Arkstfan

I have a hard time seeing New Mexico or UTEP being enthusiastic about NMSU. NMSU fills a vital role in plugging the non-conference schedule. Let them in and now you lose a locked in non-conference date across multiple sports. I'd love it for NMSU but I don't see it making good financial sense for UNM.

AState expects at least $350,000 after expenses but we were already producing at ESPN3 standards so it really is almost no increase in expense other than doing more hoops, baseball, and volleyball than normal. ESPN has hired AState to do the production for some championship events in the Sun Belt because our RTV department insisted on building a production truck instead of production rooms. RTV also does part of the Liberty Bowl production so we aren't quite the norm. Only bad part is athletics bought the equipment and donated it to the RTV department and RTV rather than athletics profits when it is occasionally leased out to someone who needs mobile production without satellite capability. I wouldn't swap the linear component with CUSA just because of reach, but I would take the Stadium second-tier component without hesitation because there is that big gap between linear and ESPN+

Sinclair's first stab at doing what became Stadium. American Sports Network. Weird thing that made no sense to me with ASN and still doesn't make sense is that Sinclair is a partner in Stadium and then doesn't put it on some markets that have Sinclair stations. In Little Rock they started out putting ASN on 7.2 and I thought they did a pretty good job. Then one Saturday I tune in to watch USM and someone and instead we were getting a Division II or III game out of like Iowa. Another Saturday try to watch ya'll play and had Stony Brook. Finally gave up when I flipped over to check out UNT-Rice in hoops and the flipping telecast was in 480p, made me miss the 13 inch black and white tv I had in college. Now they don't carry Stadium. I'm all about more games available. I really like the Stadium second-tier component unless the release is accurate about 7 of 15 being Facebook. I watched NMSU-UNM on Facebook and it was OK once I figured out how to turn off the floating thumbs and hearts but I hate casting to a TV because I'm tying up two devices, but that's my beef. The facebook distribution is great for access to recruits. Completely off-topic lower division games can be fun to watch, and you will get a chuckle out of seeing the players huddle up on the sidelines and they aren't as tall as their coach.

The good news is FIU was on spring break so it wasn't as bad as it potentially could have been. The construction technique (qualifier I'm no engineer) as described doesn't sound that unusual. The Broadway Bridge in Little Rock was done in a similar manner with two spans built on barges and then floated into position. I am fully open to anyone knows this stuff better to explain I've misunderstood and those aren't similar.

Really not much there for any Sun Belt or CUSA chest thumping. Both deals are 10 games on linear TV. One is ESPN family the other CBSSN. Neither league pays production for linear TV. CUSA has the Stadium semi-OTA/streaming deal for another 15 games but the release suggests that roughly half are only available on Facebook rather than on Stadium OTA affiliates or app. After that looks like Sun Belt has to produce around 51 football games for online and CUSA will have to produce 60 or find a third partner who will split costs maybe.

Before settling on Lakefront one idea had been to do a dual court at the New Orleans Convention Center then move the finals to Smoothie King arena. I'd play the whole thing at the Convention Center. So many hotels, bars and restaurants in short walking distance but they didn't seek my opinion.

Anderson is going to Texas more and Alabama less but our best teams, the best players were from Alabama. 2012 team was 18 from Alabama, 6 from Texas. They went 10-3 The closest G5 is Memphis and the closest P5 is Ole Miss. Sort of like the South Alabama situation where the nearest P5 is LSU.

Win sends them to Louisville unless Northern Kentucky upsets Louisville. MUTS had one bad loss, unfortunately the last game before selection. I would have put them in.

The temporary seemed to have very little pitch from the photos I saw. Much flatter looking than what was used in Hot Springs. The Sun Belt used the company that provides temporary seats for the USGA at the US Open. Biggest thing is a venue needs to be fan friendly and that starts with bars and restaurants nearby. Sounds like Frisco has that covered. I won't go to the Sun Belt tournament in NOLA because there is NOTHING nearby the UNO arena. If you want to eat without a long hike or getting a cab or driving you have to go to the UNO student union. No thanks.

Two courts is a GREAT format. The issue seems to be execution. I've seen claims on Twitter that there were instances of play stopping on one court because of a whistle on the other court. I think it is very fan friendly to have two courts in close proximity as long as you never force a school's fans to choose between watching their men's team and women's team and can isolate the sound of the horn and whistles. You reduce the off-work commitment of fans and that's a good thing. Only problem is a curtain won't prevent the sound from bleeding over.

McCasland is now 7-13 in games played on or after February 1 as a Division I coach and 3-13 in games played on or after February 10. That *might* be other coaches figuring him out -or- it could be that since both those seasons he was a first year coach blending his guys with leftovers and depth caught up -or- he's not made good decisions about strength and conditioning and the guys aren't physically ready for the full grind of the season. I would presume depth until there is a greater sample of seasons. EDIT I wouldn't buy into the "other coaches figuring him out" unless he tanks early conference season next year. Because then every returning coach has seen him one to three times previously. If he runs well through the early conference season and tanks again late, I'd start looking at strength and conditioning.

Would depend on the league's contract. Some sites require all teams to be on-site in a contracted hotel until eliminated. Other contracts don't have that provision. The preference of the coach and AD of course would matter as well.

