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Notre Dame going Independent?

wsummers

wsummers

Section T since 1978
One of the rumors floating around the last few days is Notre Dame might decide to go the independent route. After one gets over the "What have they been smoking?" reaction, the idea actually has a lot of merit.

Disclaimer: I have no insider information.

Let's assume Notre Dame decides to go the independent route in hockey. How might it work? First, they would secure an arrangement with the BigTen hockey conference to play all the BigTen teams 4 times. The BigTen teams and Notre Dame get most of the advantages of being in the same league without Notre Dame joining the BigTen conference. The downside for Notre Dame would be the inability to participate in the league playoffs (they could play UAH or the U-18 during that week) and the league autobid.

A second advantage for Notre Dame is the possibility of selling the rights to their home games to NBC/Versus. No offense to the new National league, but NBC/Versus would probably be more interested in televising a Notre Dame vs Minnesota game than a Miami vs North Dakota. Yes, college hockey fans would see Miami/North Dakota as a great match-up, but NBC/Versus would see greater interest in the non-college hockey audience for a Notre Dame vs a Big Ten opponent. Also, the BigTen Network would probably feature Notre Dame in a number of their telecasts from BigTen arenas. Notre Dame could come out with far more TV money and national TV exposure than by joining Hockey East or the National league.

There really is no downside for Notre Dame to go this route other than the loss of the playoff autobid. After all, if a few years down the road they decided they no longer wanted to be an independent, they would have no problem being accepted into any league other than the BigTen.
 
Re: Notre Dame going Independent?

wsummers said:
One of the rumors floating around the last few days is Notre Dame might decide to go the independent route. After one gets over the "What have they been smoking?" reaction, the idea actually has a lot of merit.

Disclaimer: I have no insider information.

Let's assume Notre Dame decides to go the independent route in hockey. How might it work? First, they would secure an arrangement with the BigTen hockey conference to play all the BigTen teams 4 times. The BigTen teams and Notre Dame get most of the advantages of being in the same league without Notre Dame joining the BigTen conference. The downside for Notre Dame would be the inability to participate in the league playoffs (they could play UAH or the U-18 during that week) and the league autobid.

A second advantage for Notre Dame is the possibility of selling the rights to their home games to NBC/Versus. No offense to the new National league, but NBC/Versus would probably be more interested in televising a Notre Dame vs Minnesota game than a Miami vs North Dakota. Yes, college hockey fans would see Miami/North Dakota as a great match-up, but NBC/Versus would see greater interest in the non-college hockey audience for a Notre Dame vs a Big Ten opponent. Also, the BigTen Network would probably feature Notre Dame in a number of their telecasts from BigTen arenas. Notre Dame could come out with far more TV money and national TV exposure than by joining Hockey East or the National league.

There really is no downside for Notre Dame to go this route other than the loss of the playoff autobid. After all, if a few years down the road they decided they no longer wanted to be an independent, they would have no problem being accepted into any league other than the BigTen.
Click to expand...

With sincere apologies to Red Cloud...

facepalm_medium.jpg
 
Re: Notre Dame going Independent?

If Texas has their own TV network, so will ND - their hockey team will be very happy there in stunning HD. The end.
 
Re: Notre Dame going Independent?

MUhawks628 said:
If Texas has their own TV network, so will ND - their hockey team will be very happy there in stunning HD. The end.
Click to expand...
Texas has almost a million alumni and maybe another five million people who had a relative go to UT.

Notre Dame has maybe 200,000 alumni, most of whom live outside of Indiana. While there's no doubt Notre Dame has broad national appeal in football, it doesn't translate to other sports or else they would of had more success in hoops.

Notre Dame's network will be primarily broadcast over the internet, while Texas will be on cable systems in state with 25,000,000 people.
 
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Re: Notre Dame going Independent?

mookie1995 said:
Nick, there are millions to be made for a school that has a college hockey program!!!! Millllllllllions!!
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Obviously this is not a million dollar get rich deal....A better way to have phrased it would have been "more money and more national TV exposure". By putting the TV in front of the money it gave the idea the additional money would come primarily from TV revenue....While there could be some TV revenue, there would also be money to be had through cheaper travel and additional ticket sales.

