University Of Texas, I Feel Ya!
July 30, 2021 at 11:07 p.m.
University Of Texas, I Feel Ya!
By Chip Davenport-
The University of Texas and Oklahoma university are headed to the Southeast Conference. This will make the SEC a 16-team mega conference surpassing the Big Ten and the Atlantic Coast Conference (14 football members each) as the nation’s largest football conference.
The Power Five, comprised of the aforementioned leagues and the Pacific 12 (Pac 12), is tuning into the Power Four, nay, the Power Three because the Pac 12 once again misses out on a chance to bolster its football sphere of influence.
College football’s revenue stream flows to numerous other athletic programs within the universities blessed with great gate revenue, or affiliation with a “power” conference. There are television and bowl game revenues, and most seats outside the student section are at least $100 each. College football tickets are priced in line with the magnitude off the game.
You’re hosting Ball State? Your ticket might be $70 to $80 (sorry Chirp Nation). You host Michigan for The Game? $300.00 will be your non-scalper price.
I read the news about UT and OU, and the conference names in general – though steeped in brand strength – do not make sense anymore.
The ACC has teams along the Ohio, Allegheny, Monongahela, and St. Joseph rivers nowhere near the Atlantic coast. Big 12 has ten teams including West Virginia, who leaps three states before landing in Ames, Iowa, the conference’s second easternmost state. The Big 10 now has fourteen schools and uses “B1G” as its logo now because the conference name has such a strong brand. The SEC is adding two more Great Plains schools to the two it already added in recent years (Missouri and Texas A&M).
How influential is the SEC sphere? Former Warsaw Tiger Harrison Mevis kicks for a middle-of-the-pack Missouri football squad whose conference affiliation, and Mevis’s late-game heroics in his freshman season, have garnered recognition in ESPN highlight reels. He’s already nationally known as Money Mevis after his inaugural college season.
It should be noted the SEC signed a $300 million deal with ESPN to go along with its highly successful SEC channel available among the nation’s cable and satellite television services.
In recent years the Longhorns couldn’t even finish fourth in the X-box scoring, no defense Big 12. A move to the SEC seems masochistic at first blush. Oklahoma, however, with several recent appearances in college football playoff “final fours” will likely still show up on the radar for the college football playoff given expansion to twelve teams is imminent.
UT seems like it’s not a good fit in the SEC neither athletically nor academically. Even so, I get why UT is making the move. I get it at a very personal level.
UT is in Austin. Techy, artsy, the heartbeat of another large film and music festival, among the nation’s fastest growing cities, academically superior to almost every SEC school except for Vanderbilt, and maybe LSU’s chemical engineering program.
The Austin world view will contrast with the world view in Starkville, Mississippi and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, just small college towns, and certainly not progressive nor moderate in their world view.
I moved to Goshen, Indiana from Gahanna, Ohio (A Columbus suburb with a growing Jewish population at the time) August 10, 1996; almost 25 years ago.
I spent a lot of time in Columbus suburbs and neighborhoods like The Short North, Clintonville, Bexley, Grandview Heights. I worked in downtown Columbus for a very entrepreneurial LA-Columbus connected computer entrepreneur. I had a good thing going, right?
When I told people I knew in the Columbus area I was moving to Indiana, the collective response was, “Are you hiding from someone?”
Contraire mon fraire!
Greater income, less sales, income, and property taxes were incentives, for starters. Lower housing and utility costs along with better school funding sources (levies for millage in Ohio, don’t get me started) also sweetened the deal.
UT’s move to the SEC is about money and some access to football recruits it may now have when they are snubbed by the SEC powers like Alabama, Georgia, and LSU to name a few. Oklahoma has not sent its players to the NFL as much as SEC member schools have, but it too shall fortify its football program from affiliation.
UT’s move is still about the money, and they’re willing to coexist with a collective group (the SEC) who’s world view is certainly not the same. My move to Indiana was about the money, too, and I successfully coexist among most people, good people, with a different world view than mine.
