BTN

I wouldn't expect any. Chances are we won't ever see another B1G school add hockey unless they have a donor like Pegula. There are none ready to invest in it and I wouldn't expect to see any in the future with the arms race in football in the B1G. The hockey schools want UND because they want to improve the conference, so in reality I can't imagine there's any reason they would want to get rid of them.

For John's Hopkins: So Johns Hopkins and Notre Dame don't get conference revenue because they didn't want to give up their primary media rights. In other words, UND can get conference revenue if they allow the B1G to have primary media rights (basically first pick of games to televise, which is better than Midco nationally). Even when the B1G receives those primary media rights I believe UND can still sign a deal with someone else for 2nd tier rights. So I believe they could still have a contract with Midco to broadcast every game that BTN doesn't air AND have the feed thrown on FCS (benefits FOX then). Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this.

The NCHC is getting raided either way...if UND doesn't go it's either Duluth or Omaha and I can probably tell you which one they would push to make Minnesota fans happy. Would UND fans like the NCHC as much without Duluth? UND knows the NCHC is going to keep expanding west and if there are teams that start up out there it's almost certainly going to be power 5 schools with no hockey tradition or anything. If you're UND and you know you'll eventually be sharing a conference with Power 5 schools wouldn't you rather be with the B1G where you at least have some traditional hockey powers? The money will be figured out. And the B1G looks like it's on the verge of becoming a very good conference. If you add UND and Notre Dame to it I think you'll have the new power conference in college hockey. Wisconsin is resurging, PSU is actually pretty good, the pairwise supports that. OSU has shown strides and if they can at least keep where they are will be pretty good. Michigan will obviously improve. Michigan State will forever be garbage until they fire Anastos.

If UND went to the B1G I'd actually be surprised if they didn't end up making the X the permanent site at some point...they would definitely know that UND/Minnesota together held the Final Five up. With them back together I feel like the other schools would agree to it because it would be a near guarantee to greatly increase the revenue made.

Obviously we have no idea how that would be figured out, but there's no way UND is making a lot of money in the NCHC. They literally ARE the conference. Even with revenue sharing from the Frozen Faceoff it's basically UND supporting everyone else. In the B1G they would be revenue sharing with schools that make much more money in hockey than most NCHC teams do. Between UND, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Penn State and Michigan alone...I would bet it would far exceed what UND is getting now to be the support beam for their entire conference. Add in that the entire conference tournament will soon be held at campus sites and it will basically guarantee sell outs for the tournament IMO. UND would also be able to keep any television deals they want. Big Ten gets first pick for their select games, but after that they can have Midco, Fox sports, NBC, CBS, FCS...whomever they want can broadcast their games not chosen by BTN. And basically every game is streamed on BTN2Go and/or Fox Sports Go. I suppose Watch ESPN occasionally since they do some B1G games. There's just so much more opportunity for money to be made and higher revenue to be shared. Not only that, but they get their university associated with the Big Ten and can probably pick up more scheduling arrangements for basketball, volleyball, etc. with B1G teams.

Yeah, he was apparently told not to keep sharing his info on Twitter by the B1G so he uses Gopher Illustrated now. His account is @flugempire, but you won't be seeing him share much about that stuff there.

I'd be shocked if Schloss had sources that deep inside the Big Ten conference. Schloss will write about it when it's official news, because as of right now this is technically still unofficial. The guy did say it would be officially in the media in the 2017 calendar year

Notice Minnesota didn't have games like that this year? The fans were pissed about it so they allowed Minnesota to have their games on Friday and Saturday nights. I can guarantee that if UND wants Friday-Saturday at home they would 100% get it.

He was right about PJ Fleck going to Minnesota. About Nebraska to the B1G. Maryland to the B1G. Notre Dame hockey to the B1G. Coastal Carolina football going to FBS and quite a few more instances. All of that before it was "reported" by the media. In some instances it was literally months in advance. He also gives inside information about inside info going on with Big 12 expansion talks that's been going on for months and a lot of that info comes out later. Surprisingly just about everything he shares turns out true, and the one time I've seen something come out differently than he was saying he owned up to it and apologized. But his track record is phenomenal when it comes to "rumors" like this. He didn't guarantee UND would end up in the B1G yet, but they are currently the #1 target for the 8th team because there are no B1G schools looking to add hockey

It's very true. The B1G is doing research about it right now and are hoping to get the university presidents to unanimously approve UND for it at some point. The source said they expect UND to accept the offer if it reaches that far. It's all posted on Gopher Illustrated (Scout.com pay site) from a guy with deep sources. It's a pretty in depth thing for something that's in process right now. Minnesota (no surprise) and Wisconsin led the charge and all 6 B1G hockey AD's are on board to add UND. The guy used to break news on college football realignment stuff months (Nebraska and others) before it was announced in the media. He also said Notre Dame hockey was going to the B1G 60 days before it was announced. He was talking about the PJ Fleck to Minnesota stuff long before the media did as well. He has a very, very good source. The B1G AD's believe UND is becoming more interested in joining by the day and it's explained why in the info. He said it will be regional/national news some time before the end of 2017 that UND is the primary target for the 8th member of B1G hockey.

