rams80

Huge News, ND will join the Big 10 in 2013.

ND to the BIG

I saw it on the internet! It must be true!

What we all knew is official-the WAC has announced the 2012 football season will be its last.

Personally, I don't see the WAC going on even as a non-football conference after this year...on top of that, look for the holes in the bowl bids to possibly (by NO means a certainty) motivate the Big Sky to jump up to FBS.

What holes? The 10th place team in the SEC needs some place to go.

In the most idiotic move they could possibly make, Idaho is going independent for football.

It's this or drop to the Big Sky, so who could really blame them for wanting to give independence a try first.

Why the hell would Penn State leave the Big Ten for the MAC anyway?

They wouldn't leave voluntarily.... but when the Sandusky scandal inevitably gets even deeper throughout this season, who says the Big Ten will want to keep them around?

I dunno, the TV contracts and the lack of an adequate replacement for starters. And no, neither Pitt nor Notre Dame count as adequate replacements.

My College Football Realignment 2013 (Note: I didn't do the divisions, just all teams in the conferences. All are BCS conferences as of 2012):

BIG:

Northwestern

Minnesota

Michigan

Mich. St

Ohio St

Indiana

Purdue

Nebraska

Wisconsin

Illinois

Iowa

Penn St (2012, then jumps to the MAC)

ND (2013)

The question here is if the MAC will let a school the size of Penn State in the MAC considering the largest school by enrollment in the MAC right now is Akron with 29,251 students. Penn State has an enrollment of 95,883 students (if you count all the campuses). I also think Penn State is too prestigious to join the MAC. And would the MAC even let them in because of the scandal? I think Penn State's best bet is to join the Independents.

Stop talking to yourself.

I could really see Bettman using the contraction of Phoenix as a bargaining chip against the NHLPA, saying "If you don't back down on this and this, we will have no choice but to contract the Coyotes because we can't find an owner for them under these financial circumstances."

From there, the NHLPA will call Bettman's bluff, knowing full well that the NHL will not be able to run a league with 29 teams for very long, and will likely end up expanding to 32 after the contraction.

Bettman ends up folowing through, contracting the Coyotes, and due to them becoming defunct, Glendale will have an empty arena with no leaseholder for the foreseeable future.

If 3-4 years, the NHL will announce expansion, and give one of those teams back to Phoenix, who are now forced to accept a lowball offer on a new lease deal from the team's owner simply because they desperately need the money. The NHL gets to keep their 'large media market'.

^^ Just my predictions.

Stop reading hfboards.

Maybe, although considering how Buffalo's 1 moment of football glory was an 8-6 season highlighted by Turner Gill not being intimidated by Brady Hoke's pointing, I suspect most leagues will look elsewhere.

Why the heck would Buffalo want to play with all those big boys?

The last three times Buffalo has played a top 25 team in basketball they have kept it within 8 points. The football team isn't that bad, well now they are, but they were beasts in '08. I can see them possibly moving to the Big Ten in about ten years or so. And I'm pretty sure that they would rather play Ohio State in basketball/football rather than Eastern Michigan

Is the Big Ten looking for member #30 at the time of this expansion? Because that's about where the Bulls lie on the expansion priority list.

30? Being a little kind there, aren't ya?

Presumably most of I-A has been spoken for by now.

Why the heck would Buffalo want to play with all those big boys?

The last three times Buffalo has played a top 25 team in basketball they have kept it within 8 points. The football team isn't that bad, well now they are, but they were beasts in '08. I can see them possibly moving to the Big Ten in about ten years or so. And I'm pretty sure that they would rather play Ohio State in basketball/football rather than Eastern Michigan

Is the Big Ten looking for member #30 at the time of this expansion? Because that's about where the Bulls lie on the expansion priority list.

What's the B1G most likely to do if Penn State receives the death penalty

What did the Southwest Conference do?

It died.

However, the Southwest Conference example is not relevant because either way they weren't playing a very lucrative end of season championship game.

I don't think it is, but if Penn State did go down, you'd probably see them grab Pittsburgh posthaste because that Pennsylvania footprint needs to replaced.

Granted Pitt is a real crappy replacement for Penn State, but Temple's even worse.

Syracuse will be playing in the ACC in 2013. They've (or we've I guess if it's the university I attend) come to a settlement with the Big East for $7.5M. Still no word on what's gonna happen with Pittsburgh yet

Waiting to see if they need to be subbed in for Penn State presumably.

