Arkstfan

Streaming cannot win over the sports market and I'm a guy who subscribes to MLB, NHL and MLS streaming services and use ESPN3 frequently. The average sports fan is not going to tolerate their primary video source having that much lag. I get push notifications on goals, runs scored, touchdowns before I see them happen. Until the lag is fixed, no one really into is going to choose that option. I watch streams because it is the only way for me to see certain teams and because I watch some on iPad to keep peace in the home.

When those contracts start expiring is when we will see how much leverage ESPN has with cable and satellite. I suspect many are going to take the stance that their survival depends on being able to offer locals and basic entertainment on a dirt cheap option and will be more than happy to pay more for ESPN to make it part of higher priced packages.

Regional accrediting bodies need better tools. Right now they have option 1, the sternly worded letter, option 2, nuclear winter the school is essentially shut down. They need other options. Auburn got a sternly worded letter over the involvement of a booster in running athletics. UNC should have been severely sanctioned for fake programs but they got a sternly worded letter. The NCAA could hook them on impermissible benefit but do they have the stomach to call getting away with rape a benefit? As for the idea that the NCAA would be afraid to act because Baylor is P5, I don't buy it. If the NCAA fears power schools then they would hammer Baylor for pooping in OU and UT's cereal bowl. The NCAA got exposed bluffing Penn State during the litigation, they will be 100% sure of jurisdiction before they touch it.

Personally I like the too cool for sports hipsters and retired old ladies subsidizing my sports viewing. In the UK if you want their equivalent of ESPN you pay $49.25 a month only for the sports just to stream.

Fees are perfectly acceptable ways to give an athletic department a fairly predictable income stream. But when an athletic department is overly dependent it makes you wonder if they are wasting their time having athletics that no one seems to care about, if the athletic department is hungry enough to build revenue, and whether the athletic department is stable enough to be viable long-term as it becomes more challenging to fill classes as we head into an era when overall enrollment is likely to decline and major name brand schools are often turning to enrollment to replace lost funding from states. In the latest USA Today I count these FBS schools getting 75% or more of budget from the school/students. Troy 75.45%, Buffalo 75.67%, Georgia State 76.85%, UMass 78.55%, Eastern Michigan 80.43%, FIU 82.55% For contrast, the list of FBS in 2011. Ohio 76.9%, Kent State 77.9%, South Alabama 80.2%, FIU 80.3%, Eastern Michigan 82.1% I understand heavy reliance starting out or undertaking a limited term construction project but at some point you have to make some money. What I find interesting is that terrorists could attack EMU or FIU games and not manage to hurt anyone but both seem to be pretty solid in enrollment (and in EMU's case they are BAD to mediocre in the two biggest sports). I question whether they are getting any real value from athletics to justify the cost.

I don't have a crystal ball, I thought it was likely that Fox would try to engage ESPN in competition at FS2 and online making CUSA potentially more valuable. But I really think next thing down the pike is the only money guaranteed money we see will come from moving games to weird days and times and the Saturday games we will pay production hand it over to one or more distributors who will pay based on viewership and/or the value of the inserted ads. Some point in November an EFT will hit the bank account for the games played in September. That's how huge swathes of internet content are paid for and how artists are paid for music on streaming services. Just seems likely that something similar comes to sports.

