Arkstfan

Over the past 12-18 months the AD's at ODU, MTSU, and USM have all made on the record statements supporting the idea of geographically oriented realignment. My studied belief is that the window of opportunity hasn't arrived yet. 2020 is the "magic" year. It is the first year that there are 7 CUSA schools meeting continuity of membership. It is the final year of the Sun Belt TV deal. The first year of the next bowl cycle. Both CUSA East, CUSA West, and any combination of 7 Sun Belt not including Coastal meet continuity the next year. If you are going to redo the world, the time to do it sometime between January 2018 and June 30, 2020. The CUSA TV deal for July 1, 2017 forward *MIGHT* provide a clue. If it is a short deal of four or fewer years that would be consistent with planning to shake things up. As for the business of not wanting to associate with Sun Belt schools. Seriously that's like marrying a hooker then declaring you don't want to associate with hookers. USM, UTEP, UTSA, Rice, and Marshall are the only CUSA schools without Sun Belt membership on their resume and but for ULM and the two non-football schools the budgets are similar across the leagues. Ten years ago, CUSA drew 11,300 more fans per game than Sun Belt, last year the difference was 1800. This year's hoops numbers aren't out yet but last year the hoops attendance difference was 1500 and 10 years ago 2600. As Memphis NCAA units drop off the financials have been moving to the Sun Belt's favor in league revenue per team. I absolutely don't believe in the idea of some happy little meeting where everyone sits down and works things out walk out holding hands. If there is an AD or president with the clout to make that happen I'd love to know who it is. That's just not how things tend to work out. Far more likely that someone likely that someone is out there working to find at least six more schools in their conference willing to break at the big moment find 3-5 more to add to the mix once they have their basics in order. That's how the SEC and ACC emerged out of the Southern, the Big 8 out of the MoValley, Pac-12 out of the Pacific Coast. The WAC out of the Border and Skyline, MWC out of the WAC, Great Midwest out of the Metro and Sun Belt, CUSA out of Great Midwest and Metro and people got left out every time.

They've knocked on the door at the Sun Belt a couple times. President even did a tour visiting every Sun Belt school to lobby for admission. Like the door to door salesman who won't leave you alone, we gave them CUSA's address. They are a looooong way from having the resume App, Georgia Southern, or Coastal brought to the Sun Belt or the metro size UTSA, ODU, and Charlotte brought to CUSA.

How often do you watch their network? How often is it on the TV in a bar or restaurant you visit? Liberty's network is the old time TV version of ESPN3. You don't see it unless you are already interested and know to go look for it.

:) Typo. Was supposed to say Not like your AD got rooked. :) As teachers say, use your context clues. Saying he got rooked was completely different from everything I posted.

If I am a university president I concede that the Faculty Senate and to a lesser degree the SGA are going be barking at me most of the time but why would I give them ammo to question why the university is affiliating with a university that teaches young earth and has a code of conduct that is cause for protests by student and faculty? Mizzou is shutting down dorms in the wake of dropped enrollment caused by protests that left them with no viable response. Why risk it? On paper BYU was the superior choice to Utah. Long well established history of national success across multiple sports and a loyal viewership greatly exceeding Utah's. Pac-12 presidents weren't going to poke the bears of Faculty and Students by affiliating with BYU.

Harry and I are friends and I've hung out here for years among quite a few other boards I visit. I am a college sports fan and find it very useful to visit a select group of sites fairly regularly throughout the G5, though generally only when the sports world in general is slow. I suggest you review the thread. I was talking on topic and sure as hell wasn't being critical until someone without being provoked went off topic to be an ass. I'm not as convinced unless they have some serious success. So far they've not be stellar at getting results for what they spend. Until they are too successful to ignore the presidents aren't going to be big fans because they don't fit anyone's image of what a peer school is, their honor code is problematic for dealing with faculty as is their teaching of young earth. Worse, you can just go ahead and assume that they are going to bust the curve on salaries whenever they have an opening for coaches. Athletics are expensive enough without someone coming in and quickly going to the top of the conference in facility and salary expenses.

Frisco is following the Indianapolis strategy for trying to pick around the edges on sports events rather than the big obvious stuff. Gained a lot of expertise.

