Mailbag: Moving the NCAA Tournament(?), Pac-12 branding, Big 12 jersey patches, Mountain West cash and more
The Hotline mailbag publishes weekly. Send questions to wilnerhotline@bayareanewsgroup.com and include “mailbag” in the subject line. Or hit me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline. Some questions have been edited for clarity and brevity.
And if you missed it, last week’s mailbag looked at the strategic positioning of the ACC and Big 12 relative to the Big Ten and SEC. The future is … worrisome.
Do you think they would ever move the NCAA Tournament back to May and just start college basketball around Christmas? — @Andybryant316
They won’t, but they should.
Actually, let me clarify: May is too late for the tournament, for reasons we’ll explain below, but the sport absolutely should shift the start of the regular season back by several weeks.
The current competition calendar features far too much overlap with football, thereby marginalizing the bulk of the basketball regular season. That problem will only get worse with the (inevitable) expansion of the College Football Playoff (to 16 or 24 teams) and the expansion of the NFL season (to 18 games), which would push the Super Bowl to a permanent spot on the Sunday of President’s Day weekend.
The window for mainstream sports fans to focus on the college basketball season is small and about to get smaller.
Shifting the calendar back will partly alleviate the problem.
As we see it, there are two options:
— Competition could begin either Thanksgiving weekend or the first weekend in December, which might become a glorious opportunity if the CFP expands to 24 teams. At that size, the conference championship games currently played in early December would be eliminated. The first Saturday in December would be a blank slate for basketball aside, perhaps, from Army-Navy.
— The season could begin in the middle of December, after fall semester exams, to make college basketball a true one-semester sport.
The only way to start the season three-to-six weeks later and maintain the current timing for March Madness is to reduce the number of regular-season games. That’s a non-starter because any decrease in game inventory would result in a loss of revenue from media partners. And the schools cannot afford to take a penny less.
So a later start to the season would require a later finish — and moving the opening tip of the NCAA Tournament into late March or early April.
If Selection Sunday gets moved to the final weekend of the month, the tournament could still be called March Madness. Nothing would change. (The two weeks of conference tournaments, which would move to the middle of the month, are an extension of the NCAAs.)
For those wondering about playing the first weekend of the tournament on the same weekend that CBS airs the Masters, our response is the following: The CBS coverage spans five hours Saturday afternoon and five hours Sunday afternoon. That’s not much. There would be plenty of time for basketball and, obviously, the TBS/TNT/trueTV windows would be unaffected.
But there is a finish line for the NCAAs under our plan: The tournament would have to conclude before the NBA playoffs, which typically get rolling in the middle of April, and certainly before the NFL Draft.
Essentially, our idea is to move the regular season back three weeks and start the NCAAs two weeks later. The lost week would require only a slight consolidation of non-conference schedules. The rhythm of league play would remain the same, except it would begin in mid-January and therefore face considerably less direct competition from the CFP and NFL.
We don’t expect a shred of movement on this matter during the NCAA Tournament’s current contract cycle with CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery, which expires in the spring of 2032.
By then, the tournament could have 96 teams, the NFL regular season could have 18 games, and the CFP could feature 24 teams.
The landscape is sure to change three times over. But of this, we are convinced: More football in December and January is bad for college basketball.
Last week, you mentioned the Pac-12 name resonates with fans and sponsors across college sports. Would the Pac-10 name be a better brand? It represents a winning era. The Pac-12 brand is Larry Scott and falling behind. — @sfw4422
It’s an interesting concept, for sure. And yes, the Pac-10 name carries a certain mystique untarnished by the embarrassing scandals, epic mismanagement and ultimate collapse of the Pac-12.
But changing the name to a number that doesn’t reflect the actual membership — there will be nine schools starting July 1 — seems odd. Either use an accurate representation or keep the Pac-12.
In our view, keeping Pac-12 is the right move despite the Larry Scott era and subsequent collapse.
And don’t forget, additional expansion is a distinct possibility. It could be a 12-school conference in the next few years.
Might we see a rush of college football players transferring out the traditional way after spring practice so they can go elsewhere? — MrEd315
There is deep concern among administrators that players simply ignore the transfer portal this spring, and understandably so: It’s not a legally binding process.
Just as regular students can withdraw from one school and enroll at another, so, too, can college athletes.
As a result, we could see a wave of player movement after spring practice even though the portal closed in January.
In response, college football executives are crafting a penalty structure to dissuade schools from accepting transfers from outside the portal process. Last week, the Football Oversight Committee recommended the following:
— Head coaches would be prohibited from all football (recruiting and on-field coaching) and administrative duties for six games.
— Schools would be fined 20 percent of their football budgets.
— Schools would be required to reduce the number of roster spots by five for the next season.
The sanctions must be approved by the Division I cabinet, which seems probable. And they must withstand the inevitable legal challenges, which seems far less likely.
Even though the players themselves are not subject to penalties, a structure that restricts trade could be deemed harmful to their careers.
The Mountain West said it will cover the difference in media rights revenue to make sure legacy members make $3.5 million annually. Could that money come from the NCAA Tournament credits left behind by the departing schools? — @NateJones2009
The money could come from anywhere the Mountain West presidents and commissioner Gloria Nevarez see fit.
And it’s not a million dollars here and a million dollars there.
Our understanding is the conference’s media rights deal with The CW, Fox and CBS is well short of the valuation level necessary to pay each legacy school $3.5 million annually.