The University of Texas and Oklahoma university are headed to the Southeast Conference. This will make the SEC a 16-team mega conference surpassing the Big Ten and the Atlantic Coast Conference (14 football members each) as the nation’s largest football conference.
The Power Five, comprised of the aforementioned leagues and the Pacific 12 (Pac 12), is tuning into the Power Four, nay, the Power Three because the Pac 12 once again misses out on a chance to bolster its football sphere of influence.
College football’s revenue stream flows to numerous other athletic programs within the universities blessed with great gate revenue, or affiliation with a “power” conference. There are television and bowl game revenues, and most seats outside the student section are at least $100 each. College football tickets are priced in line with the magnitude off the game.
You’re hosting Ball State? Your ticket might be $70 to $80 (sorry Chirp Nation). You host Michigan for The Game? $300.00 will be your non-scalper price.
I read the news about UT and OU, and the conference names in general – though steeped in brand strength – do not make sense anymore.
The ACC has teams along the Ohio, Allegheny, Monongahela, and St. Joseph rivers nowhere near the Atlantic coast. Big 12 has ten teams including West Virginia, who leaps three states before landing in Ames, Iowa, the conference’s second easternmost state. The Big 10 now has fourteen schools and uses “B1G” as its logo now because the conference name has such a strong brand. The SEC is adding two more Great Plains schools to the two it already added in recent years (Missouri and Texas A&M).
How influential is the SEC sphere? Former Warsaw Tiger Harrison Mevis kicks for a middle-of-the-pack Missouri football squad whose conference affiliation, and Mevis’s late-game heroics in his freshman season, have garnered recognition in ESPN highlight reels. He’s already nationally known as Money Mevis after his inaugural college season.
It should be noted the SEC signed a $300 million deal with ESPN to go along with its highly successful SEC channel available among the nation’s cable and satellite television services.
In recent years the Longhorns couldn’t even finish fourth in the X-box scoring, no defense Big 12. A move to the SEC seems masochistic at first blush. Oklahoma, however, with several recent appearances in college football playoff “final fours” will likely still show up on the radar for the college football playoff given expansion to twelve teams is imminent.
UT seems like it’s not a good fit in the SEC neither athletically nor academically. Even so, I get why UT is making the move. I get it at a very personal level.
UT is in Austin. Techy, artsy, the heartbeat of another large film and music festival, among the nation’s fastest growing cities, academically superior to almost every SEC school except for Vanderbilt, and maybe LSU’s chemical engineering program.
The Austin world view will contrast with the world view in Starkville, Mississippi and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, just small college towns, and certainly not progressive nor moderate in their world view.
I moved to Goshen, Indiana from Gahanna, Ohio (A Columbus suburb with a growing Jewish population at the time) August 10, 1996; almost 25 years ago.
I spent a lot of time in Columbus suburbs and neighborhoods like The Short North, Clintonville, Bexley, Grandview Heights. I worked in downtown Columbus for a very entrepreneurial LA-Columbus connected computer entrepreneur. I had a good thing going, right?
When I told people I knew in the Columbus area I was moving to Indiana, the collective response was, “Are you hiding from someone?”
Contraire mon fraire!
Greater income, less sales, income, and property taxes were incentives, for starters. Lower housing and utility costs along with better school funding sources (levies for millage in Ohio, don’t get me started) also sweetened the deal.
UT’s move to the SEC is about money and some access to football recruits it may now have when they are snubbed by the SEC powers like Alabama, Georgia, and LSU to name a few. Oklahoma has not sent its players to the NFL as much as SEC member schools have, but it too shall fortify its football program from affiliation.
UT’s move is still about the money, and they’re willing to coexist with a collective group (the SEC) who’s world view is certainly not the same. My move to Indiana was about the money, too, and I successfully coexist among most people, good people, with a different world view than mine.
Have a news tip? Email [email protected] or Call/Text 360-922-3092