I like ESPN3. It's the silver standard in sports streaming (MLB.TV is the gold standard and they provide streaming tech to WWE and a variety of other services). I use E3 a great deal (heck I stream a lot of sports, I subscribe to the MLS, NHL, and MLB packages) and E3 is a great tool. I sat in the stands bored and cold as AState pounded TXST in football and watched part of Georgia State humiliating Georgia Southern after hearing GaSo fans ridicule AState for not putting away GaSt early). I've watched women's volleyball, men's and women's basketball and baseball. Now I usually watch on my iPad while I'm doing something else but with Apple TV I can watch on my TV. The only complaint I have is the lag and even MLB.TV has that (sucks getting a push alert that the guy who just stepped in the batters box on my TV has hit a home run). That is why cable/satellite won't die. Lag matters in sports. But what I find interesting is there are two ways to get TV to your house. Way one, the wire or the satellite sends EVERYTHING. A box sorts it out as to what you are permitted to see and it tunes the channel you want. Way two, the box tells a server someplace what to send to you. That's what UVerse and Fios do and it's what Apple TV and Roku do. Cord cutting is overblown, greatly overblown. Sure there are people who limit themselves to an over-the-air signal and what they can get free but the rest are still paying to view. Netflix is a bundler, they buy the rights to lots of stuff and you pay to watch it. SlingTV's product is just another cable/sat provider they just let someone else pay for the cost of the infrastructure to get the signal to your house. The majority will always prefer a bundler who will give them x number of networks. The bad news for sports fans is sports fans are a small group. Go look at the best ever ratings for ESPN content. There are millions and millions who have ESPN today who would happily sign up with a bundler who doesn't include ESPN and because of that the cost is going to rise for those of us who do watch sports. Here is the thing that baffles me about the new CUSA deal. The length. CUSA left money on the table with it being a short deal and left money on the table not having more weeknight action (at least this year, who knows what next year includes). Eight years is typically the shortest deal you see. Is the thinking get some games on ESPN and negotiate from a better position if that delivers better ratings than the generally awful FS1 ratings? Is the thinking that the numbers will be better with someone else negotiating? Is it just a case of there was no consensus so go short and hope the mood improves to sign a new deal next year? Are there schools thinking they are headed AAC fighting for short and cheap since departure penalties are tied to decreases in TV rights? Is there a divorce movement floating out there kicking the can down the road until continuity is met? Two years is shockingly short for a TV deal.

I've dealt with RV and felt he was a class act in a business that needs more class acts. He got the significance of the internet before a lot of G5 types did. But he never found his groove in scheduling from what I could see as an outsider and frankly how do you make a bowl and lose season ticket holders, how do you win four league titles and not get a serious capital campaign going? I don't know the politics at UNT and maybe some of that doesn't land on him or was only open to him with onerous restrictions. I hope he has massive success and happiness in whatever happens next. Truthfully I think he'd be a helluva conference commissioner. Despite the constant message board harping on commissioners the reality is they carry very little power with the member schools having the real power and the Commissioner's role is one of providing advice and helping the members find consensus, my impression is he could be very good in that role for someone.

Bowl games are going to flex and change. Look at Detroit, the MAC tied game basically got kicked out of Ford Field so B1G could create a "new" game there that had the ACC instead of the MAC as an opponent. When you look at the bowl agreements currently, MAC situation stinks, with the loss of Detroit not a single game that is easily accessible. AAC has a nice portfolio if you are in the eastern division, the west teams? The closest tied game is in Birmingham. MWC has a nice portfolio all are regional (if Hawaii is bowl eligible) but all at campus sites except Tucson. That sort of takes some of the fun out, either playing at home or at a stadium you've played at in league play. CUSA has two the casual fan is hard pressed to attend. Hawaii is uber expensive and Bahamas requires a passport though you can get much better travel deals. If UTEP isn't available for the New Mexico game then three outside the footprint. RIght now we are in a moratorium so the value of a bowl license has improved. Unless Tucson finds the money to make the game P12-B12 or P12-MWC in the near future the game is worth more relocating and right now there are two reportedly well financed groups in South Carolina trying to get a bowl. The lifting of the NCAA ban on South Carolina coupled with Coastal going FBS has some strong interest there. By 2020 barring an infusion of cash, the Tucson game will end up moving and South Carolina looks like the prime landing spot. Wouldn't shock me one bit to see the game land in Charleston or Columbia and be Sun Belt vs. CUSA in a few years probably replacing Hawaii or possibly Bahamas

More expensive if you are winning. School raises the ticket prices and required minimum donation, celebration booze, more swag because you are even happier to wear it and then throw in road games which now sound like more fun.

They made the same pitch to the Big East when it was still an "AQ" conference and didn't work, also worth noting Memphis wasn't invited in round 1 of the latest with Houston, SMU and UCF. FedEx could throw dump trucks of money into Memphis and make them irresistible but they've never done that (don't get me wrong they are a serious sponsor) but they are seriously into quid pro quo of getting something they can show the shareholders and being the super sugar daddy of Memphis Tigers athletics hasn't been it. FedEx also offered dump truck loads of money to the owner of the Grizzlies and NBA if the team name would be changed to Memphis Express and adopt FedEx colors. The NBA said no thank you.

