Conventional wisdom dictates that Notre Dame makes more money as an independent than it would in a conference, but Clay Travis surmises that the Irish are bleeding cash by not joining the Big Ten. While having recently admitted in a previous post to be lacking in mathematical competency, a common sense and logic are all that one needs to debunk this fallacy.
To begin with, Travis slips in this not-so-trivial fact: "Notre Dame doesn't release their finances publicly." Well. Be aware that we are therefore proceeding by the shining light of journalistic juggernaut USA Today and its estimates of our cash flow. But for the purposes of this Fisking, we will assume that the numbers Mr. Travis cites are correct. Per that sterling publication (I believe between their Purple and Green sections), the Irish net about $9 million every year from NBC and other television monies from our Big East affiliation for a grand total of a little over $11 million in TV revenue. Travis then compares this paltry sum to the $15 and $17 million that each Big Ten and SEC school receives, respectively, and concludes that Notre Dame would be better off by joining a conference. His illustration of this dynamic, which he seems quite proud of, is that Northwestern and Vanderbilt are each netting more in TV money than ND.
[Aside (God, the lawyer in me wishes we could use footnotes on Blogger): Northwestern and Vanderbilt… interesting examples there, Mr. Travis. Two smallish, private schools with a strong emphasis on quality education, who are bound to conferences run by teams like the Buckeyes, who offer basket-weaving for course credit and Florida, which needs to build a penitentiary on campus to accommodate their JV squad. How do you think Wildcat and Commodore interests are reflected in conference meetings and votes? I'll give you an approximation: a Jew in the Iranian legislature.]
Excuse me for not dialing Jim Delany right after I finished your column, Mr. Travis, but there are some inconvenient facts that you either omitted entirely or cited but then obscured. For instance…
In TOTAL revenue, ND is doing quite well, pulling in nearly $60 million last year. Television is not the only way to make money off a football team, as Notre Dame is able to make a killing on ticket sales, merchandizing, alcohol fines, etc. But if the Irish were to go ahead and make the Big Ten even further removed from the accuracy of its name, this money would not be ours to keep. You see, the conference of eleven is actually quite viciously socialistic, requiring all member schools to equally share revenue. As Sean put it in his comment to the article, Notre Dame would be the most expensive house on the conference's block, with everyone else pulling down their property value.
This dynamic already exists in the Big Ten. It should come as no shock that Northwestern could not, by itself, generate the kind of money they pull in, and that instead they steal it from Ohio State. And why does OSU tolerate this? Quite simply, because they have to. There is no market for an independent Ohio State team, no network willing to televise Buckeye home games against the Akron Zips to homes in Chicago, much less California.
For Notre Dame, this is not a problem. The Irish are unique among all of college football in that theirs is truly a national fan base and alumni network. Indeed, this distinguishing factor only reinforces the logic behind ND's remaining independent, because joining a conference would destroy something extremely special about the program. I would go so far to argue that (and I despise this term) our "brand", and with it our revenues, would suffer more from joining the Big Ten, even adjusting for increased television cash.
Furthermore, Irish recruiting would be devastated. Name me the last Big Ten school to recruit two consecutive highly-rated quarterbacks from California. Or for that matter, the last to nab a terror-inducing Michigan-quarterback-eating linebacker from Hawaii. Despite having our base of recruiting in the Midwest, we would lose out on the vast bulk of high-schoolers whose cable systems in the Sun Belt do not happen to offer the Big Ten Network as part of the basic package. Diminishing talent would only further weaken Notre Dame's competitiveness and make it appear that the Irish truly needed a conference affiliation for survival.
As for Travis's claim that ND is "shortchanging [its] own students] by holding out of the Big Ten, I would refer him to a recent article in Forbes (a publication with just a touch more credibility on finance than USA Today). Irish football's "contribution to academics totaled $21.1 million for the 2006-2007 season--that's as much as the next five most valuable teams contributed to their respective schools combined." Add to this amount the over $1.5 billion raised through the Notre Dame Spirit campaign (reached two years ahead of schedule in the worst economy since the Depression). I don't know what exactly Travis expects, but by any reasonable standard, ND is doing right by its students.
Finally, in what must be the most disgusting instance ever of icing on a cake, Brian Cook agrees with me. Are you happy now, Mr. Travis? By forcing me into an unholy union with the Great Satan, you have most likely brought about the Rapture.
And so, once again, the wet-dream of Notre Dame joining a conference cherished by sports writers everywhere concludes just as the chick is about to take off her bra. Although in Mr. Travis's case, I'd say it never got past first base.