It could also be that we've already lost the season and only the NHL owners and union heads know it. No need to move the Coyotes when they won't lose any money next year.

As for the Sacramento Kings entering NHL territory when it comes to bad business, I don't know about that. I don't think they're there yet. So far, they've just unfolded the map. We haven't had the Maloofs offer to sell to the team A Secret Mystery Owner not once but thrice. Incidentally, can you imagine Bettman taking the Glendale act to Newark? Go tell Cory Booker you need to hit his city up for $25 million in "arena management fees" while you put the finishing touches on a deal with a secret mystery owner whose name cannot be mentioned at this time. That'll go over well, I'm sure of it.

No, that's never going to happen. Now the Maloofs unwittingly allowing Anaheim Ducks owner Henry Samueli to Trojan Horse his way into NBA franchise ownership without going through the league's vetting process...that certainly appears to be the plan. Only it's a ty plan because everybody except the Maloofs know it's the plan and rather than tow the damn thing into the city walls the NBA's dusting off the "Achaean flambe" recipe in its cookbooks.

News gets better. The GWI folks have enough signatures to force the ballot measure. Turns out the city wasn't aware of their own rules when they said it was 1862 signatures that were needed. Turns out the "controlling election" for this ballot is the 2010 election in which 11,309 people voted in Glendale. So GWI only needed 1131 signatures, which they already have.

http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/blog/eye-on-hockey/19516772/reports-opposition-has-enough-signatures-for-coyotes-vote-could-team-be-folded

And on top of that the other referendum, to torpedo the tax hike that's funding this errant venture, also was turned in to the city with plenty of extra signatures and will all but certainly be on the fall ballot. Which means even if GWI somehow fails, the city may not have the funds to go forward with their little scheme.

From the comments:

I would take hockey over libraries any day. I couldn't tell you the last time I went to a library. Can't you do/find everything on line that you can do in a library?

Latter part is not confirmed. WAC looks like a bad place to park your Olympic Sports right about now.

"The petition going around now is to bring this decision to a vote, not for the peoples' voices to be heard, but for the deal to be killed by people who oppose any sort of government action to help improve the economy."

OK, it sounds like WestGate needs an anchor store to help attract shoppers. Here's a hint to the Glendale Council. THE COYOTES CLUBHOUSE IS NOT AN ANCHOR STORE.

So let me get this straight - Glendale would rather mortage the very skeleton of their city's infrastructure in order to keep the Phoenix Coyotes around?

I thought of setting up an organized crime ring in their city first.

Those league-owned Devils rumors are bubbling up again.

That makes it even less likely the league will continue on with Glendale. Watch the NHL respond to a ruling tomorrow with "Well, we gave you enough chances, TTFN." and deal that toxic asset to Quebec faster than you can say "Bank of America."

No, it has not been a windfall for the owners. Even with the massive illegal subsidies Glendale has forked over, the NHL still loses money annually on the Coyotes. And after three years of this charade, having lost over $100 million on the team, they are in a position to hypothetically sell it for what they paid to a guy who doesn't actually have any money. Even in the instance Jamison wins the Powerball lotto and decides to actually buy the team, the owners still would have lost over $100 million.

More importantly, going through with THIS plan ropes the NHL into a 20 year commitment to Phoenix. I suspect that part is what would ultimately prompt an owners revolt because they don't want to do something that long term.

I prefer the whole "Glendale thinks Jamison will buy the goddamn arena in 5 years and free them of most of the subsidy and debt service" pipe dream. Only some councilmembers believe that (including the one who addressed the feral cat issue).

The Goldwater Institute does not HAVE to sue. It?s like a police officer who issues a motorist a warning rather than a ticket. The institute has discretion.

Yes, but chances are you aren't getting that warning if you were doing caught doing 100 in a subdivision. Which is kind of what Glendale's subsidy is like with regards to Arizona law regarding such things.

Can someone explain to me why half of hfboards is convinced a 2 team expansion is going to be part of the new CBA? I mean such an act of insane stupidity only makes sense under OITGDNHL logic.

Temporary restraining order DENIED.

Rationale: Court lacks authority to stop the vote from taking place. That said, it acknowledges Glendale has kind of been doing a crappy job of providing documents within the required time window for such things, so I don't know, grounds for a restraining order on enacting the lease deal I guess.

EDIT: and Goldwater indeed says that they'll be back in court if the vote passes.