[CTcard]

Like this says, money talks and bullsh*t walks. ...

The only thing that matters here is that the next objective is to go from a "Power 5" to a "Power 4" conference structure.  And as discussed before on this board and others, that's going to mean four 16-team conferences.  Makes the math pretty simple.

As far as I can see, making the math pretty simple is not the same thing as maximizing revenue. Mostly, I don't see an economic argument for creating four 16 team conferences.

Of course it could happen, but the driving force doesn't seem to be any innate need for mathematically simple conferences. Rather, I suspect the driving force would be if the members of one conference (Big 12) both hate each other so much and think they see self-interest over the fence that a critical mass simply runs away.

There is an odd dynamic as all of the have-nots are desperately trying to figure out how to become haves, and all the haves are trying to figure out both how to maintain their position as a have and also cut the slices of the pie everyone else is getting. But I don't see how going from 65 Power teams in five conferences plus one independent to 64 Power teams in four conferences changes that calculation much.

... and probably UConn over Kansas State and Iowa. 

UConn would love that to be true, but at the moment there appears little eagerness for anyone to add UConn. The over-riding problem is their football tradition is just not strong enough - and that mostly people in the northeast don't care about college football.
There are stories that the balance of the ACC did want UConn to replace Maryland, but that BC blackballed them and Louisville went out bribing and got the spot.

p.s. in that linked article we had this quotation,

(Here’s what room for growth looks like: Stanford – fresh off its 12-1 turnaround season under Jim Harbaugh – was sitting at #69 five years ago. With the Cards in market #6 and with three Rose Bowls in the last five years now behind them, you may safely assume their audience has grown in a big way.)

As far as I am aware, the Stanford audience has grown in a small way since the turnaround; enough to make a difference in the numbers in the stadium, not enough to sway Nielsen ratings around the Bay Area. Does anyone know any actual numbers?

Among the many things the author misses is the difficulties for a private school to develop a large population that considers that school "us" in the us vs them competition of sports. Some schools can do this through religion (und and BYU), U.-S.-C. seems to have done so merely by many decades of success, but there are few other private schools with large fan bases. Miami has had of exceedingly large proportions football success but has always struggled with audiences. Northwestern, Rice, Wake Forest, Duke etc. have smaller fan bases than Stanford.

Here are the 2013 attendance records for NCAA football teams.
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_r...elease.pdf
The only three private schools in the top 30 are und (#16), U.-S.-C. (#19), and BYU (#28).
Stanford comes in at 50,726.
That's a little behind Miami (53,837), which I think makes Stanford the #5 private school in attendance.
Of course attendance isn't TV audience, and Stanford might do better on the latter as it is more of a national institution than a regional one - but I would suspect there is some correlation between the two.

[CTcard]

Like this says, money talks and bullsh*t walks. ...

The only thing that matters here is that the next objective is to go from a "Power 5" to a "Power 4" conference structure.  And as discussed before on this board and others, that's going to mean four 16-team conferences.  Makes the math pretty simple.

As far as I can see, making the math pretty simple is not the same thing as maximizing revenue. Mostly, I don't see an economic argument for creating four 16 team conferences.

Of course it could happen, but the driving force doesn't seem to be any innate need for mathematically simple conferences. Rather, I suspect the driving force would be if the members of one conference (Big 12) both hate each other so much and think they see self-interest over the fence that a critical mass simply runs away.

There is an odd dynamic as all of the have-nots are desperately trying to figure out how to become haves, and all the haves are trying to figure out both how to maintain their position as a have and also cut the slices of the pie everyone else is getting. But I don't see how going from 65 Power teams in five conferences plus one independent to 64 Power teams in four conferences changes that calculation much.

... and probably UConn over Kansas State and Iowa. 

UConn would love that to be true, but at the moment there appears little eagerness for anyone to add UConn. The over-riding problem is their football tradition is just not strong enough - and that mostly people in the northeast don't care about college football.
There are stories that the balance of the ACC did want UConn to replace Maryland, but that BC blackballed them and Louisville went out bribing and got the spot.

p.s. in that linked article we had this quotation,

(Here’s what room for growth looks like: Stanford – fresh off its 12-1 turnaround season under Jim Harbaugh – was sitting at #69 five years ago. With the Cards in market #6 and with three Rose Bowls in the last five years now behind them, you may safely assume their audience has grown in a big way.)

As far as I am aware, the Stanford audience has grown in a small way since the turnaround; enough to make a difference in the numbers in the stadium, not enough to sway Nielsen ratings around the Bay Area. Does anyone know any actual numbers?

Among the many things the author misses is the difficulties for a private school to develop a large population that considers that school "us" in the us vs them competition of sports. Some schools can do this through religion (und and BYU), U.-S.-C. seems to have done so merely by many decades of success, but there are few other private schools with large fan bases. Miami has had of exceedingly large proportions football success but has always struggled with audiences. Northwestern, Rice, Wake Forest, Duke etc. have smaller fan bases than Stanford.

Here are the 2013 attendance records for NCAA football teams.
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_r...elease.pdf
The only three private schools in the top 30 are und (#16), U.-S.-C. (#19), and BYU (#28).
Stanford comes in at 50,726.
That's a little behind Miami (53,837), which I think makes Stanford the #5 private school in attendance.
Of course attendance isn't TV audience, and Stanford might do better on the latter as it is more of a national institution than a regional one - but I would suspect there is some correlation between the two.