Arkstfan

I'm grandfathered unlimited data with ATT both UVerse and mobile (and if an interesting sports event is on during the work day yes I play it on my iphone). Uverse offers a bare bones TV package that is just local channels and pretty cheap. I did that for a time under a special offer even though I'm Direct for my TV. As for DVR'ing check if those programs are on Hulu, if so that's your DVR. Well it's not that it is unprofitable, it is that it is very low margin and if you aren't producing high volume you don't make much profit. But yeah if you aren't a mega act the money is in ticket sales and merchandise... oddly the circumstance G5 schools find themselves in.

If you want to see the future, look at music. World is full of music acts making a living (and many many more who are engaged in a hobby) Mega acts like a Taylor Swift make huge guaranteed money. The music distributors pay her fat money because she drives people to their sales sites. Then she gets paid for every download and listen on top of that. Successful but not mega acts will get a few bucks guaranteed just keep them going but they pretty much get paid based on the download and listen. Then you've got the vast remainder and they don't get anything unless someone downloads or listens. That is the future of sports TV. Mega acts like Texas, Alabama, Michigan get paid to drive people to the site and get paid for viewership. The G5 will get paid a nuisance fee to help offset the cost of moving a game to Friday or Tuesday or kicking off at some weird hour. The bulk of the money will be based on viewership. The FCS and the rest will pay 100% of their production costs and then get paid by the view. You as the consumer will have a variety of packages to pick from you can get SEC, or LHN or just a run of the mill package. So let's say Harry pays $35 for the basic NET-ESPN, he gets a handful of decent games similar to what ESPN offers today plus ESPN3. ESPN is doling out say 1/2 cent per minute for what he watches. During September Harry watches 12 hours of games. At the end of the month ESPN cuts a check for $3.60 to the seller of the rights of that 12 hours and NET-ESPN has $31.40 left over to cover their costs and make a profit. In 2014 the MAC averaged 3500 viewers per streamed game. In this hypothetical situation that would be $3675 per game. What if a game is on ESPNU and draws 200,000 viewers? That would produce $210,000 for the game. Tuesday night ESPN drawing a million viewers? $1.05 million. No one watches, you don't get paid. Many watch you get good money. Your satellite and cable box are already collecting that data, ESPN just needs to get the data either from them or rely on Nielsen.

We are entering a new cycle. I've seen writers refer to the 1970's as the golden era of college football. 1970-72 no scholarship limits imposed above the conference level. Until 1978 the top tier had schools awarding max scholarships, some 20 or 25 below the limit and of course the anomaly of the Ivy League. Top tier football was larger than today. The Southland and Southern were top tier, WAC and SWC still walked the earth as football leagues. Let's take a look at the mid-point 1975. Going into the bowls: 1. Ohio State, non-conference schedule:Penn State, North Carolina, UCLA 2. Oklahoma non-conference schedule: Oregon, Pitt, Miami (FL), Texas 3. Alabama non-conference schedule: Mizzou, Clemson, Washington, TCU, Southern Miss 4. Michigan non-conference schedule: Stanford, Baylor, Mizzou Top four in 2015 1. Clemson non-conference: Wofford, App State, Notre Dame, South Carolina 2. Alabama: Wisconsin, MTSU, ULM, Charleston Southern 3. Michigan State non-conference: Western Michigan, Oregon, Central Michigan, Air Force 4. Oklahoma non-conference: Akron, Tennessee, Tulsa Despite less interaction between power teams and non-power the non-power leagues were viable, that same year Arkansas State went 11-0 and UNT knocked off Tennessee. The non-power don't have to have the money or TV exposure of the power teams but they have to have the branding and there is nothing that indicates that is likely to change.

