Arkstfan

Maybe 12 was an accidental reveal.

AState started increasing season ticket sales well before things took off 3210 in 2005, 6180 Roberts last year, 7042 for the Freeze hire, 8092 for the Malzahn hire, finally peaking at 10,582 in 2017 before the fan base turned on Anderson. But that stretch 2005-2010 saw a near doubling to 6180 and never did better than 6 wins but never worse than 4. That built a foundation. I don't think it is likely that the typical G5 hustles hard enough or hitting enough prospects that they are at their potential for sales.

UAB and USM would be very interesting to AState. UTEP would not

AState would be leery. We recruit a lot in Alabama and Georgia. Plus geography, Georgia State is basically same distance from Jonesboro as Denton. UAB and La Tech are about the same distance as well. Be interesting to know what the current admin would want to do.

Win games + Sell tickets. We are moving into a universe where viewership numbers are calculated by seeing how many subscribers access the servers to watch. Value in G5 boils down to can you help us get our champ into the access bowl or possibly into the expanded playoff? Can you boost our CFP performance money? Do you have a program that people want to watch on their TV, phone, tablet, laptop?

My experience. Play-by-play doesn't matter what sort of ties they have, it's a difficult skill to describe action accurately and vividly on the fly. Color, former players are the flavor of the day but my favorite was a former player but that wasn't what made him good. He was a retired high school head coach with a few state championship rings and lived close enough by that he'd hang out with coaching staff at least once a week, usually a couple times, watching practice and film. Had a terrible radio voice but he could break a game down better than anyone. He'd explain that a big run was a play designed to get three yards but the middle linebacker tried to cheat on the snap and had stepped left rather than forward giving the RB just enough of a break to get into the secondary. He'd get grumpy about the QB forcing a hard throw rather than going down his progression to an open guy underneath. Miss him still

Tie-ins matter. When AState went to the Arizona Bowl it meant I couldn't go because airfare between Christmas and New Years is insane. NOLA, Montgomery, Mobile? I could drive.

ODU's AD came from WKU. If expect him to act like an equity partner in a joint business, which a conference IS, you are psychotic.

You are spot on! Why deal with the potential anti-trust issues of leaving? Why deal with the potential political headaches? Want the vast money NCAA reaps? Start your own tournament and give auto bids or just guarantee top 16-20-24 rated champs.

Didn’t say games wouldn’t exist just P4 leaving home to play G6 will be less common than now and the fat paydays are going away. AState wasn’t playing non-returned games for less than $1.8 million and those contracts are drying up. More like $1.2 million now. The rumored auto bid proposal isn’t these conferences get bids no matter what but we guarantee the six highest rated conference champions are in. It’s a nice anti-trust defense. Last year P12 would have been out and AAC and Sun Belt in. With six at-large spots resume building will matter. With SEC going 16 they may play a 9 game slate. More like the days when NCAA controlled TV and if you wanted on you needed games ABC wanted like intersectional clashes.

Few years ago wife and I flew to Boston spent a few days there (got to see the Predators open the season against the Bruins) then drove to Montreal and stayed in Old Town for a few days around Columbus Day/Canadian Thanksgiving. Weather was great and leaves changing and all that.

Never heard of him, Twitter bio says he’s in Virginia, and he doesn’t follow any Twitter accounts related to AState. Nine bowl appearances in 10 years gives a decent pool. Plus four of the six from AState went to the NFL, of the two that didn’t you’ve got Aplin who was 20-6 as a starter last two seasons and Ja’Von Rolland-Jones who would have been the all-time FBS sack leader but for a teammate committing a face mask penalty in his final game taking away a sack.

I feel like we are seeing college football move into a new phase that will feel really familiar to older fans. The elites playing more against each other. The NCAA taking a smaller role. Larger conferences. Conferences taking on more of enforcement (who is going to be more angry and demand a pound of flesh than the schools you directly compete against). I think getting P5 oops P4 opponents is going to be harder and a school will either need to be in a recruiting hotbed to draw a P4 that wants exposure there but doesn’t get it via conference play or have developed a reputation for high level play that would make it perceived to be a quality win for playoff purposes. If the expanded playoff happens and it ends up guaranteeing slots to the top six champs toss markets and regional considerations from realignment. Securing playoff spots becomes the concern. The Medium 8 (B12) will be in good position but there are certainly schools they can add that will help. AAC will be looking at the same criteria if they need to backfill With potentially six at-large the great intersectIona like games like Alabama vs USC or Penn State become not just good for the TV partner but good for resume building. P4 home games become more rare. P4 road payouts are already falling but it isn’t all bad news G5+1 schools will likely play each other more with the upper quality programs seeking quality games and the 75% not in that category looking for bus rides and ticket sales. New world emerging and it has the potential to be a better world for us.