First @croatan that's an AWESOME screen name!!! Second, yes there will be changes. The intercollegiate athletics ecosystem has always been dynamic and changing. UChicago and University of the South stepped off the insanity of athletics in their era. The Ivies scaled back what they were doing. Numerous schools have given up football over the years. Circumstances change. When more reliable busses and better highways came along, leagues no longer looked at how hard it was to take a train to play someone. Then air charter became reliable and affordable. The NCAA for a time did little but create a national framework and scholarship limits if they existed were determined by conferences so was bowl eligibility and people who didn't like the answers from their conference went indy or broke off to form the SEC, ACC, and Big 8. TV was once controlled by the NCAA and there was a cap on national appearances by a school. Leagues like the Pac-8 and SWC saw it make sense to add Arizona, Arizona State and Houston to tap into the TV and get around the caps, while independence made great sense. Then the oil strike in hoops money made basketball important. Here comes the Big East, Metro, Sun Belt, A10. TV value was measured first in markets, then ratings share, then it became whether you had fans that would tell Comcast to shove it if they didn't carry your team's games and later your school's TV network. I have no fear of the NCAA legislating schools out of FBS and very little fear of the elites taking their ball and going somewhere else to play. What I worry about is we are nationally going to see flat to declining numbers enrolling in college for several years to come. State legislators no longer fear backlash and being voted out if they vote to cut higher ed funding. Some schools will curtail athletic funding to cover state funding shortfalls. Lower enrollments at some schools means fewer fee dollars to subsidize athletics. The pressure and strain on the student loan program from an economy that no longer rewards "a degree" with a decent paying Monday-Friday job with paid vacation not always being there means greater difficulty paying off loans, less free time to attend the alma mater's games and fewer spare dollars to donate and buy tickets. Maybe Idaho is the iceberg and it's just an ice cube in a glass and maybe we see schools no longer able to fund high level athletics and give it up. Maybe we change how we pay for college and fees are no longer a viable option and transfers of funds to athletics harder to do. Those things are far more likely than getting ordered out by the elites. We don't know what the next model of paying to see games on video will look like. Maybe the carriage fee model dies and it becomes subscription or maybe you pay a subscription and schools only get paid for the actual views of games out of that subscription fee. Maybe the USC's Alabama's Texas' and Michigan's of the world feel they no longer need their conference as an economic unit and go independent or use that threat as leverage to make conferences return to being a method of efficient game scheduling, compiling stats, sponsoring title events, and handing out awards to players. Or maybe the Big 10 becomes the Big 32 or 48 and teams put all their income generation in the league's hands make their own schedules and post-season events. Maybe a school can weather the changes but no longer has enough like-minded and like-funded peers within their region to make it worth their time to stick around. Yale met I-A criteria but opted to move with their peers. McNeese did likewise. Wichita State found it no longer viable with all of the Valley but them Tulsa and NMSU relegated down and NMSU hit the road for the Big West. NMSU only found a home there because budget problems in California made it no longer viable for schools like Long Beach and Fullerton to fund I-A football. There is plenty of danger out there but the ebb and flow of intercollegiate athletics is a constant force.

Absolutely. Among the data the selection committee receives is six different power ratings that take into account winning percentage and I know several if not all factor in FCS games. An FCS win doesn't perfectly balance a P5 loss in those but reduces the sting. The critical element though the non-conference FBS games. You play a 9 game schedule, most years you are going to play a money game and an FCS. That leaves one "peer" game. In a 12 team league that means you play 12 peer games total most years. Breaks out like this: 12 Money 12 FCS 12 peer 54 intra-conference which means a conference winner and conference loser in every game. If the conference goes 4-8 vs. money, 12-0 vs FCS and 8-4 vs. peer net winning percentage is .5417 Take that same league on an 8 game schedule. 12 money going 4-8 12 FCS going 12-0 24 peer with same winning percentage of 16-8 48 intra-conference You get a winning percentage of .5555 Nine game conference schedules are bad for gaming the computers, that's why the consultants told the Big XII that 12 playing an 8 game schedule would increase their chances of the playoff roughly 5% vs 10 playing a 9 game schedule. As for FCS games. AState hasn't played one that needed less than four TD's to win at the final horn since 2003, so yeah I take them for granted.

