Bottom line, is that Missouri going to the SEC would in fact bring viewership, which brings in dollars. Viewership would go up as well as Missouri, presumably in the SEC West, would have games against the likes of Arkansas, LSU, Bama, Auburn.
This expansion is about Football, but it is ironic that the teams the SEC is considering bringing in are not going to necessarily make the Football side stronger, but they may make the Basketball side stronger.
Didn't the ACC raise their exit fee, hoping to secure their boundaries from an obvious SEC raid? Even still, obviously Duke and NC are out. I'd like to see NC State and Va. Tech, but with the amount of success Va. Tech has had over the years in the ACC, I think they'd have a hard time leaving for the SEC where a trip to the Orange (or Sugar in our case) is no longer guaranteed. Even with the additions the ACC plans to make, Va. Tech and FSU still rule the football roost. Pitt, Syracuse, UConn, Rutgers...year that scares the shlit out of the Hokies and the Noles. Basketball is a different story. The addition of Pitt, Cuse, and UConn probably makes UNC and Duke shake in the gym shoes a little bit. Unless this is a football only move, which has been rumored as well. With everything going on, I'd hate to see the ACC, Big whatever, and PAC whatever grab all the good teams, and leave us with the scraps. I know we have a higher concentration of great teams right now, but if you can get Mizzou, TCU, even Louisville, in a move to 16, why not do it? Better than Baylor and South Florida...
I already said it is about money and money alone. Why else would the SEC add A&M or Missouri? What I meant was that it is about Football, meaning that none of the other sports count when this expansion is going on. Football is the revenue sport, the other sports are tag alongs, where the expansion is concerned.
I'm not for expansion, but if it has to happen, the way to go is with competitive programs in strong TV markets. The addition of an Oklahoma just makes it that much more difficult for any one team to put up a national championship calibre record. But obviously we don't want lower tier programs either, and the commissioner's point about expanding the footprint is well-founded. That's why, assuming Texas A&M is going to be our 13th member, the best team to recruit for #14 would be North Carolina State in Raleigh-Durham, the #29 market. If we go to 16, Missouri should be in play, along With Virginia Tech near #68 Roanoke. Although the conference is already in South Carolina, as I understand it, loyalties in that state are pretty well divided between SC and Clemson. SC is in the 83rd market, Columbia, about the same size as Shreveport. Having Clemson would put the conference solidly in the Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville market, which is #36, bigger than New Orleans and slightly larger than Birmingham. edit: I should also add that Clemson's TV market would be bigger than any current SEC TV market, other than Nashville. (I'm not including Atlanta, which doesn't have an SEC team although it is "SEC Country")
I already said it is about money and money alone. Why else would the SEC add A&M or Missouri? What I meant was that it is about Football, meaning that none of the other sports count when this expansion is going on. Football is the revenue sport, the other sports are tag alongs, where the expansion is concerned.
Because it's not feasible or practical to have a conference of nothing but LSU's / Bama's. Missouri is a good fit. They have a good market being close to St. Louis, they have high Academics which will help the SEC appear smarter, and they're not an awful football team. The last two times they faced aTm they won and they beat Oklahoma last year. With the ACC looking more and more out of reach for pulling teams from them, Who do you think is a BETTER fit that we have a reasonable chance of actually getting?
