North Carolina gets NCAA sanctions, promptly blames the SEC

By: @LivingCrimson

After the debacle of UNC coaches working as insiders for agents, academic fraud, and players taking gift-ola and free trips to sunny destinations, the NCAA sanctioned North Carolina this week. Surprise, surprise. Included in the punishment is a one year postseason ban, reduced scholarships for three years and brand new zeroes in the win columns for 2008 and 2009.

So, of course, guilty-as-sin defensive back Duenta Williams ran to the nearest reporter with a laptop and spilled the remorse beans? Not quite. College Football Talk has some pithy quotes from Williams in essence saying the Tar Heels are angelic children preyed upon by money-grubbers -- enabled by the S-E-C.

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“What happened at Carolina is child’s play compared to what happens at the SEC,” ex-UNC defensive back Duenta Williams, who was suspended four games in 2010 for his role in the scandal, told the Charlotte Observer. “The SEC pays for players. I’m not afraid to say it, but the NCAA doesn’t go after them.”

“It’s a broken system,” said Williams of the NCAA and the game of college football. “College football is a business, and the people who run college football are only interested in money and using the players as product to make money.”

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Hmm, nothing about the players at UNC embracing every handout they could find. But then personal accountability is so passé these days.

By the way, according to Rivals North Carolina native Williams was officially recruited by only two SEC schools: South Carolina and Tennessee. He was recognized by scouting services as one of the five best "skill" athletes in the nation coming out of high school. If the SEC was really doing what Williams claims, why didn’t one of its schools snap him up with their nefarious ability to pay players? It’s not like he would have found a conscience and turned down the money.

Williams was first team All-ACC and remains undrafted in the NFL.

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Conference Realignment and Notre Dame: No white smoke

Yahoo! Sports’ Dan Wetzel penned a column yesterday, laying out a sound case for Notre Dame giving up its football independence and aligning with a conference that he believes is the best fit—the ACC. It’s a compelling case.

“Ask people in South Bend and one of their chief concerns about super-conferences is whether they will prevent the Irish from putting together legitimate 12-game schedules, including revenue-rich seven or eight home games. Then it’s what it might do to basketball and other sports,” writes Wetzel.

He also points out the demographic trends of the Midwest region of the US, which is growing much more slowly than the Southeast and the Atlantic seaboard, and how population patterns play important roles in both audience and recruiting. When fewer people are living in your region, you have fewer eyes glued to your broadcasts and fewer people in your recruiting territory.

Those are good points, but I don’t see any white smoke from the chimney.

Notre Dame’s “recruiting territory” is the United States of America. It has significant fanbase representation in virtually every major media market in the country. It has its own television contract with NBC Sports. It has longstanding rivalries with Southern Cal, Michigan, Michigan State, Pitt, Purdue, Boston College and the military service academies. Super-conferences with 16 members each will still likely have either eight or nine game schedules that may preclude Notre Dame from maintaining all of those rivalries, but it’s doubtful that we’d see the end of the USC – Notre Dame or Boston College – Notre Dame or Navy – Notre Dame rivalries.

By remaining independent, would the school face the challenge Wetzel identifies in putting together the schedule? Sure. But things can get worked out. Taking the path of least resistance and succumbing to the ACC would be the end of the Irish mystique. It would relegate it to the same status as a Florida State or Virginia Tech. I think the ACC likes Notre Dame a lot more than Notre Dame likes the conference. Any conference, for that matter.

Joining a conference other than the Big 10 likely ends one or more of the rivalries with Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue. Why would the Irish give up such nationally seismic matchups like that for a schedule that includes Clemson and NC State, especially when either the Boston College or the Pitt series could still likely be maintained? If they were forced to give up the biannual trip to Los Angeles, they lose access to a hotbed of recruits in the nation’s most populous state and trade that for a conference matchup with Duke? Notre Dame has access to the east coast also, due its storied rivalries with Army and Navy, two of the greatest places on the face of the earth to watch a college football game. I just don’t see any of that happening.

The conference realignment craze is driven by money, media influence and market share. Notre Dame has a multibillion dollar endowment and ample revenues from its TV deal. It really doesn’t need the money and it already wields considerable influence in the world of college football. They haven’t been in a national title chance since before many of you were even born, but the school still commands ratings and fills the stadium every Saturday.

Notre Dame may feel a little pressure to join the realignment bandwagon, but at the end of the day, their national recruiting territory, national mystique and storied rivalries will live on, as will their FBS independence. Short of a Papal Bull, that is, and fumata bianca billowing from the chimney atop the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

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SEC Expansion: The New World of College Sports

The SEC is the equivalent of the Super Bowl, the World Series and the NBA Finals all rolled into one conference in college sports.

In the “Big Four” sports -- football, men's basketball, women's basketball and baseball – the SEC has won half of the national titles since 2005-2006: five in football, three in baseball, two in men's basketball and two in women's basketball. Six SEC schools won those 12 titles – no other conference won more than three in those four sports combined over the past six years.1

The SEC has also won national championships in the last six years in women’s gymnastics (five), men’s indoor track & field (three), women’s indoor track & field (one), women’s outdoor track & field (one), men’s swimming and diving (three), women’s swimming and diving (three), men’s tennis (two), women’s tennis (one), women’s bowling (one), rifle (one), and equestrian (all six-not yet official NCAA). Only softball and women’s volleyball titles have eluded the SEC.2

So, why would the SEC consider expansion when it is already the supreme conference in sports achievement? The SEC did not fire the first shot in recent conference paradigm shifts.

