BOL Round Table

No way I would all of those three in the west...absolutely brutal..I agree with expanding, and adding a powerhouse, but I wouldn't want to add ALL really good teams..We would be unnecessarily punishing ourselves

You think ESPN wouldn't love to show the nation Bama FSU? LSU FSU? FSU -UF every year, etc.

Great matchups bringing in ratings for ESPN means even better TV contract with them and CBS. It can't be all about adding TV sets to watch regional crap games with the likes of Maryland or Missouri. ESPN, CBS probably wouldnt think that is near as attractive. JMO.

Also, with the talk being about 16 team conferences do you want to add mediocre football programs to round out the SEC and water down the product? This gives leagues like the Big 10, PAC 12 etc to grab top notch programs and take over as the nation's premier conference. Now they are getting better TV contracts.

To me it should be and is about the product you put on the field week to week.

Why don't quit playing around and just get 38 other teams to break away from the NCAA and just start our own shindig. Our champion will play the NCAA champion in a fight to the death/football game for all the marbles.

Ga Tech makes absolutely no sense. The Atlanta / Georgia market is wide open to the SEC. Bringing in GA Tech would accomplish nothing revenue wise.

Maryland, however, makes a great deal of sense. So does Mizzou / Oklahoma / Okie State.

This makes little sense logically speaking to me because the SEC now doesn't have great TV markets. What we have is a great product on the field that brings in TV sets nationwide. When SEC football is on TV people watch. To me, yea adding Missouri brings in St Louis but bringing in Oklahoma gives you that state plus a lot more TV sets on average nationally. JMO. That's the way i look at it.

I mean no offense to you, but if you don't already know, college football is in the TV business. If not for TV revenue, most football programs would be upside-down, financially speaking. The deal the SEC did with ESPN in 2008 was worth 2.25 BILLION. So, apparently, ESPN thinks the SEC TV markets are great. FWIW, it's my understanding that the Birmingham college football TV market may be one of the biggest in the country. If that doesn't appear logical to you, do some research.

I see what you are saying. but I believe we do not have the best TV deal anymore. These guys in charge know that only new big markets will bring in more money. FSU and GT will bring the same action basically in the same markets, therefore not viable options for this expansion. A&M and Mizzou or Maryland or VT means large markets and large money.

The ACC does kick our tail in Basketball TV contracts. Football in the SEC is king. Basketball is king in the ACC. The product will not be worse if A&M and MIZZ, etc join the conference. The schools added will be legit schools with a "name" and a TV market to boot. The "name" schools bring followers and a little sizzle along with their markets.

The biggest point I make to you is this, people with a lot more savvy in this kind of stuff are doing this and have weighed all the possibilities and what is going to make the conference and each team more money.

What you and I like as fans is not going to matter in their minds, because it is not ALL about competition.

Hmmm.

Completely agreed. Even if a superconference is inevitable, we'll somehow create the hardest one to get through. Heck, even if we add 2-4 average teams, our core group is still more difficult than any conference out there. The Big 12 will go out and pick up some crap teams, as will everyone else, and all we've done is make it more difficult for our teams to go undefeated or even w/ 1 loss... and the way things are going, the voters love a win against UNLV more than they do a 1 point loss against LSU.

It will be about money and opening new recruiting avenues.

^^^ How are more people not concerned about this? Everyone seems so enamored with increasing the SEC TV footprint / revenue when all I really care about is winning football games. We have 6 preseason top 25 teams on our schedule this year while teams like VT have zero. Why would we want to make winning championships any harder than it already is? I'm not quite sold on the recruiting pipeline either. It seems to me that aTm stands to gain a lot more from a recruiting standpoint by joining the SEC than any current SEC school would gain from having a greater TV presence in Texas.