A Notre Dame/BigTen scheduling arrangement would likely result in more home ticket sales as the BigTen opponents would have a greater appeal to the casual fan. Travel expenses would also be less as they could bus to at least 4 of the games (OSU, UMich, UWisc, MichSU).

As far as the TV exposure....A scheduling arrangement with the BigTen schools could give Notre Dame more (or at least as much) national TV exposure than they'd get in any other conference...They could have the BigTen Network and potentially their own national network cover their games on a national basis.

If I were an executive at NBC/Versus/Comcast, I already have Notre Dame football and the idea of a deal for Notre Dame hockey would be appealing if Notre Dame has a scheduling agreement with the BigTen schools. NBC would be looking at production costs, national appeal with non-college hockey fans, and national advertising interest. For those reasons, Notre Dame would be appealing. This would appear at least equally as good as a deal with the new National league from their point of view.

I have no intention of getting into a p***ing contest over this. I really don't care what Notre Dame does...However, since the idea of being an independent has been raised by a number of sources including the article on the front page of this site yesterday, it seems it is being seriously considered by Notre Dame. At first, I thought this was a dumb idea...however, the more I think about it the more likely I think it may happen if all of the other pieces fall into place.

I guess we'll all know by the middle of the month...

What interests me far more is the possible ramifications to college hockey if Notre Dame chooses to go the independent route since I've assumed they would either be moving east or west.
 
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Re: Notre Dame going Independent?

wsummers said:
If I were an executive at NBC/Versus/Comcast... NBC would be looking at production costs, national appeal with non-college hockey fans, and national advertising interest. For those reasons, Notre Dame would be appealing.
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FACEPALM #2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My sweet Jesus.
 
Re: Notre Dame going Independent?

dggoddard said:
Texas has almost a million alumni and maybe another five million people who had a relative go to UT.

Notre Dame has maybe 200,000 alumni, most of whom live outside of Indiana. While there's no doubt Notre Dame has broad national appeal in football, it doesn't translate to other sports or else they would of had more success in hoops.

Notre Dame's network will be primarily broadcast over the internet, while Texas will be on cable systems in state with 25,000,000 people.
Click to expand...

Serious response for serious thread ;)
 
Re: Notre Dame going Independent?

dggoddard said:
Texas has almost a million alumni and maybe another five million people who had a relative go to UT.

Notre Dame has maybe 200,000 alumni, most of whom live outside of Indiana. While there's no doubt Notre Dame has broad national appeal in football, it doesn't translate to other sports or else they would of had more success in hoops.

Notre Dame's network will be primarily broadcast over the internet, while Texas will be on cable systems in state with 25,000,000 people.
Click to expand...

So UND and DU's hairbrained idea of putting together a new league for $ and exposure was brilliant, but Notre Dame, which has more name recognition in their shorts than the six NCHC schools combined is ridiculous? :D Its funny, I can actually hear the trembling in your voice praying this doesn't happen.
 
Re: Notre Dame going Independent?

Outside of football, independence doesn't seem to be a winning plan, and I have my doubts about football independence long term.
 
Re: Notre Dame going Independent?

It does seem that some of you are really quick to shoot this down. It may not make the most sense to us, but given what has happened since the Big Mistake Hockey Conference was announced, I would say anything is possible at this point and there are some valid points in this. It's Notre Dame, and no offense to them, but it's not like we are talking about Western Michigan going this route.
 
Re: Notre Dame going Independent?

And I guess as an independent Notre Dame would still be eligible for the NC$$ playoffs thru their Pair Wise Ranking Only????
 
Re: Notre Dame going Independent?

Nick Papagiorgio said:
We're talking about hockey still, right?
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Casual viewers. College hockey fans will watch North Dakota play Denver. The casual sports watcher wouldn't know that these two teams are supposed to two of the best in the country, so they would rather watch a basketball game between 2 schools that are middle of the road in a power conference.
 
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