Tag: Expansion

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver revisits the idea of expanding the league

The NBA has become a global game, with players from around the world and growing global viewership, making the possibility of expansion in the league into markets in Mexico and Canada a real possibility.

The NBA has become a global game with players from around the world and growing global viewership, making the possibility of the expansion of the league into new markets in Mexico and Canada a real possibility for the medium-term future of the Association

NBA commissioner Adam Silver recently sat down with the folks from TNT’s “Inside the NBA” to talk about the status quo of the Association at present and how new teams might be added to the league once more pressing issues like the full adoption of the new collective bargaining agreement and the looming media rights deal negotiations have been settled.

A combination of international players bringing talent and attracting global audiences and greater accessibility to the league via the new media rights deal could prime the NBA for expansion sooner than many of us may think.

Take a look at the clip embedded above to hear what Silver had to say about the league adding teams in the future.

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UConn’s Dan Hurley believes an expanded tournament will devalue regular season

Hurley isn’t a fan of NCAA Tournament expansion.

There has been plenty of discussion as of late about expanding the field of 68 even further for the NCAA tournament. Recently Miami head coach Jim Larrañaga stated he was in favor of expanding the field to 96 teams. However, Dan Hurley has a different opinion on the matter.

“For me, I think it’s great the way it is,” Hurley said on Sunday. “I feel like devaluing the regular season, I think, potentially hurts the regular season and what it means. I think the pressure to have to win games and being rewarded for winning big nonconference games and then taking care of enough business in the league … I think it’s a privilege to play in this tournament, not a right.”

Hurley doesn’t believe that the selection is perfect but instead of expanding the field, perhaps they should look into how they select certain teams. There are plenty of deserving mid-major programs around the country. Just look at this year’s Final Four field. Florida Atlantic and San Diego State made improbable runs to the final weekend of the tournament. The Aztecs will take on Hurley’s UConn squad for the national championship.

“I do think, though, that there are probably mid-major programs, a lot of times, that are more deserving than like a 10th-place team in a power conference that has figured out how to just game the numbers, so I’ll say that. I see that on Selection Sunday sometimes. And I cringe at that.”

Whether fans agree or not, we could find out if the NCAA committee will expand the field beyond the 68 team format.

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Notre Dame football: 5 things to know for Dec. 2, 2022

An unexpectedly busy day in case you need to catch up

Well we’ve made it through our first work week of the postseason and Notre Dame will find out its bowl destination on Sunday. As we discussed earlier in the week, chances seem pretty strong that it will end up in Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl. One outlet still had it heading to the Holiday Bowl, so perhaps there will be a surprise.

Thursday wound up being a fairly busy day in the Notre Dame athletic land as expected College Football Playoff news was finally made official, perhaps the most intriguing quarterback to date entered the portal and the Irish landed their 26th commitment. All of that, a heartbreaking loss for the Irish women’s basketball team, and Paul Finebaum’s latest thoughts on Notre Dame’s independence are in your Five Things to Know for Friday, Dec. 2, 2022.

RIP College Football Regular Season: 1869-2023

When ‘The Game’ between No.3 Michigan and No. 2 Ohio State is made into just ‘a game’ then you’re doing something wrong.

College football has managed to have the best regular season in all of the sports for as long as it’s been around.  In no American sport does the regular season mean so much.  Literally, every Saturday counts as the championship favorite could be upset and fall out of contention at the snap of your fingers.

Friends, I hate to inform you but we only have one more season of that left.  It became official Thursday morning that the College Football Playoff will expand to 12 teams starting in 2024.  That might mean an easier path to the playoff for your favorite team but it also means the thing that made college football the most unique is taking a massive hit.

Instead of “The Game” between Michigan and Ohio State deciding a playoff berth last week, that’s just a game to determine seeding in 2024.  That Alabama loss to LSU in overtime this year?  Yeah, the Tide are still rolling to the Playoff with it in 2024.  And if Utah beats USC this weekend in the Pac-12 championship game then guess what – USC is still in the playoff.