Memphis wanted to do a 2 for 1 with us and they were told that wasn't a problem. We'd come to Memphis for $1.5 million for the non-returned game since our travel would be less. We got a 2 for 2 instead. Some schools will do a 2 for 1 with a low guarantee for the non-returned game but that makes no sense to me. Rare is the school worth a cheap guarantee for a non-returned game in a 2 for 1. Notre Dame. Texas. Bama. top 5-10 programs historically.

I'm here to talk about the subject of the thread but you guys have awful soft feelings to get them so hurt. Maybe instead of RV being your problem, need to be a tougher fan base.

Theory of relativity. Between Baylor and Liberty who has more alums nearby? Which is part of a mega TV contract? Which has the greater brand awareness. When Liberty was trying to get in the Sun Belt they played the "Well you'd take Baylor card" and they pretty quickly were reminded they don't bring the name recognition or TV value of Baylor.

You paid us a half million (late but paid) and gave Mac a raise all for finishing 5th in the Sun Belt. You might want to try this

I think you can look at the numbers for ODU and James Madison and see that it is pretty obvious they are reporting expenses and revenue differently.

Hey I understand not wanting to give up Army but it's like your AD got rooked.

It wasn't "their" antics. Mizzou got hosed. Protestors stirred up a stink and once the football team sided with the protestors Mizzou had NO good choices, none at all. Whatever they did was going to make people angry and turned off. Their choices were get kicked in the nads or catch a baseball with their nads, neither one is a choice you chose willingly. Mizzou ain't that good and it doesn't look like they are on a good trajectory either.

Guess I'm missing what is creating the drama. ODU goes to Liberty and doesn't get a game in return so they get $1.3 million. That's some serious jack AState is getting $1.65 million from Nebraska this year, $1.7 from Bama in 2018 and $1.8 from Georgia in 2019. Taking a few hundred thousand less for a short trip and easier opponent makes sense for ODU. UNT and Liberty are playing home and home. Typically either no guarantee changes hands or the guarantee is a nominal amount to offset travel. No different from any home and home I've seen AState sign. It seems some of you think UNT got a bad deal by not doing a single shot buy game at Liberty but I can't imagine Liberty would pay UNT like ODU because ODU insures extra tickets sold and media coverage in Tidewater region of Virginia.

Been to a couple programs from the Tulane dude. Before he saber-rattled the BCS on behalf of Tulane you had to be top 8 as a non-AQ. They changed it 12 but much more importantly (in my opinion) made it possible to qualify at 16 if any AQ team was rated worse. That's how NIU got in. They don't have to let you in but the marketing as being the championship pretty much meant there had to an objective way to qualify but qualifying didn't have to mean you got the same financial cut. I visited some years ago with the SEC main legal counsel and one of the things he felt was a certainty was that a breakaway was unlikely because the trade association anti-trust cases get pretty messy. Comments stuck with me because I always felt the trade association cases would end up being the controlling law if it ever hit the fan. When the NCAA took a stab at making I-A really hard to get and maintain at the request of some of the I-AA leagues, before the more recent change I worked with AState on the matter. Because the Sun Belt wasn't considered a I-A yet for voting we could only ask questions and I spent hours boiling down a handful of questions that asked about what data had been relied on to set each proposed standard, asked if they had done any research on which institutions would be impacted and such. School made it clear to me they wouldn't sue but I did my best to make it look like they had someone on retainer who knew that crap. They had to submit the questions in advance of the meeting where they would take the final vote. Meeting day arrives and the proposal is immediately tabled and never heard from again.

The BCS as first drawn was shaky but they firmed up their position by changing the eligibility. CFP built on that. I was told that when the CFP was being ironed out that the commissioners of the G5 got together and vowed to not sign the agreement unless they got a certain cut. They came armed for bear ready to fight. They get to the meeting and the P5 tell them they've discussed it and they are in agreement that if the G5 won't take their offer they will take their chances on any challenge. They get the offer and it is 50% more than the we gotta have this number and they all tried to act tough and cool while making sure to get it signed in case there was a mistake.

I don't buy into the all-sports trophy thing that much but if I were evaluating program I would want to know if you can bring any value to football or basketball, can get anyone to come to your games, and then I would look at the all-sports stuff. Not so much caring if you win swimming and diving every year but is your program solid. If a school has good football and is finishing last in half their other sports I'm not so interested.