I expect to be there

They end it https://fat.gfycat.com/ImportantGleamingHackee.webm

Depends on the coaches really. For some of them winning probably is all that matters, but a good deal of coaches would be upset if their players tweeted what they did just because it's the players they're responsible for talking negatively about the university that employs them on social media. Most coaches just dish out punishment for stuff like this internally rather than sit out actual games, though. One of my friends who is an athlete for UND said their coach would have been really mad and they would've received some sort of discipline if they tweeted what the hockey players did. So that's probably why you're not really seeing athletes from other teams say similar things on social media. You're probably correct hahaha

Which seems fair considering they left out Abdominal Snowman

I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of them had that thought in their head right now FWIW, they just told me their coaches would've gotten mad and given them some sort of discipline in practice for tweeting what the hockey players did

There are a lot of coaches that believe in the exact opposite philosophy and have no problem disciplining a player because they want the players to know that they're in charge. Quite a few DI coaches even ban all of their athletes from using social media just so distractions and stuff like this doesn't happen. It happens alllllll the time in high school but it's usually solved with a lot of extra conditioning during practice at that level. By the time they reach college most athletes know not to speak negatively about the university because they signed to play for the school, not a logo. Most of the hockey team receives a 100% free education as well. I don't disagree with their opinions, but it just looks a little worse that there aren't really any other current UND athletes tweeting so bluntly negative things about it. I have friends on a couple of other UND teams and they said they think it's stupid, but they aren't on social media saying it's the worst thing they've ever seen. They've actually said that most of the people on the teams they play on are happy they can finally move on because they were sick of it dragging on. Quote from a current UND athlete: "The old logo and name were obviously way cooler than this stupid f***ing thing, but it's gone and it's not coming back. Everyone was so sick of the people making it drag on longer because we just wanted to move on and have a new name so all this nickname crap would stop. I understand they love the old name and logo just like we do because it's obviously way better, but it's ridiculous they wouldn't let us move on from all that s*** because it was pretty fu**ing obvious we weren't getting the old one back and it would just drag on forever without a new one. So we're kind of happy in a way haha." I just asked if their coaches would do anything for saying what the hockey players did on twitter. If anyone is interested I can post the response when I get the text back. - I'm not saying he/she due to anonymity since they're still an athlete for the school

I'm kind of interested in what the school thinks of some of the players public reactions...they clearly have a right to express their feelings but most programs would frown upon athletes saying stuff like that about the university they represent. I know UND athletes aren't allowed to wear any clothing of other universities or anything, at least while on campus or UND events, so I'd imagine speaking negatively about the universitiy on social media isn't well received either. I wouldn't be surprised if Berry or somebody reached out to the players and told them it's not a great logo or whatever, but that they should at least try and keep their negative opinions about it off social media.

Another reason Minnesota didn't want to go is because they actually lost a lot of money going to the B1G. They lost their FSN contract which was nearly $500k per year. I still think the quality of play will be just fine after a bit of time. Wisconsin will be back, PSU is looking better, Notre Dame is usually decent and Minnesota/Michigan will be towards the top more often than not. In all honesty I think Gopher fans are more upset about being forcibly separated from the same conference as North Dakota than anything. Say what you want, but you know it's not the same without being in the same conference together. Most UND fans I talk to here in Grand Forks feel the same way. They greatly miss being in a conference with Minnesota because that rivalry was quite possibly the best thing in college sports. They're not as upset because they still have quite a few former conference mates in their conference and UND hockey is still far and away the king sport at the University, so fans will go and watch no matter what. That's not the case at Minnesota where they only have Wisconsin left from the former conference and they just finished 2 of the worst seasons in program history. Tough to be excited as a fan when your team is slightly down and there's only one team on your conference schedule that's been there for many years and they're absolutely pitiful.

Not really. I always pull up BTN on the guide to see what's on and I don't think I've seen lacrosse on more than once or twice the past couple of years, although that could just be due to timing on my part. They show more baseball and softball games along with football reruns.