Arkstfan

It's all about brand now as we move out of the carriage fee economy and will have to make our media revenue from ads and subscriptions. If that trend firms up the value in video is going to be in the visitors. The people who care enough to watch and subscribe are normally going to be at the stadium for home games. Takes me back to my theory of realignment law. You want teams that are close but not too close. In general the ideal realignment target should not be so close that you compete with them for local media or non-affiliated fan ticket sales but keep your costs and time on the road which adds up in missed class time, money spent on meals and hotels to a minimum.

Probably wasn't in time for this report.

Any conference? $2 million to go to MAC would be hard to explain. Shoot $2 million for the eastern Sun Belt to join MWC would be hard to defend. $2 million to make more money or get on common TV more would be hard to explain. It was actually a down year in non-conference play for Sun Belt until the bowls.

The Chiefs are a 3.5pt dog today at Denver. The Broncos are four games back in the standings behind the Chiefs but when you couple home field with a high probability that the Chiefs aren't going to go all out to win, the Broncos are favored. The Chiefs have clinched the division but can't gain one of the two first-round byes so why play hard to win? Bowls are great for the guys will never play again after college, they are an opportunity for the people who are on the bubble of UDFA or late round, and the late round vs middle round bubble but if you can't improve your draft stock but only hurt it, then sit. Isn't the point of college trying to best prepare young people for the future?

I believe the deeper thinkers don't "want to join the Sun Belt" they want the most efficient alignment of like-minded schools. Per USA Today, self-generated revenue (ie athletic revenue not from fees, tuition, other non-athletic school funds) Marshall $16.5 million ODU $16 million USM $16 million UTEP $14.5 million FAU $14 million Charlotte $13 million UNT $13 million MTSU $13 million La.Tech $13 million WKU $13 million UTSA $12 million UAB $11.5 million FIU $6 million Sun Belt A-State $30 million (one-time $10 million in gifts in that) Troy $17 million ULL $12 million Georgia Southern $12 million App St $11 million Idaho $10.5 million. TXST $9.5 million NMSU $8 million ULM $7.5 million Georgia State $7 million South Al $7 million Total budgets all source 8 CUSA and 4 Sun Belt spent $30 million or more ODU, A-State, Charlotte, TXST, UNT, UTEP, UAB, MTSU, FAU, App St, GaSo, Marshall in that order from highest to lowest.

That one isn't on Benson. The league gave Idaho and NMSU four year football only contracts and was unanimous that they didn't want to extend football only memberships past that point. NMSU was a considered for full membership and by rumor received a majority vote of the 11 members but fell short of the 9 needed to be admitted. Arkansas State was a big advocate for full NMSU membership. What I find interesting about NMSU is every time they've had a choice of affiliating with schools to their east vs schools to their west, they've chosen to go west but their best football success after the Border Conference has always been when they were with schools to their east. Their most successful period was in the Border Conference when they were near the center of the league.

I can get to Wrigley on the El or a bus or Uber no sweat. But that's not the real secret. The Cubs are one of the very elite brands in sports in the US, people want to go to games there. As Wimp Sanderson noted when he was coaching UALR and they were playing at ancient Barton Coliseum, all the people who didn't like coming to games because of where they were had no problems making their way to Barton when their favorite singer was there. We can talk wifi, concessions, timeout entertainment but it always comes down to whether the people want to come see the product.

No that place is better maintained.

The median ACT and SAT of incoming freshmen at TCU is lower than SMU and TCU has about a third more undergrads, so TCU doesn't quite ooze elitist like TCU.

Sumlin and Anderson have both apparently said no thanks. I find the focus on Dykes interesting because when he was at Cal he tried to get South Carolina and Virginia and then tried to get Baylor and Baylor wasn't interested. FootballScoop had Baylor and Anderson negotiating until Rhule jumped in last minute.

Maybe? White clapboard building? As to the cemetery tours, we took one by accident. Went to the St Louis cemetery just as a tour arrived, we got the gist of it while we were wandering around.

Shame that the trip to Laramie isn't late September like the game in Denton. Last year we flew into Denver and spent a few days in Colorado and Wyoming before going to Logan to watch A-State and the aspen trees in Colorado were changing color. That's worth seeing. Laramie is a small city (think around 30k). We went by the stadium after stopping for gas. It's a really nice trip, some neat history and historic buildings. With it being Labor Day weekend put that on your road game travel plans. When they sell out basically 1 in every 20 resident of the state is there. Also their reputation is for traveling well, supposedly one of the best traveling fan bases in G5 heckuva good G5 pickup. Cal? Any P5 pick up is good.

There is a dump looking place in the Garden District with killer po boys that are highly recommended by locals but for the life of me can't remember the name.

All I order the is beer, raw oysters, beer, grilled oysters, and beer. Felix's is good if you stick to the oysters, and yep you can get in faster.

If you want it to rain, have me book a bicycle tour. Happened twice to me so I've not done the bicycle tours yet.

So if you wanted to form a 12 team CUSA/Sun Belt mash up and did it based on assistant salary pools the pools range from $1,371,050 to $1,109,566 obviously Rice is an unknown since they don't have to comply with FOI. FIU UNT FAU A-State Troy Marshall WKU UTEP UTSA App State La. Tech Old Dominion

My gut feeling is that if realignment were to happen by 2020 that getting left out probably isn't going to happen (well might happen to ULM UTA and UALR) because of the hassles of dealing with the NCAA and CFP. But after that, especially close to 2025 when the next CFP deal is being negotiated, then a doughnut hole realignment could happen (ie. some mix of mid-south schools).

