What Would It Take For Notre Dame Football To Join The Big Ten or The SEC ?

[Anonymous]

The University of Notre Dame's TV contract with NBC expires after the 2024 college football season. Notre Dame receives about $22 million per year from NBC. Notre Dame is seeking at least triple the amount under any new contract with NBC (seeking in the area of $65 million to $75 million). No progress has been reported on the negotiation of a new contract between the two parties.

Big Ten Conference will pay about $90 million to each of its members in just a few years, but will be paying in the $70 million to $75 million per team over the next two years under the terms of its new deal with Fox, NBC, and CBS.

My understanding is that independent football teams, such as Notre Dame, are ineligible to receive a bye in the first round of the newly designed College Football Playoffs.

Projected payouts for SEC football teams are about $60 million per member.

[Anonymous]

A sports Illustrated article from 2022 asserts that Notre Dame would be most likely to join a conference if one of two things happen:

Mega conferences mandate that member schools play 10 or 11 conference games per season or

Mega conferences explicitly prohibit their members from playing Notre Dame (which will never happen other than by mandating an all in conference schedule for member teams).

I think that the lack of a first round bye in the CFP for independents--like Notre Dame--and a widening gap in overall per team payout for football TV/media rights contracts between Notre Dame and the remaining Power Conferences would cause Notre Dame to join a conference.

[Anonymous]

I'm an ND alum and this is the first time ever where I think it's actually a possibility that ND is going to consider joining a conference. These new mega-conferences are just going to tie up scheduling too much. Additionally, one of the strongest arguments for not being in a conference was that ND is a national school and wanted to play games all over the country - well now that the conferences don't have any meaningful geographic alignment, that's not as relevant. Now we could join the big 10 and still play USC every year as an in-conference game. Except for Stanford and Navy, we could play a very normal-looking schedule from within the Big 10. Navy can still be our out-of-conference game, and frankly i don't care if we never play stanford again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm an ND alum and this is the first time ever where I think it's actually a possibility that ND is going to consider joining a conference. These new mega-conferences are just going to tie up scheduling too much. Additionally, one of the strongest arguments for not being in a conference was that ND is a national school and wanted to play games all over the country - well now that the conferences don't have any meaningful geographic alignment, that's not as relevant. Now we could join the big 10 and still play USC every year as an in-conference game. Except for Stanford and Navy, we could play a very normal-looking schedule from within the Big 10. Navy can still be our out-of-conference game, and frankly i don't care if we never play stanford again.

Great points.

The Big Ten is truly a coast-to-coast conference with USC & UCLA and Maryland & Rutgers.

Most of Notre Dame's traditional rivals are current Big Ten members or likely to join soon. (Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue, USC) and Stanford is a possible Big Ten member if the Pac-12 loses even one more team such as Colorado.

[Anonymous]

Also, I wonder if the new Big Ten/Fox TV deal which includes NBC (as well as CBS) is a partial attempt to attract Notre Dame due to Notre Dame football's longstanding relationship with NBC. Can NBC afford to pay Notre Dame $75 million per year under a new contract--especially when Notre Dame is playing 5 ACC games per year ?

Another rival of Notre Dame not mentioned yet, is the University of Miami (Catholics versus convicts game) which may be a target of the Big Ten Conference if it plans to expand to 20 or 24 teams from the current 16.

[Anonymous]

The reference to the ACC reminds me that the ACC Commissioner--Jim Phillips--was a long-time AD (athletic director) at Big Ten Northwestern University prior to becoming the ACC Commissioner. With NBC & Jim Phillips, the Big Ten has lots of relationships to Notre Dame in addition to the fact that Notre Dame is a member of Big Ten ice hockey league.

[Anonymous]

From last year (July 24, 2022):

https://nittanylionswire.usatoday.com/2022/07/24/paul-finebaum-predicts-notre-dames-future-conference-home/

[Anonymous]

NBC telling them that the numbers they think they will get aren't happening.

At the same time, ND gets bumps in the rankings because it's on NBC every week.The essentially play a mid major schedule and still get more consideration for the playoffs than any other team with a similar resume would ever get. In the big 10, would they be really happy just being a second tier power hoping to occasionally challenge for a conference championship?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NBC telling them that the numbers they think they will get aren't happening.