Remember having a travel partner really doesn't do much for WVU. Not like travel partners rent an RV and ride the country together. The impact is on visitors. Fly to Morgantown then turn around and go home. A travel partner is just someone else to play while you are out. For WVU they can fly to Austin in basketball and then play in Waco on the same trip. Nice and neat. They can play OU and OKST on the same trip, the two are basically an hour apart. Makes life easy for WVU. No travel partner for WVU makes life crap for everyone else. So (I am getting to a point) if you look at all the G5 there are only two who look much like a P5 in drawing crowds, BYU and ECU with a big advantage to BYU. If you are looking for a conference TV network, BYU is getting 100% coverage in Utah, ECU is still going to be behind UNC and NCState in priority of fans state-wide. If you look at self-generated revenue. BYU's numbers aren't public but we know their TV deal with ESPN produces more revenue than any G5 school, roughly double what any of the G5 receives from their conference. They sell 60k plus tickets. We can assume they blow the top off in self-generated revenue. Among the rest of the G5 UConn, Boise, New Mexico, ECU, Cincy, and Army are the only ones to hit $30 million or be in close striking distance. BYU TV ratings are top-notch. BYU is the most P5-like school out there that isn't P5. You can add them with no fear of them hurting the bottom line. The question is do the B12 presidents accept them on academic and social issues grounds? If yes, then there is the Sunday play issue and that is a zero factor in football, not much of an issue for most sports except baseball and the cop-out way to address it is BYU won't play Sundays AT HOME. Financially in their best interest anyway. Freaking IHOP in Salt Lake closed at 9pm on Sunday when we were out there and was among the few restaurants even open. If they have to play Sunday in Austin so be it. Which brings me to the point. BYU is the most logical addition, if you add BYU you now have TWO outliers. In academic rankings the other candidates fall out like this: UConn, Colorado State, Cincinnati, USF, UCF, Houston, Memphis UConn outlies WVU by another 500 miles. While Colorado State isn't much closer to BYU than UConn is to WVU, Colorado State backfills to the rest of the Big XII. Cincinnati is the only real option to perform that role with WVU. The president at WVU is heading up expansion and Dr. Gee is very much a wrapped up in athletics guy by all appearances, he may rather not have another P5 created in the region to compete against and let Colorado State's elevation to P5 status be a problem for BYU and P12 member Colorado to deal with.

USM posted 18 consecutive winning seasons. They cleared out Bower when he stagnated and hired Fedora. He was the MUTS OC in 2001. He landed the USM job after bouncing around had three OK years and then exploded and got the UNC job. Rather than hire Fedora's OC (Blake Anderson) they hired Johnson. He brought in greats like Ricky Bustle and Tommy West who had been fired as head coach three times between them. They not only ditched the spread option with tempo, the average age of the coaching staff went up more than 10 years. The AD at USM repudiated everything Fedora had done by changing systems and going with a much older staff. They didn't stumble they needed to be placed on psychiatric hold for self-harm.

In athletics, I'm a member of the Church of the Pragmatic. In eschatology and sports I'm a pan-millennialist, It'll all pan out in the end. There are things to sweat and things to not sweat. If the president at Rice were to say, "I'm tired of this effin BS" and wanted to realign geographically pretty much everything would work out. Phone calls placed to UTSA, UNT, UTEP, maybe Tech and USM as well. "I'm taking Rice to the Sun Belt, we are going to rename it and declare that it's a new conference. You can come with us or explain to your fans why the best regarded academic program with the longest major history dumped you." Into the Belt, press conference announcing the "new" conference and in the meantime what's left in CUSA shores up their numbers. Think ULL, TXST, ULM or AState is ditching the Belt if Rice is coming on board? CUSA starts picking up people like GaSt, GaSo, App, maybe some of the Alabamas. Before the dust settles, the new group sets its membership policy and gives schools 0 to 5 years to comply or be expelled (remember that happened to Denver and UNO). ULM issue resolves one way or the other. They find another $8 million for the budget or they find a new home. Tech chooses to pout rather than join? Fine they've done the outlier thing before and can do so as long as the rest of CUSA doesn't care. Or maybe Wood Selig gathers the eastern CUSA schools together walks to the Sun Belt and says let us in. Sun Belt says yes because saying yes means CUSA West gotta fix the numbers issue that will arise. Same story different direction. Get enough shifting going around and waiving entrance and exit fees becomes no big deal. All it takes is one or two key players and boom. Sound like Georgia Southern. Eight is the magic number. Equal number of home and away league games, no one has to climb the five conference road game mountain to become champion. One spot for a bag game, one spot for an FCS tune-up, two spots for home/home vs. other G5. If you are going to contend for an access spot you need more non-conference wins rather than a larger league schedule pulling you toward .500 overall.