Had Notre Dame upset USC last week, should the Irish, who lost to Marshall and Stanford both, have had the chance to play for a championship?

TV and media folks have taken over the game and have done not what’s in the best interest of the sport but instead the best interest of their companies.  It might sound great on paper but expansion to this extent makes college football simply just NFL-light.  More playoff games just mean its easier for casual fans to know when to tune into important games.  The most passionate college football fans should consider this a sad day for the sport.

Unfortunately, the toothpaste is out of the tube and it’ll never be put back in.

See the full College Football Playoff Press Release by Clicking Ahead

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Sportsbooks and oddsmakers are unsurprisingly thrilled about College Football Playoff expansion

No one wins more with College Football Playoff expansion than sportsbooks.

If there’s one group of people who won’t see any issue with the College Football Playoff expanding to 12 teams in 2026 (or potentially earlier), it’s those who run sportsbooks.

Extending the schedule of one of the most popular sports in the United States? And putting more games in primetime for a national audience? Yeah, that’ll have oddsmakers cheering.

That all completely makes sense—though it remains to be seen if star players on lower-seeded teams sit out playoff games to preserve their draft stock rather than risk injury in four additional contests.

And while pricing out odds for outright winners may be a little more difficult in the short term, there’s plenty for bettors to like about Friday’s announcement. Namely, more options to chose from — which means more potential edges to find.

Potential futures hitting the market will likely include:

  • How many teams from ‘X’ conference make the playoff
  • Conference with the College Football Playoff winner
  • Schools to host a playoff game

It also helps sportsbooks that many of college football’s powerhouses are located in states where legal sports wagering already exists. That includes Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Indiana and Oregon. California may very well be the next state to legalize betting this November.

Gone will be the days bettors could feel confident in a solid return for blindly putting down futures bets on Alabama and Ohio State. Instead the value may shift to smaller schools who have an easier path to the postseason (meaning we might not see a run like Cincinnati in 2021 again anytime soon).

More offerings are coming, and while more options tend to benefit consumers, there’s no question the payoff for sportsbooks will outweigh all of it.

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Everything you need to know about the updated College Football Playoff format

Here’s a step-by-step guide to what changes are being made to the College Football Playoff.

The 2022 college football season is gearing up for the excitement of Week 1, but it appears as if some of the chaos from the offseason decided to try and work its way into the regular season.

The College Football Playoff will be expanding from its current, and original, format of four teams. Fans and pundits across the nation have debated expansion since its inception in 2014.

Some argued it should be six, while some said eight. There were plenty who just wanted it to stay at four.

Well, we now have an update. A 12-team format will be coming to college football by 2026.

There’s a lot to take in, but here’s everything you need to know, courtesy of The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach.

College Football Playoff to expand to 12 teams and I hate it

Love it, indifferent, or hate it?

What was it that made you first fall in love with college football?

Obviously the pageantry of the game is like nothing else in sports in the United States but for the longest time college football had the best regular season by far of any major sport in this land.  The key word being “had”.

The College Football Playoff Board of Managers have spoken and voted to expand the College Football Playoff to 12 teams in a move that is expected to begin with the 2026 season.  I suppose that’d be great if it meant every conference champion and maybe a pair of wild cards then had a shot to play in the tournament but we know that’s not going to be the case.  Just like Cincinnati was the lone Group of Five member to make the dance last year there will still be only one, maybe two in a crazy year, that make it in this.

All this does is give teams who lose regular season games an extra out or two and that goes against everything that has helped to make college football great.

The College Football Playoff significantly watered down the regular season already by pretty much saying conference championships don’t matter and taking away the punishment for slip-ups that wasn’t previously allowed in the game.

Now were counting down until 12 teams will get the chance to play in the College Football Playoff.

12.

Not expanding to six or eight.

12.