The Pac-12 strove for revenue supremacy with its 2010 conference expansion, TV contract deals and talk of a Super 16 conference. The Big Ten followed with its own conference expansion and TV deals for conference championship games. The Big 12 received help from ESPN and Fox to sweeten its revenue deals and save its conference.3 The Big East is also expanding and with TCU grabs a larger market share in advance of its upcoming TV contract negotiations – and already leads in basketball revenue. Larry Scott, the Pac-12 Commissioner, and Jim Delany, the Big Ten Commissioner, continue to hint at further expansion. Scott has even talked of expanding the Pac-12’s market to the Pacific Rim/Asian markets.

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The SEC cannot remain in expansion isolationism

-- standing on its current strength --

and not expect continued encroachment by other conferences

on the monetary value of its sports.

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SEC revenue from TV contracts has already been moved into third place behind the Pac-12 and Big Ten, even though SEC teams are six of the top ten schools in Division 1 FBS attendance. In men’s basketball, the SEC is third in income even though it is one of only three conferences to generate more than $10 million in revenue per school. Only two of the top ten revenue generating athletic departments are SEC schools.4,5,6,7,8

Faced with a disadvantage in revenue, the SEC must take action to bring parity to the TV contracts. SEC Commissioner Mike Slive has suggested using the conference’s “look-ins” to ensure the contracts live up to expectations.9  One avenue to fuel renegotiation is by expanding to 14 schools or even 16 schools to increase market share and take advantage of built-in “expansion” payout incentives.10  But what guidelines would Slive follow to choose new schools to bring into the SEC? In his own words:

1. Academics;11
2. Geography;12
3. Market Share;13 and
4. Technology.14

Following up on the initial recommendations presented by Slive, the NCAA just this week increased the APR (academic progress rate) to 930 from the previous cutoffs of 900/925; failure to maintain will be an automatic bowl/tourney ban in football and basketball.15 Based on academic and geographical proximity to the current SEC, Big 12 and ACC teams are the most likely candidates to receive an offer from Slive.

The nearest proximity ACC and Big 12 schools that would NOT meet academic requirements:

• Florida State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, Oklahoma State.16

In TV market share, the SEC currently ranks last in Top-10 national TV markets, fourth in Top-20 and sixth in Top-30. The Leather Helmet Blog has an excellent, in-depth article on SEC expansion and grabbing a bigger TV market share.

Big 12 and ACC schools academically acceptable and best bets to bolster market share are:

• Duke, Texas A&M, Miami, Missouri, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech. (NC State football APR would have to be improve).

Current SEC games are broadcast by ESPN, CBS, Comcast/Charter Sports Southeast (CSS) (merged with NBC in January 2011) and Fox Sports Network (FSN).17 However, the SEC owns the copyright to any game broadcast. This gives it the ability to allow other networks to rebroadcast previously televised games, and games can be streamed directly to computers and hand-held devices (SEC had the second largest iPhone sports app, only behind ESPN). It also allows fans in other countries to watch games.18

NBC in the recent past had almost no presence in college football or basketball. Since the CSS merger, speculation is that NBC/CSS may develop the Versus channel as an ESPN competitor.19,20 CSS had already been rebroadcasting SEC games the day following the original broadcast. An expanded SEC would offer more games available for original broadcasts. Also consider that ESPNU became an extremely profitable channel as a direct result of SEC broadcasts. NBC/CSS could choose to lay out a big investment with the SEC, knowing it has already shown itself a proven commodity in increasing the strength of sports networks.

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"We were the major catalyst for ESPNU moving from 23 million homes to 73 million homes in one year.” – Mike Slive

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In addition to football and basketball, there is greater viewership interest in SEC baseball, softball and gymnastics thanks to recent high profile games and championship repeats – events just waiting to be broadcast by an aggressive sports outlet. More sporting events equals more revenue.

Most Big 12 and ACC schools have the sports facilities and technological skills necessary to seamlessly merge into the SEC’s broadcasting structure (and most smaller conference schools do not). Most definitely the SEC will at a minimum add pairs of schools, taking one from the West and one from the East so as to negate any shifting within the existing SEC divisions in football.

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The most likely candidates for expansion:

Texas A&M - Duke

Missouri - Virginia Tech

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Other possibilities are Clemson and Miami from the ACC, and Baylor and Oklahoma from the Big 12. But those schools are not as attractive based on consideration of all the factors. Also, Texas A&M and Missouri would theoretically not “overburden” the already ultra-competitive SEC West.

Side benefits of any schools accepting an expansion invitation to the SEC would include equitable revenue distribution, increased share of revenue distributions from the NCAA (nationally $433 million in 2009-2010)21, more revenue to allocate to capital improvements such as expanding stadiums and other sports facilities, more revenue to offset any decrease in state funding, and more revenue to support underfunded sports programs.

While the expansion process is complicated, it is not necessarily injurious to other conferences. The Big 12 can easily add smaller conference teams to maintain its 10 school conference, or expand. The ACC can raid the Big East to offset any attrition in its conference – since basketball is more the priority anyway. The Big East can easily add smaller conference teams to offset any schools lost to the ACC – since basketball is the sport that matters. The smaller conferences won’t suffer because they’re largely supported by the NCAA, and any teams that move up to larger conferences will do so with increased revenue and TV exposure.

If the SEC expands to 16 teams, it will be ahead of any other conference in revenue for many years to come. If it expands to 14 teams, observers should expect more movement within the next ten years.

Welcome to the bigger, better SEC world.

On Twitter @LivingCrimson