BYU makes about double what AAC and MWC schools make individually on TV. Remaining a football indy is profitable at least under this contract. It expires the same year as the AAC, MWC, and CUSA's BeIN contracts expire.

Very interesting. Few years ago it was Navy with the most, AFA second, and Army had around those numbers that AFA has. Thanks for looking that up!

I've never tried to stream to mirror to roku, apple tv is easy but hate tying up a device. I bought a TV with with roku as the operating system for the smart tv functions and that is the way to go.

It's been two or three years since I've done it, but the last time I went through Army's roster vs Navy and AFA, West Point had significantly fewer players from the states of the confederacy (quick easy definition of the south) than either of the other two which is especially surprising given those states are strong from recruitment for the US Army. Army doesn't play a notable number of games in the region but my presumption is the most significant problem has been the coaching staffs haven't made strong effort to recruit the region. Army probably would be well served playing in a conference that is southern oriented but I cannot imagine Army accepting an invite to a league not widely deemed to be as good or better than MWC or AAC because the CIC Trophy is a huge deal if you are AD at Army and the perception you are playing a notch below the others isn't going to be well received because of the perceived recruiting disadvantage.

I talked to AState's AD and he says the AD's still don't know how much is going to ESPN3 vs ESPN+ or what sort of content is going to be on ESPN+ to help drive subscribers. Counting the conference title game, there are 41 conference games, 10 will be some flavor of ESPN but only the title game is locked to a Saturday. That's compared to last year when there were 48 conference games and 7 were locked to ESPN family. In hoops, if you are an AState game you got the home games on 3 along with road games at App, GaSt and Troy. So shifting those from 3 to + is not so swell. Under this deal it phases to all home games in hoops being on the ESPN family or + so if you are ULM fan you go from getting road games at AState, App, GaSt, Troy and sometimes ULL on 3 to everything on + so it's a clear win. The AState, App etc fans don't get that big of a win because we are already producing those games. If you already have ESPN standards compliant production then any money to help with production costs is found money. If you are ULM or Georgia Southern not producing at that standard then it's just a reimbursement for a new expense. It's basically three more linear telecasts and CUSA TV at 50% of the cost with minimum production values established until such time ESPN shows that ESPN+ is a value product.

ESPN+ is new service that's supposed to roll out some time between right now and the next 8 weeks or so. $4.99 a month for mostly undetermined content. We know all Major League Soccer out-of-market games (ie. games not on ESPN or FS1 involving everyone in the league except Dallas FC and maybe Houston). There will be some NHL and MLB but no details exactly what yet. That might be select out-of-market or may be all out-of-market that aren't on national TV. Supposedly some really niche sports like rugby and cricket. Also the entire ESPN films library. ESPN3 is expected to either go away or be significantly diminished.

Drop him my contact info.

My solution is to eliminate the placekick with 10 guys dashing down the field. Place the ball at the kicking team's 40. Give them one down to advance the ball to the opposing 40 (one play for 20 yards). You can run a play and if you gain 20 yards you get a first down. If you fail, the receiving team gets the ball at the end of the play spot just like it was fourth down. Otherwise you can punt. No one is trying to eliminate the punt. If there is a penalty enforced on the kickoff the line to gain remains the opponent 40 unless more than 15 yards are assessed. So get a personal foul enforced on the kickoff you have to gain 35 yards. If the receiving team gets a personal foul and unsportsmanlike to be enforced on the kick move the ball up 30 yards and you have to gain five. Want to make it even more interesting, you could allow a team try a field goal if you make it you get three points and the receiving team gets the ball placed at the 30. Under normal conditions a 77 yard field goal attempt. Defense can return a missed kick and gets the ball at the end of the better spot of their own 25 or the end of the run. Fumble it and its a free ball with the team recovering getting possession.

You've always been able to fair catch an onside kick and if you can catch it and secure it you get it at the spot.

10 national telecasts on ESPN family, one guaranteed to be Saturday. So 9 out of 41 games on weeknights. The merit really turns on ESPN+ and how it turns out. $4.99 a month and only known content at this point is the Sun Belt and MLS out-of-market games. ESPN says there will be NHL and MLB content which could be the content from MLB.tv and NHL Gamecenter or something less. For me, it's a win because $60 a year beats the $75 I was spending on MLS Live but will depend on other content for others.

AState's priority is aligning with Alabama schools. It's our core recruiting base. We are 140 miles closer to Birmingham than Dallas and 50 miles closer to Florence, AL than Texarkana

Maybe. But if you are Texas, Michigan, or Ohio State (to name three P5 with a significant number of G5s in their states) you mostly just tolerate the idea of all these schools getting to share your FBS (and Division I branding) Division I requires 14 sports and awarding more 50% of the maximum scholarships you could offer with those sports. So if you have 14 sports and those sports have a combined scholarship limit of 120, you need to award 61 scholarships (unless grandfathered in like the Ivy). Last time I sent an FOI, UALR was awarding 105 of 120. FBS means offering 16 sports and 200 grants. Division II is 10 sports. In the formal voting structure FBS dominates so it would likely be very difficult to get a reduction passed. In FBS near impossible. In Division I as a whole dropping from 14 to 12 or 10 would be hard because that would just reduce the investment needed to go from Division II to Division I.

Except they were doing it before the student fee law was ever proposed.