Now, it is proper and fitting that we as Notre Dame fans ready ourselves for accusations over a slate of soft opponents. Stand by for your talking points:
- Our schedule only looks soft from the perspective of the previous season. While no one is expecting Washington to go from a winless 2008 to the Rose Bowl (it takes quite a while to get the Molder out of your system), many of the teams that we play (Pitt, Stanford, Michigan State) could prove to be surprisingly competitive.
- Even if the competition never surfaces, this schedule was arranged years in advance. No one in the recent past could have predicted a moribund Michigan, a Boston College with more departures than Midway, and both Apple State FBS teams unable to beat anyone but each other at the I-A level.
- Almost alone among college football programs, we have not and will not schedule an FCS team.
- We have not lost to said FCS team. At home.
Not that there are many in college football that can castigate Notre Dame without hypocrisy slapping them upside the head. For example, Penn State's out-of-crappy-conference schedule consists of Akron, Syracuse, Temple, and I-AA Eastern Illinois. Unlike the Irish's weak slate, this was without a doubt done intentionally. No one schedules Syracuse as their marquee OOC match-up with a straight face. Interestingly, all of these games are presently listed as TBA. Are they looking for a possible start time when the greatest number of Americans won't be looking?
Furthermore, going light on the schedule is to a degree a self-fulfilling prophecy because of the scourge pre-season polling. Voters will look at the Nittany Lions' victim's row and concluded that they will win these games, thus upping their ranking. Any team with a more challenging schedule and starting the year ranked below Penn State will have to "pass" them in the polls, which absent a stumble against the Panthers (E. Illinois, not Pitt) or someone else, may be difficult.
Add to all this the economic incentive for scheduling light. PSU will not leave Happy Valley until October and at the end of the year will have played there 8 (eight) times. Right now only a few teams are so bold to schedule a six-week home stand, but it won't be long until the rest of college football catches up. They'd be idiots not to.
Before we single out JoePa, let's remember that softer schedules are simply symptomatic of the actual illness afflicting college football: the BCS. If the past decade has taught us anything, it's that the voters reward victories, even over patsies, far more than a challenging slate of games. Witness Ohio State's invitations to title games, and USC's exclusion thereof. The formula is clear: BCS conference school + undefeated schedule = championship game.
All these cake schedules have a deleterious effect on the game: further ensconcing the "haves" and "have nots"; further confusing the issue of who belongs in the championship games; and further cheapening the value of ever-escalating ticket prices for students, alumni and fans.
Something must be done, and if Dan were given dictatorial power (I will lay it down when the crisis is over, I swear!) here's the way it would work:
- All BCS conference teams (including ND) would have to play a minimum of 10 other BCS schools. - If you play in a conference with a championship game, you need only schedule 9 BCS opponents. - Games against FCS opponents will count as wins for the BCS formula only once every 5 years. Schools must declare at the beginning of the year whether they intend such games to be counted. - No more than 7 games at home/neutral sites.
(Caveat: I have not taken a math course for 9 years and have no way of knowing if this is even feasible. One of the more intrepid among you should figure out if 66 teams can play each other 10 times in 14 weeks.)
These guidelines, while far from perfect, will do much to level the scheduling field and make selecting the championship game participants much easier. While not all BCS schools are equally challenging, (and some non-BCS teams, like Utah, are far more competitive), a line must be drawn somewhere, and since the BCS itself drew that line, it's only fair that they be asked to recognize it. As for those who lament the revenue to be lost by FCS schools, I offer this suggestion: play spring games against I-AA opponents. BCS schools should love this, since they could charge more for tickets to an actual game rather than a mere scrimmage. And if Ohio State can't beat Youngstown State with their second and third strings, well… don't schedule them. The beauty of my system is that it lets teams choose: easy revenue or championships.
- Thanks "Oops I crapped my pants!" JoePa no longer desires drafting Notre Dame into the Big Ten. Quote the decaying-one: ND "had their chance." Right, Joe. That is actually just what I told Natalie Portman when she asked me out last weekend. Then she looked like she was going to cry, so we made out for a bit and then went to Chili's, but I made her pick up the check. Anyways, Paterno changes his mind more often than his diapers, which is bad for everyone except those in the adult undergarment sector of the economy. Pay him no attention.
- Maybe they could get Jon Scheyer? Oye, our schedule looks bleaker than GM, and as with the auto industry, things just got worse. Boston College's would-be starting QB, Dominique Davis, has decided to transfer after receiving an academic suspension. The move now means two Irish opponents will be starting a quarterback who has not previously thrown a pass in I-A program. Of course, considering Notre Dame's offensive output in their last match up, the Eagles could win in South Bend with a safety.