AState is more interested in the SE and mid-south. We recruit more to our east than to the west. Not really. They are 410 miles from the geographic center of CUSA West and UTEP does skew that but it is 530 miles to UNT, 630 to UTSA, and 435 to Rice. Dropping UTEP from the equation only moves the geographic center 130 miles east.

SWC was in many ways a victim of having their TV come up for renewal at the wrong time. If they had been under a longer TV deal they might well have survived or at least lived on in something somewhat more similar. ESPN2 was four months old. The first personal use DVR was still five years away which was what ended up driving so many ad dollars into sports as advertisers sought programming that was "DVR proof" and commercials are actually watched instead of skipped. Instead at that point TV revenue had actually fallen after the NCAA monopoly on TV was broken and was just barely recovering.

USM is 130 miles SSW of the geographic center of CUSA but 410 miles ESE from the center of CUSA West. UNT is 170 miles NW of the geographic center of CUSA West and 570 from the center of the league. Now the other two schools in CUSA with AD's who have complained about the travel are ODU and MTSU. ODU is 470 miles from the geographic center of CUSA East and MTSU is 385 miles. AState is 300 miles from the nearest Sun Belt football school but only 313 from the center of Sun Belt West in sports other than football, 280 from the center of the entire league and 325 from the football center. CUSA West is well designed for the Texas schools and La.Tech and from the sampling of fan comments the five schools most content with the current situation. CUSA East not so much. MTSU and WKU are 100 miles apart, FIU and FAU are in different media markets but the same metro. Then you start getting longer trips.

Shockwave put Idaho out of FBS football. I would think ULM and FIU are in tight spots if they end up on the wrong side of a shockwave. UAB probably can't bear much financial stress under the no new school money mandate.

The history of these sorts of things says no one has the clout to get everyone on the same page. No one is especially interested in an "equal outcome". Folks have their own agendas and they want to end the day believing they "won". That's why I'm a skeptic of the idea that there will be a happy rainbow and unicorn meeting where things divvy up. History says someone with influence is either a) pissed about how things are or b) has figured away to make a few more bucks and that person wins the day you end up with one thing that makes a lot of sense and one thing that makes no sense. Remember when MWC formed it was like someone used a shotgun to blast a hole in the middle of the WAC map. I think the unicorn and rainbow opportunity has already come and gone. Just before CUSA got mega-raided UAB was wavering and their AD endorsed moving to the Sun Belt because he felt they needed to slash expenses to get their stadium approved and he believed the stadium was more important to their future than their conference membership. The president at the time rejected it. That conversation happens 8 months later and UAB moves when CUSA is already down to 8? I think we see something pretty regional emerge to replace Sun Belt and CUSA. I don't think whatever emerges looks much like the current deal. Maybe the last gasp was Bankowsky trying to go 16 that was derailed by the eastern schools. Several people have told me he wanted to add AState and ULL to get UAB into the east to cut their expenses because he knew trouble was brewing. If USM wants to make a change and they lead the charge I think you could see a hole form in the middle of the Sun Belt and CUSA maps

Says he is interested in USM being in a more regional league. http://www.sunherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/patrick-magee/article148897724.html

Nice thoughts but it isn't true. Time Warner, Disney, Comcast Universal, CBS, Fox, AT&T and Verizon produce and deliver nearly everything you watch. ATT, Comcast Universal, Verizon, and Time Warner sell most of the terrestrial and over-the-air internet in the country. They sell nearly all of the bundled TV packages watched. The rights to broadcast essentially all sports of interest in the US belong to Disney, Comcast, Fox, CBS, and Time Warner both nationally and locally. The host of local regional sports networks have mostly been bought up and now are owned by Fox and Comcast. We used to see bowl games on the syndicated Mizlou Network and we watched SWC games on Raycom and later SEC games on Raycom in Arkansas and even for a bit got ACC on Raycom. Come July 2019 Raycom Sports plans to shut down because ESPN and Fox have bought up everything they used to show. CSS showed Sun Belt and SEC and shut down when ESPN bought up all of the SEC inventory. CSTV had the MWC and CUSA and got bought by CBS. Everything consolidates. Sure we will have a flurry the next decade or so as Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, etc all try win the next land rush but there will be players gobbled up and others will fold, if TV doesn't pan out for Twitter they are going to go belly up because they are still burning cash. Hulu is co-owned by Fox, Time Warner, Comcast Universal, and Disney.