At the same time, ND gets bumps in the rankings because it's on NBC every week.The essentially play a mid major schedule and still get more consideration for the playoffs than any other team with a similar resume would ever get. In the big 10, would they be really happy just being a second tier power hoping to occasionally challenge for a conference championship?

Under the new 12 team CFP system, multiple teams from the same conference can make the College Football Playoffs. Plus, all Big Ten members share in the payout from CFP games involving a member of that conference.

Scheduling may be an important key to being ranked high enough to make it to the CFP. If Notre Dame continues to play a modest or weak schedule, the CFP qualification becomes more difficult. Without the advantage of a bye in any round of the CFP for non-conference members, Notre Dame's chances for a future National Championship in football are not good.

[Anonymous]

It will take a giant dose of humility... and a boatload of cash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NBC telling them that the numbers they think they will get aren't happening.

At the same time, ND gets bumps in the rankings because it's on NBC every week.The essentially play a mid major schedule and still get more consideration for the playoffs than any other team with a similar resume would ever get. In the big 10, would they be really happy just being a second tier power hoping to occasionally challenge for a conference championship?

Under the new 12 team CFP system, multiple teams from the same conference can make the College Football Playoffs. Plus, all Big Ten members share in the payout from CFP games involving a member of that conference.

Scheduling may be an important key to being ranked high enough to make it to the CFP. If Notre Dame continues to play a modest or weak schedule, the CFP qualification becomes more difficult. Without the advantage of a bye in any round of the CFP for non-conference members, Notre Dame's chances for a future National Championship in football are not good.

Are they better in a conference though? ND just isn't what it used to be, but if they catch a couple of teams in a down year, they always have a chance to end up with a great record and an argument. In the Big10, I think they are a perennial 3 or 4 loss team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The University of Notre Dame's TV contract with NBC expires after the 2024 college football season. Notre Dame receives about $22 million per year from NBC. Notre Dame is seeking at least triple the amount under any new contract with NBC (seeking in the area of $65 million to $75 million). No progress has been reported on the negotiation of a new contract between the two parties.

Big Ten Conference will pay about $90 million to each of its members in just a few years, but will be paying in the $70 million to $75 million per team over the next two years under the terms of its new deal with Fox, NBC, and CBS.

My understanding is that independent football teams, such as Notre Dame, are ineligible to receive a bye in the first round of the newly designed College Football Playoffs.

Projected payouts for SEC football teams are about $60 million per member.

There is a whole thread

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1141897.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The University of Notre Dame's TV contract with NBC expires after the 2024 college football season. Notre Dame receives about $22 million per year from NBC. Notre Dame is seeking at least triple the amount under any new contract with NBC (seeking in the area of $65 million to $75 million). No progress has been reported on the negotiation of a new contract between the two parties.

Big Ten Conference will pay about $90 million to each of its members in just a few years, but will be paying in the $70 million to $75 million per team over the next two years under the terms of its new deal with Fox, NBC, and CBS.

My understanding is that independent football teams, such as Notre Dame, are ineligible to receive a bye in the first round of the newly designed College Football Playoffs.

Projected payouts for SEC football teams are about $60 million per member.

There is a whole thread

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1141897.page

This thread should focus on Notre Dame and what it will take to get Notre Dame football to join a conference.

The other thread is about Big Ten Conference expansion and it involves many schools and different considerations.

I started thread because of a strong interest in Notre Dame football and the dearth of current articles about Notre Dame football's upcoming TV/media rights contract negotiations.

[Anonymous]

Great thread with several interesting bits of information about Notre Dame football and Big Ten viewership:

From 4 days ago (July 3, 2023):

https://fifthquarter.net/notre-dame/2023/07/03/notre-dame-football-contracts-the-shocking-deal-theyre-hoping-for

[Anonymous]

From 2days ago (July 5, 2023):

https://fifthquarter.net/notre-dame/2023/07/05/meet-the-new-impact-players-joining-the-notre-dame-football-program/