- Heh. Florida State beat Ohio State 37-6… in BASEBALL.
- They can both reminisce on the glory days of the past over Osco-brand vodka. President Obama has nominated two Notre Dame alumni to ambassadorships: Tim Roemer to India and Miguel Diaz to the Vatican. For Russia, a nation wracked with an unbearably frigid climate, congenital paranoia, deeply ingrained corruption, chronic unemployment, delusions of grandeur, and a predilection for beating up on its helpless neighbors, I am told he is looking for a Michigan grad.
- No, we have not joined the Big East. ESPN blogger Graham Watson is handing off coverage of ND football to Big East blogger Brian Bennett. From what I discern so far, Irish posts will appear under the College Football Nation tab, not Bennett's conference blog. Unlike much at the WWL, this makes sense. While Watson's reporting was generally fair to ND (and here, we have to speculate this might have spelled her doom in Bristol), she was also tasked with covering every other non-BCS conference school in I-A. Every Notre Dame post was greeted with comments demanding an explanation for why she was not talking about Southwestern Kansas A&M State U. Bennett was a borderline douche for most of last season, so Watson will be missed, but the move is for the best. Unless the SKAMSU trolls follow.
- There will be a separate box depicting how quickly tuition is rising. ND Stadium will have a new scoreboard next year, and the old one is being auctioned off at Steiner Sports Memorabilia. The only one I'd bid for, though, only existed for a few brief seconds:
- Now with even less transparency! If you were to gather a brain trust of the brightest scientists, philosophers, lawyers and executives in the would and posited how the BCS system could possibly be made more absurd, you would be hard-pressed to out-do the latest move of the American Football Coaches Association. Starting in 2010, the USA Today coaches poll's final ballot will no longer be made public. AFCA claims that a Gallup study recommended that they final ballot be made private in order to improve accuracy. Well. I bet Congress would love the chance to become more "accurate" by not making its votes public. The public, however, might not be so enthused. We have this crazy idea that those responsibly for governing should be held accountable for their decisions. Not so in the world of college football. Here is an opportunity for Weis, if he is still around, to show Notre Dame's role as a moral leader in the sport by pledging to release his own ballot, provided he is given one.
To survive the long doldrums between the Irish romp over Hawaii and what we HOPE will be an equally impressive route of their fellow WAC member Nevada, everyone turns to some distraction to sustain them. Some turn to basketball or baseball; some go for a drunken joyride; perhaps others write some short stories; and of course, there's always heroin.
Personally, I get "Lost". Yes, I am follower of the sometimes maddening but always addicting best series on network television. And after last week, I am now without my drug of choice until 2010 (where I can pick it up after ND beats Texas in the Fiesta Bowl?) So to occupy my time and pay tribute to my two loves, I decided to speculate on the relationship between the Irish football universe and the Losties by composing this rough sketch of corresponding characters. If you don't watch Lost, the following may not make much sense to you. Then again, I follow the show religiously, and sometimes even I can't make sense of it. Still, instead of skipping my post, you should immediately rent and devour the first five seasons and then come back to KG enlightened and enjoy this. I mean, what else are you going to do with your time?
Lostie: Dr. Jack Shephard Description: Natural leader of the survivors of Flight 815, Jack is often able to use his reason and intellect to navigate his friends through potentially ugly situations. However, he "had control issues and trouble dealing with situations that he couldn't fix." ND equivalent: Jimmy Clausen
Lostie: Richard Alpert Description: While never directly in charge of the leadership on the Island, Alpert is always around to offer advice. Also he does not age. ND equivalent: Regis Philbin
Lostie: Sawyer (James Ford) Description: Tough as nails Southern gentleman with a knack for reading other individuals' weaknesses and exploiting them to his benefit. Brainy at times, but not afraid to use brute force when necessary, which is to say, often. ND equivalent: Hayseed (Harrison Smith)
Lostie: The Smoke Monster Description: Terrifying, all-enveloping cloud of matter and energy that cannot be outrun. ND equivalent: Michael Floyd
Lostie: Hugo "Hurley" Reyes Description: Massive, happy-go-lucky guy with a penchant for dipping just about everything in ranch dressing, Hurley is constantly haunted by a certain set of numbers. ND equivalent: Sam Young (and his numbers correspond to our opponents' linebackers')
Lostie: Sayid Jarrah Description: Another survivor of the plane crash, Sayid's former life was largely spent as a torturer for the Iraqi Republican Guard and as a cold-blooded assassin. ND equivalent: Manti Te'o
Lostie: Daniel Faraday Description: One of the more recent arrivals to the Island, Daniel keeps a nifty journal of events and seems to have discovered the secret of time travel, as he is somehow able to be at two places at once. ND equivalent: Golden Tate
Lostie: John Locke Description: Flight 815 survivor whose previous life included a host of let-downs and tragedies, and whose present disappointments and failures led him to the brink of committing suicide. ND equivalent: Most NDNation posters.