They also see BYU as their outreach arm and a relevant BYU helps that. I ain't Mormon and don't have a clue what they will do but they have received expedient revelations in the past.

Southern 2.0 we added the top two teams from the Southern, the ones winning all the FCS titles. Imagine the Oklahoma City metro except larger. Now imagine there is no NBA or other major pro team there. And there is not a P5 team basically in the suburbs. And there is not a P5 that is less than 70 miles away, instead the nearest P5 is 165 miles away. THAT is what ODU has to work with!

I've been through ups and downs at AState and frankly any success a G5 (or an FCS for that matter) has is dumb luck (geography, things fall together, whatever) unless the board of trustees, the chief executive of the university system, chief executive of the campus, and the athletic director are all on the same page and that page happens to be a pro-athletics page. We fired the AD who hired Hugh Freeze and Gus Malzahn because he didn't think big enough for the Board, system president, and campus chancellor. Most places two hires like that is lifetime contract. You have to have 100% or you have to hope for dumb luck.

Academically on par with K-State and Texas Tech and bridges nicely to BYU for Olympic sports.

Of course AAC expansion is a moot issue if the rumor du jour of B12 favoring a BYU/Colorado State combo pans out. Then UTEP is in the MWC conversation and if they go CUSA sits tight until UAB's status fully resolves and if that pans out figure out how to make 6/7 work or add Georgia State. Of course MWC could also just terminate Hawaii's agreement and be at 10.

Same group that said polygamy was essential outlawed it when it was a condition for Utah being admitted to the Union and later had a relevation that black people could be full member after saying they couldn't.

I'm sorry you weren't breastfed and have adjustment issues. Did I say AState was headed to AAC? Nope. I posted a list of the 10 largest budgets in the region outside of AAC, and 10 largest in self-generated revenue since a drop in enrollment or state funding can hurt a school's capacity to fund itself. Look at WKU dropped three sports and looking to cut more from the athletic department. Because the athletic department isn't successful? No, because Kentucky is cutting state funding and they've experienced a small dip in enrollment. Sorry that you hind end is on fire about something maybe you have a member size issue you need to deal with, but I think a smart person would scan the two lists and conclude ODU and Army are most likely among the top candidates since they are the only school on both lists that hasn't recently dropped football and said oops and is trying to add it back, rather than going on a crazed rant. Ever is a long time, people said that about UNT and CUSA of course you didn't really join CUSA either so there's that. Couple national writers have said BYU insiders say Sunday play is not a problem if they get a P5 invite.

NCAA Convention the year before Lacewell said he and Bear got blasted in the hotel bar and before the night was over had agreed to a game against Bama in Birmingham. Next day Bear called and said Larry did I agree to a game? Yes. Well are you at Arkansas State or South Arkansas now? Arkansas State. OK I was afraid you were NAIA and I was going to have to cancel. When Bama and USC signed their famous series, Charlie Thorton said Bear walked in and said I need you to go on a trip with me. They drove to Birmingham and Charlie had no idea where they were going. They got on a plane in Birmingham and flew to LAX. Sat in a bar at the airport drinking and soon John McKay came in. Bear explained he wanted a home and home and why he wanted it. McKay pulled out a notebook and suggested dates. Bear told Charlie to write them down. Bear and McKay shook hands and went got on a plane back to Birmingham.

On the first list UNT would have been 13th at $31.3 million with Akron and MTSU at 11th and 12th respectively. On the second list UNT would also be 13th at $11.2 behind #11 FAU and #12 Toledo.