You can’t play people who won’t sign a contract. I can link eleventy billion we need to play Texas teams posts here. Your AD delivered. Your neighbor SMU traveled to San Marcos and caught a break to win. The reality is not only are home games getting harder to find from the richer programs, they are less willing to pay a lot for those games. NMSU sits in no man’s land in large part because both New Mexico and UTEP understand that if the Aggies join them that’s a non-conference game to replace when few schools like to travel. 263 miles to San Marcos there is exactly one G5 opponent within 263 miles of AState and while AAC is demonstrably the best G5 league Memphis goes home and home over multi year deals because games are getting harder to find

While I do not believe OU and Ut will actually stay until 2025 it is very likely Big 12 or Medium 8 aren’t adding anyone with an effective membership date before the two leave. Simply no reason to open the door to departure penalties. That means everyone is in theory thinking, planning, studying and working out the politics. It hopefully means no dribble and drop moves. CUSA looks like it does today because the politics got messy. Going in the consensus was CUSA was adding one or two. UNT and maybe FIU. ECU formed a bloc to get greater eastern representation and then the next dribble, they are gone. Not being in a hurry in theory means higher probability of rational rather than emotional responses.

Texans and Cowboys will fight it but makes a lot of sense. NFL shares tv, merchandise and gate. They don’t share luxury suite income. Austin has lot of businesses able to afford luxury boxes and no competition except Austin FC for the people who aren’t into UT. Also plenty of rich bros happy to spend big for a party venue that is pretty exclusive. Austin is a city of newcomers. Texans who maybe like someone other than UT, people from Big 12 states and Arkansas who hate UT, people from other states who already have a team and don’t care for UT.

You read the formula? Included the power ratings for the ever critical sports of baseball and women’s hoops. Tells me whomever put it together needed those sports to get their favorite school on the list instead of say a program with 9 bowl appearances in the last 10 years 🙂

At least 8 schools in CUSA are happy with the commissioner, otherwise there’d be a different commissioner.

Remember SEC is adding teams to try to catch up to Big Ten money. ACC teams won’t be on the table for another 10 years because of their grant of rights but if B1G wants to go B I G ain’t nobody happy in the Pac12. Cull the little brothers who don’t draw big crowds nor tv viewers and you’ve got enough teams to keep travel down while ABC puts USC at Ohio State and Michigan at Oregon on prime time.

I think we are a long long way from B1G and SEC choosing to be pals.

That’s the key phrase. They don’t get to pick a P4 home. They get invited or don’t. Kansas is a basketball blue blood and has a shot but no guarantees. They bring near zero eyeballs in football. They bring in fewer new subscribers paying in-state premium than Arkansas would. Like Kansas, Iowa State is academically elite in AAU but why would B1G want them? Two teams in a state with basically the same population as Arkansas? That’s zero no new cable/satellite subscribers paying the higher fee for Big Ten Network. There are going to be 6-8 Big XII teams understanding how Houston, Rice, SMU, TCU and Temple felt getting kicked out of the club.

You are saying there are no weak links in AAC. I can assure you Terry Mohajir at UCF isn’t looking to grow AAC he’s looking to get UCF aligned with the Big XII because even lacking Texas and Oklahoma it’s schools are better and more valuable than the average AAC

Yeah I remember when Karl Benson was going to pick the MWC apart as they got raided. OU and Texas are making more money by getting away from lower value programs. The top of AAC and/or MWC will do the same joining Big XII.

Liberty’s President who had to resign in disgrace hired an AD who been disgraced and a football coach who not only had the disgrace of being caught booking hookers on his school phone, he exposed his school to millions in potential contract liability by planting a fake story about his predecessor, and got hit with a one year show cause order by the NCAA. If ethics don’t matter then yeah instant success is possible. Send your kid to Liberty. The AD will protect them from rogue athletes and they won’t be threatened with honor code violations if they want to pursue a claim. What’s it matter long as you win. That ironically is why SMU was a turtle on its back for decades until the stench finally faded.

I don’t think so. Consider that with that trend going on right now that ESPN paid more for NHL than they made last deal with NBC AND that was only for half the linear rights but all the online out-of-market and includes ESPN doing some exclusive online only games. TNT/TBS outpaid NBC per game as well for NHL.