Lostie: Ben Linus Description: Once renowned as an evil manipulative genius, Ben took over a leadership role on the island after the ouster of the previous head honcho. Nowadays, though, he has lost faith in his ability to command, and worse, has been exposed as faking some elements of his past which were critical to his maintaining control. ND equivalent: Charlie Weis
- In addition to heroin… Scott Weiland is apparently a huge Notre Dame fan, owing not in the least to the fact that his father played under Coach Brennan.
At least if you have a massive addiction to horse you can check yourself into a methadone clinic. How do you treat a unnatural compulsion for Irish football? I mean, after last year's Pitt game, I had to escape my problems with… well… heroin.
- Spring cleaning: We have tidied up the blogroll here at KG, eliminating some that discuss, in their most recent posts, how Hillary Clinton will fare against Mitt Romney in the upcoming election. But for the most part we have supplemented! Some blogs, like South Bend Blarney, are friends; others have probably never heard of us. But they will [in deeper, more sinister tone]… they will [strokes the back of a one-eyed albino cat]
- Better late than… I probably should've mentioned this earlier, but ESPN, foremost advocate of ND football, is doing a week-long focus on the Irish and their chances for next fall. The interviews with Weis, Clausen, et al. are informative, but you will have to put up with John Saunders. This is why God created the mute button; or why the mute button evolved, if you prefer.
- Saunders's old pal… has finally found gainful employment. I need say no more.
UPDATE!!! Apparently, negotiations have broken down and the Molder will not be taking the position after all. I'm guessing he finally realized that it's better to just sit on your ass and do nothing if a school is contractually obligated to pay you. Well, that was the philosophy for the last seven years; now he gets to avoid the awkward post-game presser, though.
- Dissent will NOT be tolerated: We all know that Charlie Weis is just one big arrogant SOB, who spoils relationships with former players and alumni and does not suffer criticism well at all. This is canon. Remember when he said:
"If you want to be critical of a player on our team or a coach on our team you can buy a ticket for seat 37F, you're not welcome back in the football office," Weis said, according to the report. "You're either Irish or you're not Irish."
Yup, there's the evidence, right there. Except that, for this to be true, you must replace "Irish" with "Gator" and "Weis" with "Meyer." Oh who am I kidding? Screw reality! The MSM has a meme to propagate!!
- In Spanish, Los Angeles means "The Cheaters": The pall of suspicion that has recently surrounding Manny Ramirez now seems poised to make its way down to the Coliseum. The four most wonderful/frightening words in the English language: lack of institutional control.
How slow are things in the ND football universe? I am forced to feed off a Joe Paterno comment. Thank god he was lucid today, otherwise I'd be blogging about his insistence that his players rehydrate themselves with cod liver oil.
Said with a straight face - John Swofford, current BCS coordinator, gave the following defense of the current method of selecting a college football champion to a Congressional committee today: switching to a playoff system will make it "very difficult for any bowl, including the current BCS bowls, which are among the oldest and most established in the game's history, to survive."
Heaven forefend! The bowl games are in danger! Actually, this is probably one of the more honest statements given under the Capitol dome in decades, despite being uttered unwittingly. Academic performance, viewer interest and the value of the regular season will all remain unharmed by the introduction of a playoff. The only things endangered are the old men running the bowl games that leech off the NCAA.
Swofford (his very surname sounds villainous!) further argued that the present system "is fair, because it represents the marketplace." Well. I wonder what the marketplace for Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati looked like in the Orange Bowl last year?
In addition to brains… - JoePa wants a twelfth team in the conference that already has enough trouble with math. The Penn State coach is upset that Big Ten teams have such a long layoff after ending their regular seasons the weekend before Thanksgiving and thinks another team and a championship game would solve that problem. Uhm, ok. Or you could just schedule that last game later, ya know.
Paterno's suggestions for this dozen-making team? "Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt." I swear, sometimes Big East members must feel like freshmen girls walking past some lonely and shifty-looking seniors on the first day of high school. Anyway, none of these teams is a good fit.