Not a Mother's fan. It's good just not on my must list. Felix's is across the street basically from Acme. Love both but tend to go to Felix's more often because when it is my wife and I go we can usually get a seat at the bar quicker and watch the guys shuck oysters. If you eat raw oysters and are tipping the guys well you probably will get a bakers dozen oysters.

Love the streetcar ride to Camellia Grill though it tends to be more of a lunch spot for me or breakfast at lunch time :) We end up going to Port of Call nearly every trip. Great burger no fries you get a baked potato. We like to go for a late lunch and get a punch to go and then walk back to the Quarter, not a walk I'd suggest at night for the first few blocks. If you want something to eat after a hard night in the Quarter, mosey on over to Daisy Dukes to eat, breakfast and everything else 24/7 Café Fleur De Lis may be the best breakfast around. Go the day you want a bloody mary with breakfast. Great for other meals but they knock it out of the park at breakfast. Also endorse Central for muffalettas.

Maybe the folks in the UK are more crazy about soccer than we are about football, baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer. They don't do forced bundles (think its some EU regulation) so only the interested buy, but they are apparently making money on their standalone packages. My concern is if forced bundles go away it will hurt interest.

Why would SMU look at a defensive coach? You don't change the type of coach you hire until you hire one that doesn't work. AState has hired four straight spread offensive coordinators and when Anderson finally leaves I suspect we will hire a fifth unless he ends up bombing. USM replaced a young spread attack coaching staff with a bunch of old guys who wanted to play a more traditional game and drove it straight into a wall without hitting the brakes. ULM fired a burned out former military academy coach and replaced him with another former military academy coach and didn't get different results so they hired an FCS guy who likes to throw the ball. Never understand changing the formula when you've had success and never understand sticking with the formula when you fail.

Historically that's when realignment happens, during the TV negotiations and that would be about when things are getting serious. Remember ESPN also runs the Armed Forces Bowl, Birmingham, Bahamas, Boca, Camellia, Tater Bowl, Frisco, St. Pete, Hawai'i, Heart of Dallas, Las Vegas, New Mexico, and Texas. Several of those are G5 aligned. Then you have the Mobile game which would probably prefer being New East and New West realigned Sun Belt/CUSA than Sun Belt / MAC. The bulk of those bowl deals also expire after the 2019 season. If you are going to do something, you want to do in time to make it part of your TV and bowl negotiations.

CUSA West if abandoned could have some real issues. Does USM want to align east? Until the shake-up they recruited Florida, Alabama, Georgia more heavily than Texas, would they want to swing back to the west? Does UAB want to be with MTSU, WKU, Charlotte who are more hoops oriented? If the answer is yes regarding UAB and/or MTSU it could be really messy really fast. Right now we are approaching the witching hour to borrow a term from Wall Street. The Sun Belt, AAC, MWC, and BYU television contracts are all set to expire June 30, 2020. The CUSA contract is an unknown, all we know today is it expires June 30, 2018, except for BeIN which if I remember right runs until June 30, 2020. There was a claim that CUSA is looking to do another two year set so everything will expire June 30, 2020. What happens in those negotiations will go a long way toward determining what the G5 (minus MAC) looks like in the future. The possible fly in the ointment is that Sun Belt per the last reported news is already negotiating with ESPN because they have the conference title game to deal with and may extend the overall package as part of selling the title game. My guess is that by March of 2019 BYU, AAC, MWC, and presumably Sun Belt and CUSA are going to have a pretty good idea of what they are looking at in the next TV package and if something is going to change that's when its happening.

That's why it would require coordination. Hypothetically as an example. CUSA East holds a press conference and announces it is withdrawing as a group to form a new conference. CUSA West huddles up and extends invitations to say Louisiana-Lafayette, A-State and South Alabama to get back to 10. Or if UTEP is on board, add NMSU and Troy to go to 12. There is your Conference USA. CUSA East joins the Sun Belt except part of the deal is it is renamed (conferences do change their names, see Big XII). So now you have a 16 team monstrosity. You get together and first order of business is to require all members to sponsor football, that requires 12 votes with 16 members, passes 14-2 or 13-3 (depending on ULM). Adios UALR and UTA. Then you vote to expel ULM, that passes 13-0 (teams under consideration for expulsion don't get a vote under the Sun Belt bylaws and vote has to be unanimous). Now you can expel someone else. Or add JMU who the eastern schools all have a crush on. The Seaboard League (or whatever craptastic name they come up with) has their press conference announcing their newly formed league. Except it's just the renamed Sun Belt. Remember the Big 8 when it became the Big XII announced itself as a "new" conference but all that meant is they threw away the Big 8 record book and started from scratch, in all dealings with the NCAA and BCS it was still the Big 8, just with a new name, same as the Pac-10 changing its name to the Pac-12, difference being Pac-12 never claimed it was a new league. So it can be done but it would be messy.

A-State's dream scenario would have us affiliated as far east as Alabama (maybe even Georgia) and if the populated part of Texas is involved, that's gravy. Remember the kid in northern Alabama is as close or closer to A-State as he is South Alabama and Troy. We are 175 miles closer to UAB than UNT and about 110 miles closer to USM than UNT. 30 miles closer to Atlanta than Denton.