If you were to take the top 12 teams from the final College Football Playoff rankings last regular season you’d be looking at six of those 12 teams having multiple losses.  Furthermore, three-loss Utah would also be in that group.

I get that it means more meaningful games during bowl season but it means for less significant games the rest of the year.  Alright, the battle between a pair of two-loss teams on rivalry weekend ends up being an elimination game now instead of the unbeaten vs. one-loss rivalry matchup previously doing so.  Am I supposed to believe that’s a net gain for the sport?

The regular season mattering more in college football was one of the things that first made me fall in love with the game and the longer we go the more and more watered down that continues to get. Congrats to the casuals who have to be told when games are meaningful before they start paying close attention.  They now get more of those while the thing that makes the sport great takes a major blow.

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Which players might the Sixers lose in a future expansion draft?

With expansion on the horizon in the NBA, which players on the Philadelphia 76ers would be available in an expansion draft?

Expansion is on the horizon in the NBA, which is poised to enter a new media rights deal that will increase the salary cap significantly. Considering the money the league is expected to bring in, that might be the time it adds a team or two to the 30 that already exist.

When it comes to a future expansion draft, which players on the roster might the Philadelphia 76ers lose?

In the latest expansion draft back in 2004 for the then-Charlotte Bobcats, teams were allowed to protect eight players, and the Bobcats were allowed to select only one unprotected player from each roster. They ended up with 19 players to form their first-ever roster.

Assuming these same rules will be in place for a future expansion draft, Evan Sidery of Basketball News looked at a possible expansion draft and which players on the Sixers might be available.

What divisions could look like in a 32-team SEC from a historical perspective

What divisions could look like in a 32-team SEC from a historical perspective.

Super conference expansion is unfolding in college athletics.

Oklahoma and Texas are slated to begin Southeastern Conference competition in 2025.

UCLA and USC will begin Big Ten competition in 2024.

Vols Wire looks at further SEC expansion from a historical standpoint.

The Southern Conference was formed in 1921.

Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi State, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Tennessee, Virginia, Virginia Tech and Washington & Lee were founding Southern Conference members.

Florida, LSU, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tulane and Vanderbilt joined the Southern Conference in 1922.

Other current Power Five schools that joined the Southern Conference were Duke (1928), Wake Forest (1936) and West Virginia (1950).

How the SEC was formed by leaving a 23-team super conference

How a 30-team SEC would resemble college football’s past

Jackie Sherrill discusses predicting super conferences in 1989, how expansion will continue

In 1932, 13 schools of the Southern Conference, located west and south of the Appalachian Mountains, departed to form the Southeastern Conference.

Southern Conference schools Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Sewanee, Tennessee, Tulane, and Vanderbilt became the founding institutions of the newly formed SEC.

A 32-team SEC super conference could consist of two 16-team divisions.

One division could consist of the 12 founding Southern Conference schools: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina State, North Carolina, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi State, Tennessee and Kentucky.

The division could also consist of the four additional founding SEC members: Florida, LSU, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt.

The second division could consist of current SEC schools that joined during the 1992, 2012 and 2025 expansions, along with ideal additions.

Below are two divisions that could makeup a 32-team SEC super conference.

A look at college football’s most valuable teams as conference expansion unfolds

A look at college football’s most valuable teams as conference expansion unfolds.

The landscape of college football is changing again with conference expansion.

UCLA and USC are leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. The Bruins and Trojans will begin Big Ten competition in 2024.

Oklahoma and Texas are leaving the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference with 2025 as a potential start date.

A list from Forbes in 2019 shows which college football teams have the most monetary value.

“So much for amateur athletics—the sport’s 25 most valuable programs combine to earn an average of $1.5 billion in profit on annual revenues of $2.7 billion,” Forbes noted when detailing college football’s most valuable teams.

Forbes’ three-year average revenue and profit data can be viewed here.

How the SEC was formed by leaving a 23-team super conference

How a 30-team SEC would resemble college football’s past

Below is Forbes’ top-25 most valuable college football teams.