Syracuse: My God, if you want another team this badly why don't you just invite Marshall? Then at least you have a chance of meeting Matthew McConaughey at one HELL of a tailgater. Also, Boeheim and company would be none too happy to see the school leave the best hoops conference for a mediocre one. The 'Cuse is a basketball school the same way ND is a football one; the Orange joining the Big Ten would be akin to Mike Brey leading us into the same. Ain't happening.
Rutgers: We all know that it requires a certain degree of masochism to reside in the state of New Jersey, but why in God's name would they join a conference where they will likely be forced to play Penn State, Ohio State and Michigan EVERY YEAR?
Pitt: While I'm not ready to label them exclusively as a "basketball" school, I think the same consideration would be present for the Panthers as it would be for the Orange. Also, explain to me why it is in the interests of the Nittany Lions to create an in-state rival in the same conference that it would have to recruit against? Maybe JoePa wasn't as lucid as I thought.
In my opinion, the most logical addition for the Big Ten is West Virginia. They've easily been the giant of the Big East ever since its realignment, and their BCS prowess would add mightily to the reputation of a conference that is still smarting from (true) accusations of being overrated. Also, the departure of the Mountaineers might just close the door on the football incarnation of the Big East and smooth the way for the Mountain West to claim its BCS automatic-qualifier spot. Finally, how awesome of a game will it be when the Wolverines come to Morgantown for the first time! The carnage would make swine flu look like the cooties.
Of course, we all know who the Big 11 is REALLY pining for. They hope for Notre Dame climbing into bed with them in the same way that Detroiters hope that GM turns a profit. Let me put this in perspective for you, Jim Delany: the latter is more likely.
First, let me lead with some comments/observations concerning the Blue/Gold game weekend.
1. The annex to the law school (Eck Hall of Law) is now, without at a doubt, the most gorgeous building on campus not capped by a dome or steeple. Sorry Mendoza grads.
2. Apologies to everyone who sought us out Saturday morning but could not find us because we forgot the balloons. And by "everyone" I mean "Bethany."
3. Over the phone, I really do sound like an over-enthusiastic twelve-year-old who was been sipping vodka and Coke.
4. If you'll notice, at some point in the first audiopost, I mentioned that while the weather for the game was just about as perfect as it gets for Michiana, it would not surprise me to see it snow the next day. I realized walking to McDonald's the next morning... it came pretty close to doing just that. Let's hope my meteorological forecasting skills translate to the prediction I made for next season.
5. In the second audiopost, it appears that we were all watching different games.
In summary, nothing earth-moving happened for good or ill last weekend. Although I will say that it warmed my heart to hear Darrin Walls's name called over the PA again. To say that he has been through a lot is an understatement. Welcome back! Ditto for Mike Ragone.
Now, as much as we joked about the size of our readership, I think perhaps we're being a bit too self-deprecating. For only a short time after I posted my thoughts on the lack of team leadership the past few seasons, Jimmy Clausen drops this bombshell:
Well, in retrospect, it is a rather morbid thing to rally around, but hey, I'll take it at this point. Tack it to the bulletin board. Slap it on a t-shirt. This is exactly the attitude that has been missing from Notre Dame as of late: individual player accountability. And that Clausen is the one to first express this sentiment bodes well for the upcoming year, since there exists not only a question of confidence in Weis as a head coach, but also in Jimmy himself as our quarterback. Dayne Crist may not have had a stellar spring game, but maybe Jimmy finally gets the sense that this is his put-up-or-shut-up year. If the worst happens and Charlie is forced to become the least-talented and highest-paid Bon Jovi back-up singer, it's highly doubtful that the next Irish coach will spend much time working with the soon-to-be-gone Clausen.
Inspiring as it may seem, motivation is not a panacea. Jimmy could have a Brady Quinn-like year, but as I am repeatedly forced to explain to me fellow Cleveland Browns fans, BQ couldn't play d-line. And even if every player commits to this goal of not letting his performance be the one that dooms their coach, Charlie might still fail of his own accord. But the inverse is also true. Even if Charlie has finally worked the kinks out of the playbook, put the right assistant coaches in place, and recruited talented athletes to the roster, Weis will still falter if the team carries on with the "someone else get the door" mentality, as typified in last season's Pitt debacle.
The MVPs of the game were Robert Blanton and Armando Allen, but my vote for MVP of the spring goes to Clausen. This is what we've been waiting for. Now get ready for Nevada!