The last realignment was in economic terms inefficient. It failed to group schools who have some desire to compete with one another on a widespread basis. Take the SEC. Drop their TV money to zero and the SEC pretty much stays the same. LSU is going to want to play Ole Miss, Alabama, Florida whether the TV stakes are $20 million or $20 we know because that's what they wanted when there was no money at stake. We are in an environment where "Great" TV money for a G5 is the same amount of money you can get traveling to Nebraska or Alabama. In other words, TV is not much of a factor in the G5 and outside the "great" money the MWC and AAC receive, you are talking about TV dollars that are less than what you can get with in-demand premium seating donations as a G5. So in reality, MAC, Sun Belt, and CUSA are for all practical purposes playing for no significant TV money. It's more than most of us make in a year but we don't live on $20 million or $30 million budgets. What makes CUSA and Sun Belt different from a hypothetical no TV money SEC, Big 10, or Pac-12 is we aren't aligned with the schools will were with when football wasn't a big money game because so many of those schools did not share our vision about how many scholarships to award and the types of opponents we should schedule. We lack a large natural historic group to align with so we have weird alignments, I believe current CUSA is the first time major college football teams in Texas have been aligned with anyone in Virginia, Texas State and TAMU are the first time a Texas school has been aligned with schools in Georgia or South Carolina. 1997 I think was the first time a Texas school was aligned with a North Carolina team. 2001 the first time to align with a Florida team. Many of those moves came from the desperation of trying to find anyone with a shared vision to align with. A good number of teams in CUSA and Sun Belt today were not available as options when those decisions were made. We cannot say affirmatively that had they been available that the path taken would be the same. The challenge for ADs and Presidents today is look past the current labels and determine whether they are better served aligning with someone nearby their fans can work up a dislike for rather than something slightly warmer than indifference.

FIU and FAU have no other options. There is no other viable conference option for them in FBS or even FCS that is any better on travel.

You are viewing it through a Texas lens. The eastern CUSA schools deem FIU and FAU integral to the conference. The fact that they can't draw flies isn't a worry. They want to sell to Florida players that they are going to play in Florida every season, if you are Marshall recruiting against FIU and FAU, the best thing in the world is to get the kid to come to Huntington for a game visit then let them visit an FIU or FAU game. Sure they have to worry about the kid wanting to stay close to home but the kid is going to be more impressed by the crowd in Huntington than the crowd in Boca or Miami.

There was a lot of history to what went on when the Big East raids started. ECU for years advocated taking CUSA to 16, they made no bones about it, they didn't like traveling to Texas and were kind enough to say they assumed the Texas teams didn't like traveling to them. The long-term goal ECU had was expand to 16 and after five years split into two conferences, east and west. The problem for most of that time was there weren't many eastern choices. ODU, Charlotte, App, Georgia Southern, Georgia State either didn't have football or weren't making noise about wanting to be FBS. UCF was adamant about not adding FIU or FAU. With the raid, circumstances were different. UCF was no longer around to object to FIU and FAU, ODU had hired Wood Selig with the intention of moving FBS. Charlotte had chosen to add football, etc. The dynamic in CUSA is very different now. Despite how the divisions line up, there are 8 eastern schools. While FIU/FAU are culturally different from the rest of the division, they are mostly going to line up with the other five and UAB is for all intents and CUSA East school in who they deem a peer. That gives you six western members though if push came to shove in CUSA in a battle over the future, USM is a wildcard that could easily swing to vote with the East and from what I gather LaTech in such a situation would cast its lot with USM. If the question is posed regarding the conference tournament USM would likely vote for MTSU/WKU/UAB favored Nashville over DFW, San Antonio or Houston if the money is close. USM is recruiting Texas more with the schedule changes but historically they built their teams recruiting Florida and didn't venture very far west of New Orleans. In CUSA 2.0 the west started in New Orleans and USM was an eastern school. Now the "west" starts in Birmingham. CUSA made a big cultural shift with the expansion. When Bankowsky wanted to go to 16 with two more western schools, it derailed by because ODU's Selig, and MTSU's Massaro publicly advocated that there be no expansion unless JMU was one of the schools. They basically said unless the east imbalance is preserved, we will not support expansion.

Bankowsky didn't add anyone. The voting schools added members. Bankowsky initially wanted to look at 9 and 10 team models but ECU, Marshall, and UAB wanted more eastern members. Needed seven votes to expand and had five for the model he wanted. You don't like how the CUSA line-up looks the blame for the six team expansion rests on UTEP, Rice, USM, UAB, Marshall, ECU, Tulsa, Tulane. Bankowsky once he saw what he had and what the likely reaction of TV of would be he advised the membership to go to 16 by adding two in the west to reduce travel costs to offset falling TV revenue and hopefully stabilize UAB by taking travel stress off their budget. The eastern membership revolted. Only in college sports does a guy get blamed for the failings of an organization when the organization rejected his advice.

It's not bad negotiating. Conference patches don't grant value. This is a MAC ballpark deal and probably pretty reasonable. Unless you can impact carriage fees (and no G5 does other than maybe BYU) it comes down to ratings not markets. FS1 cannot charge advertisers more for a college football game than ESPN charges unless more people watch the game. The most watched CUSA vs. CUSA regular season game this year was WKU-La.Tech drawing 232,000 viewers on a Thursday with no competition, AState vs. App on ESPNU on a Thursday drew 200k up against Browns v. Bengals, Baylor v Kansas State and later Mizzou v Miss State. No other regular season CUSA vs CUSA drew more than 168k. What does surprise me is that the report indicates it will be a Fox/CBS deal. I felt the only chance CUSA had to hold on to the current number was to see Fox follow the ESPN model of buying 100% of the rights then bundling and selling off some and placing leftover content online. Fox not taking that path is surprising because ESPN is trying to get as much content as possible to prepare for when they have to start selling direct like HBO and Netflix. CBSS I never thought would bid high because ESPN is selling them AAC and MAC content cheaply.

No one with a job goes to EMU for any reason other than desperation. For the UTSA situation to be so bad to take EMU speaks volumes. Mumme is career 139-136-1. Had to cheat at UK and still had a losing record there. His 12-11 record at SELA got him a crack at NMSU and he went 11-38 (Not exactly an upgrade from Tony Samuel), he has kicked butt in Division II and Division III (though not at Belhaven so far). Really doubt UTSA is considering him.

Don't know how things are in Texas but in Arkansas if you are a music major hoping to get employment teaching you at bare minimum need marching band experience and odds are stacked against you getting one of those few teaching spots unless you served as drum major. My son's ex-girlfriend was a drum major at AState and when she changed her major from music she was told she could play but would have to come down from the step ladder because the music majors needed the spot for employment. Dropping football? It's going to happen somewhere. It will be someone taking 75% or so of their budget from student fees and university transfers who has declining enrollment.

He supposedly had a $2.25 million deal over five years which averages to $450,000 a year. Got that just before 2014 season. But saw a report saying he made $400,000 this year which would imply the deal was backloaded. Unless he agreed to a weak buyout they are on the hook for at least $1.35 million maybe $1.5 depending on the backload.

West Virginia

Scuttlebutt is that Rice and UTEP approached MWC and the MWC doesn't have the needed 9 votes to expand yet. Unless the new CUSA TV deal is a dandy, can't see why CUSA would want to go back to 14 if the UTEP/Rice escape plan works. UAB gets their act together, back at 12 and the West can be UNT, UTSA, Tech, USM and either WKU+MTSU or WKU+UAB or MTSU+UAB.

They better count for something otherwise the 1000+ four year schools engaging in athletics that aren't in the 10-20 making a profit need to rethink their spending. I think you have to look at the big picture. There was a guy in Sherwood, Arkansas who had a pretty good Cajun restaurant. Food was great, sevice sucked, and nothing ruined a nice night out worse than him stopping by the table to whine. He once went on rant about the various taxes and fees he had to pay to have a business and he could be profitable but for the taxes and fees. Well he could have been profitable if the owner of the building lowered the rent or let him use the place for free. If his suppliers charged less or gave him his sacks of rice and shrimp for free, he would have made money hand over fist. If people came in and volunteered to cook, bus tables, wash dishes, and take orders for free he would have made big bucks. This is reality. You don't "lose" money on softball or volleyball. NCAA rules say that if you want to play FBS football you must sponsor 16 sports and award at least 200 rides. None revenue sports are a cost of FBS football just the same as buying helmets and pads. The law says if you offer educational opportunities, you must offer them to women as well. Sponsoring enough women's sports to play FBS football is part of the cost of football. The NCAA recently lost a lawsuit (it is pending appeal) where the judge ruled that the NCAA cannot conspire to pay students anything less than full cost of attendance. If a school chooses to not offer it, that is the business of the school but the NCAA is barred from preventing schools from paying full cost. Does not matter whether you think it is fair for players to have spending money, the bottom line is the NCAA can't prevent it and if schools choose to do so, anyone they compete against for talent is at a disadvantage. If the Texas schools in CUSA opted to not pay that is fine, If UT does it, that's not going to hurt UNT, but if Texas State, Houston, and SMU opt to pay, then you either pay or live with the disadvantage. FCOA is a cost of business like paying the electric bill or the rent.

Right now the going rate for the early season neutral site clashes is $5 million per team. Let's not forget that G5-P5 games and FCS-P5 games are starting to end up on ESPN3 and Conference Network+ channels that not all channel subscribers receive. Name one conference negotiating a television deal other than CUSA in the next two years. Big Ten. Hummm they put the word out to bidders they aren't going to be dumping them any FCS games. That won't impact the TV deal. Added perspective. ESPN bought the rights to the US Open Tennis tournament. Weekend before the finals there will be ZERO football games on ESPN2 and they are scrambling to meet their contract obligations. What would ESPN do if the Power 5 quit dumping unattractive games on them? Most likely pay more. Watch what happens ahead of the next round of TV. SEC, Pac-12, ACC, and Big XII (if it still exists) will all be touting their new tougher scheduling standards that bar FCS games and discourage G5 games.

Sure you do. Bet anytime there is an alumni event some dude from the academic side asked about athletics will talk about the publicity, exposure and name recognition athletics provides and the importance of aligning with peer institutions. There is no such thing as a free lunch. AState is doing $4005 per scholarship per year in all sports. No one is going to notice but in the non-revenue sports, schools without stipend will be much less significant in NCAA competition. Stipend is a true game changer in equivalency sports. The kid who was getting a third of a ride worth $5000 and $1300 in stipend and is left borrowing $8700 is going to take that over a third of a ride and borrowing $10,000 and the kid who was looking at a third of a ride at a non-stipend school will see that a quarter ride and quarter of a stipend is worth about the same amount.

This isn't for sure a good thing. Right now the college model for all the sound and fury about TV money isn't driven by TV money the way the NFL, NBA, MLB are. The real money in college football remains ticket sales, donations, and sponsorships (or university money or student fees). One thing that is different from college vs pros is that the pros can get by just fine if they don't sell tickets. College has carved a different niche where playing a couple tomato cans to bolster wins and losses is essential. Big 10 believes that getting into the playoff means playing tougher tomato cans, Big XII so far hasn't bought in despite what happened last year and prefers to blame the lack of a title game instead of assigning blame to the one true champion playing FCS NW State, 5-6 Buffalo and 1-11 SMU. We saw this play out with the G5 slot with the committee dissing Marshalls terrible FCS opponent and two very bad MAC opponents and one mediocre MAC (yes I know they had a game cancelled but the committee looks at the games actually played) vs. Boise's schedule and before they faltered, ECU's schedule. If the Big 10's strategy appears to work and the money looks like it will work, scaling back G5 games is the next logical step.

I'm with Vito. When I rode my dinosaur to classes, college football players reported in mid-August, usually didn't have a game until the week after Labor Day. Finished the season before Thanksgiving. They meandered back in for a few weeks of spring practice. They went home after spring semester finals. Most of them worked over the summer and a regular part of the media guide or game programs would be "what the players did this summer". Some worked in factories, some in farms, there was always someone who got a lifeguard gig, a handful didn't do much other than go on a family vacation with their parents. Today players leave after spring finals but they are back on campus three to four weeks later. They pick up some hours in the summer but they are spending time every day either in the indoor practice facility working on routes and such or they are in the weight room or they are running. They usually get another week off between second summer term reporting for fall camp the first week in August. They are in practices past Thanksgiving. Make a bowl game if it is pre-Christmas they get released after the game. If it is post-Christmas they maybe get some time off for Christmas if it is NYD or later. If it is between Christmas and New Year's Day they maybe get of Christmas Eve and Day if they aren't at or traveling to the bowl site. They generally get two to three weeks off and report back to the S&C coach for "voluntary workouts". Then they have spring drills, get a week or two before resuming training. A college football player 30 years ago worked football for about six of the nine months of school and had three months off. Today, they are rarely home more than six weeks of the year.

Players received a cash stipend until 1973. It was taken away because schools weren't sure they could afford Title IX and it wasn't until the mid to late 80's that revenue really caught up with the new expenses that came from Title IX. Rather than give the stipend back, schools raised salaries. If players are interchangeable widgets, I presume you don't care if UNT puts its future at QB in the hands of a one star recruit rather than trying to sign a three star. Pac-12, SEC, Big 10, and ACC all agreed to split the pie, but they brought in schools who made the pie so much larger that splitting 14 ways gave them more pie than splitting the old one 12 ways. In no way shape nor form did TCU and WVU make the Big XII pie bigger per slice than TAMU, Mizzou, Nebraska, Colorado made it. Fox and ESPN basically tossed money at the Big XII just to get things to settle down and not drive their costs up even more. BYU is the only school out there that could come close to increasing the value of the Big XII per member. I like your neighbors in Houston, I hate my neighbors in Memphis, I liked the Cincinnati fans I met at the Final Four, but no combination of those schools makes the Big XII worth more per member. No one is in the business of reducing their revenue unless they can somehow reduce expenses even more and right now the Big XII is stuck because they cannot add anyone to make them more money over all.

Got one on staff already at the CUSA office who is more than qualified. Commissioners don't wield a lot of power. The most they can do is help set the perception with how they do they business and build consensus. Sometimes it may not be the path they want to take but getting the membership to the point of an agreement and walking out of the room still feeling like partners is often the best result they can get.

If you are Charlotte, UAB, WKU, MTSU, ODU, and arguably UTEP you might be looking around saying "We've let a great basketball brand erode and need to do something about that."

Another name likely to pop up is Alfred White. If the membership is happy with the current direction he is far and away the logical choice. Already on staff, NCAA HQ experience, good stint with the Southern Conference, good media and marketing experience. http://www.conferenceusa.com/genrel/white_alfred00.html

Not a surprise that he's leaving. So much turmoil and he seems to have a real heart for charitable work. Benson won't apply, rumor is he's heading to the house as soon as his contract is up with the Sun Belt. The person I'd go after is the same one I wanted Sun Belt to go after, Tom Burnett from the Southland.

GOR is a sticky thing to deal with. It is a subset of a subset of the law and the nearest analogy we have are some of the contracts for performers (anyone remember when Prince hurriedly cranked out a lot of crap records to fulfill his contract?) I think the B12 is like the airline in Wall Street, worth more busted up than as a single entity. That was the case for the Big East and how'd that turn out? My life doesn't revolve around Texas so there were two times a year I was likely to watch UT play, vs OU vs TAMU. After that? So what if its on and the best game yeah I'll watch. I might watch Bedlam, I would watch Mizzou-KU hoops. I feel about the Big XII the way I feel about Pac-12 or ACC, interesting team, interesting game, I'll watch. The problem for the Big XII is there isn't a lot of interesting other than the hook of ridiculous scoring in football. The Big East getting mostly absorbed by the ACC was brilliant. Big East was pretty good at football in an area that isn't crazy about college football, the ACC great at basketball in an area not crazy about hoops (ie. all the ACC other than North Carolina though UVA and MD had good support). Now Duke-UNC is a "local" game in NY and Boston thanks to expansion and Syracuse-Pitt football is "local" in South Carolina and Georgia. You can bust up the Big XII and make the P12 or Big 10 or SEC more interesting in more places.