Nevarez has to divert cash from other buckets, potentially including the $100 million (approximately) in exit fees owed by the five departing schools that are currently under legal dispute.
The NCAA units left behind by Utah State, San Diego State, Colorado State, Boise State and Fresno State would help, if the conference opts for that strategy. But it wouldn’t fully solve the problem.
Based on our back-of-the-envelope math, the quintet would leave $28.4 million behind, plus whatever is earned this month, once they depart for the Pac-12.
That’s not as much as it seems, because it must be distributed over six years to at least six schools.
Which Big 12 team would be most likely to get a jersey sponsorship from Operation Epic Fury? — @ElonMUSS
The war in Iran aside, jersey patches are a hot topic in college sports and an untapped revenue stream for athletic departments looking for every last dollar to help offset the cost of revenue sharing.
This week, in fact, Arkansas and Tyson Foods revealed a partnership in which the company’s logo will be placed on all Razorback team jerseys starting in the fall. (Tyson is based in Arkansas.)
The terms were not disclosed, but industry sources have told the Hotline in recent months that jersey patches are a seven-figure annual business for many major college schools. (The amount depends on the brand power of the team, of course.)
We fully expect Big 12 schools to partake in the endeavor — most of them are more desperate for cash than their peers in the Big Ten and SEC. (Schools with ties to major corporations will have a natural advantage.)
One final nugget: The Arkansas deal is notable in that 90 percent of the revenue will reportedly be funneled to Razorbacks athletes for NIL opportunities.
For each school, the calculation is different. But they all need cash to cover the revenue sharing and the NIL support.
Are we seeing a new recruiting strategy by lower-level Power Four and Group of Six schools? While the blue bloods chase 4- and 5-star recruits/transfers for big money, everyone else goes after productive FCS players. Isn’t Indiana a great example? — @jimmy0726
Indiana is the best and worst example.
Yes, the Hoosiers won a national title with a slew of transfers from James Madison, which moved from FCS to the Sun Belt in 2022. But we suspect coach Curt Cignetti is a unicorn — that his talent evaluation skills are simply better and, therefore, not applicable to 99 percent of the programs that don’t qualify as blue bloods.
That said, everyone is scouring the FCS rosters for impact players because everyone, including the blue bloods, has holes to fill.
Consider LSU, which owns the top-ranked transfer class, according to 247Sports. Coach Lane Kiffin’s list of newcomers includes players from Elon, Southern, North Carolina Central and West Florida.
The further down the food chain you move, the greater the need for FCS talent. But the heavyweights are more interested than ever before, in part because of Cignetti’s success.
Who are the bottom-quartile athletic directors in the revitalized Pac-12? — @KyleMaloy2
Goodness, that’s a shallow pool (literally) of candidates. The conference has nine schools, but Washington State is without a permanent AD — Jon Haarlow is serving as the interim — while Utah State only hired Cameron Walker in the fall.
That leaves seven, meaning a quartile is 1.75. You’re essentially asking which one or two ADs form the bottom.
The Hotline typically avoids comparing ADs against each other (rankings, grades, etc.) because every job is different: football school vs. basketball school; public vs. private; urban vs. rural; engaged president vs. disengaged president — comparing Gonzaga’s Chris Standiford to Fresno State’s Garrett Klassy isn’t apples-to-apples. It’s apples-to-peaches.
Of the seven permanent ADs who have been on the job for more than a few months, six seem entrenched in their positions.
The outlier is Oregon State’s Scott Barnes, who has been heavily, and justifiably, criticized for a series of missteps on hiring, managerial and funding matters.
Is president Jayathi Murthy ready to move on from the man who helped save the Pac-12?
Her oversight of the situation might offer clues into how much Murthy cares about OSU’s athletic success in the new era.
Should USC basketball fans be concerned that coach Eric Musselman isn’t the right guy? Or are these normal steps in the process? — @MrWarrenBell
Full disclosure: The Hotline thought USC’s decision to hire Eric Musselman in the spring of 2024 was a shrewd move.
Two years later, it doesn’t look that way.
The Trojans finished well under .500 in the Big Ten last year and have made no progress within the conference this season. In fact, a six-game losing streak and the recent dismissal of star forward Chad Baker-Mazara have cast the Musselman era in a darker hue.
We don’t believe the Trojans are considering a coaching change. Nor should they. But Musselman will enter Year 3 under significant pressure to reach the NCAA Tournament.
If the trajectory doesn’t improve by March 2027, then USC might have to cut bait.
In the transfer portal era, it’s perfectly reasonable for schools to demand results within three years.
If Cal (NET ranking: No. 64) misses the NCAA Tournament for a third straight year, what’s to make of coach Mark Madsen’s tenure? He seems like a great guy working with limited resources. — Y Cohen
The mere fact that Cal has achieved bubble status is a massive victory for Madsen given what he inherited.
And for those unfamiliar, he inherited a team that went 3-29.
Madsen’s evaluation and teaching skills have fueled the resurgence. The Bears were 13-19 in his first season, which was Cal’s final year in the Pac-12, followed by a 14-19 mark last season (in the ACC).
Currently, they are 21-9 with wins over UCLA, North Carolina and Miami, plus a sweep of Stanford.
It’s difficult to imagine a more impressive three-year trajectory, regardless of what transpires on Selection Sunday.
*** Send suggestions, comments and tips (confidentiality guaranteed) to wilnerhotline@bayareanewsgroup.com or call 408-920-5716
*** Follow me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline