Arkstfan

Arkansas State has won quite a few games the past few years with players UNT never offered. Missouri traveled to Troy, Ball State, Bowling Green, Nevada, and New Mexico so they CLEARLY will cancel out and not play at ASU.

Mike used to be AD at UALR. Smart fella. When he was at ECU, CUSA had Louisville, Cincinnati and USF was coming in. Then he left to UNLV before taking the Marshall job. Since arriving at Marshall he along with ECU's AD Holland had be proponents for a 16 team CUSA that would essentially be two conferences with very little interaction across the divisions, basically an east/southeast conference and a south/southwest conference that just united for the sale of TV rights hosting of championship events. Since CUSA is practically at that target, of course he is happy, CUSA has almost adopted his vision for the league.

nBe is basically the original CUSA. Look at the first seven members of CUSA and all are in nBE except Louisville (ACC), and USM (CUSA). Nothing has changed in 15 years except the patches on the jerseys.

Supposedly the schools left with 3 Sun Belt home games this year get the bulk of the departure fee.

Arkansas State was pushing hard to release the two early. Our AD has only said he had a contract ready to sign if it was approved. Rumor is we are playing Mizzou home and home, traveling to Columbia in 2013 with the Tigers returning the game in 2014 if they can clear the date, otherwise playing at Liberty Bank Stadium in 2015.

Steve Roberts first win at Arkansas State was over Tulsa. Friend said he heard a couple Tulsa boosters at the airport after the game making calls to get the money raised to fire Keith Burns.

Texas makes a fun villian but I think their role is over-stated. Nebraska always wanted the Big 8 to be more like the Big 10 in how it was run and they were hated by by the other 7. Nebraska believed UT and TAMU would be on the same page with them and that never happened, instead the members lined up with Texas on most votes. Nebraska's attempts to adopt Big 10 style academic standards and recruiting practices were routinely voted down. When Nebraska and Colorado bailed the league appeared doomed to collapse and Texas negotiated the deal to go to the Pac-12 and take Texas Tech, TAMU, OU, and Ok St. It was TAMU who balked and started talking SEC. Letting everyone sell their own third tier was then approved to get the money up. Everyone thought LHN would be worth $5 million to $7.5 million a year. Instead ESPN offered $15 million and ESPN squeezed the league hard to get better games to get in a position to make a profit on their over-bid. I think it'd be hilarious if the Big XII were to get Va.Tech and UVA or Va. Tech and Pitt. The ACC would be like Willie in Ghost getting carried off to hell.

Alabama-Tenn, Auburn-UGA, LSU-Florida are good TV draws, generally featured on CBS, those games drive ticket sales. Replacing Bama-Tenn with Bama-Mizzou and Tenn-NC State isn't good for TV value and isn't good for selling season ticket packages.

Looking more at Navy. Last 5 years 21-7 vs. Sun Belt, CUSA, MAC, and FCS 8-2 vs. other academies. 11-16 vs the rest of FBS.

Harry, the map really illustrates our conversation the other day. If Tulsa leaves, WKU really makes a mess because it makes no sense to split WKU and MTSU since they are 100 miles apart. Leaves you with: OPTION 1. EAST: Marshall, ODU, Charlotte, FIU, FAU, WKU, MTSU WEST: UTEP, UNT, Rice, UTSA, Tech, USM, UAB OPTION 2. EAST: Marshall, ODU, Charlotte, FIU, FAU, UAB, USM WEST: UTEP, UNT, Rice, UTSA, Tech, MTSU, WKU

I post sober, sane, and rarely post smack. That places me in the top 20% on most any board.

Buy a ticket go to the game, then demand your money back after the game for false marketing. A lot of the Texas roster is guys who didn't play for a Texas school and aren't from Texas.

I'm not sure how you make a divisional Big XII work now that WVU is in. If you go to 16 raiding the ACC you have 7 eastern time zone schools and someone in the central gets stuck on an island (Iowa St?) Go to 14 and you have five eastern schools and two central have to go over and you likely split up the Kansas, K-State, Iowa State group. Or maybe you do some sort of North/South thing with the four Texas schools lining up with three or four eastern. I'm not convinced 16 is the number. You can't preserve cross-division rivalries. In the SEC that matters you lose Bama-Tenn, Auburn-UGA, LSU-Florida and you lose TV value and fan interest. If Big XII did blast some schools out of the ACC, there will be bargains left that the SEC and Big 10 can't turn down so I guess if its true we'd find out quickly if 16 can be managed.

While people think Florida teams are essential to recruiting, 11% of MAC players are from Florida despite no Florida teams.

Thanks!

Army was football only but they weren't competitive and Navy won't be either.

I've lived in Little Rock for 23 years except for a 7 1/2 month stint in Shreveport (purported La.Tech market, where their presence was scarce). When I moved here I couldn't buy ASU merchandise in Little Rock. Now all of my most recent purchases except for my bowl shirt were purchased in the Little Rock metro area. The four Little Rock stations with newscasts cover ASU regularly and all went to Mobile the last two years as well as all home games the past few years. The Red Wolf transition has been huge for us. Giving immediately went up 10% the year of the change. The Red Wolf Foundation four years after the change is bringing in a million more a year than the year before the change. We've gone from one of the lowest pay packages in FBS to a package that is above the CUSA average in football and basketball. Little Rock TV contracted to carry one game in 2011 and another in 2012 and actually asked to carry other games in 2012 but our now former AD refused to sell any home games to local TV in 2012. At least two stations are attempting to negotiate a package of telecasts for 2013 and one of them is saying that they will add a Fayetteville station to the broadcasts if they are approved to be the rights holder and has received some interest from a Memphis station as well. Jonesboro TV is telling both stations they want in on the deal as well. A Little Rock based general sports site reported that 20% of all their traffic was for Arkansas State stories. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette laid off the ASU beat writer when the economy went south and went with a stringer. Even though there have been more layoffs, they ended up hiring a full-time ASU beat writer because of reader demand. I don't think picking Arkies would have done any more than the change we made.

From the Dallas Morning News in 2010 when former Arkansas AD Frank Brolyles was asked to comment on the shake-ups in the Big XII "The Big 12 was a misfit from the beginning," he said. He cited disproportionate population bases in the Big 8 and Texas, giving the Southern half of the league a bigger stick. The emphasis was different, too. Some were football powers. Some, basketball. Only a couple could claim proficiency in both. Tom Osborne wasn't kidding when he said in 1996 that the Big 12 merged "two cultures." He predicted growing pains. The league simply never outgrew them. This should be mandatory reading for all in college athletics. "Business people tell me if you make decisions just for the money, it's wrong," Broyles said. "Build relationships and success will follow."

Bylaws require a 3/4ths vote you are stuck with the bylaws.

Spring meeting 2011,

Obviously a commissioner has the power to persuade and cajole. But if you are at 8 members and you need 6 votes to add any school and three refuse to assent... you have no power. Crisis is when the power of leadership is tested. WAC16 was brought into being by crisis. The CFA TV deal was going away and the WAC was going to have to make their own deal and they were facing a large drop in revenue. The commissioner, Joe Kearney couldn't corral the members into picking two teams. The SWC and Big 8 looked down the barrel of that gun and the SWC crumbled. I've always thought it was interesting that Hatchell became commissioner rather than James from the Big 8, seemed a little hinky to me. The Sun Belt was the very definition of crisis when Utah State and NMSU defected yet the plane got pulled out of the dive. Maybe another commissioner might have been able to nudge a different solution, maybe not. Maybe if Wright Waters hadn't announced his retirement and had stuck around another 2 years back in April and May he could have convinced UNT and FIU to take advantage of the CUSA gridlock instead of writing the two schools off as Benson did and could have brokered an east/west solution and then taken his retirement as the Sun Belt faded away.

The beauty of being a commissioner is the you have essentially 0 power and 100% of the blame. Under typical conference bylaws, adding a school requires that some member institution move to admit the school, that must then be seconded and then requires a 3/4ths vote to pass. It is easy to blame Britt but the reality of the situation ought to be obvious. There were eight voting schools in CUSA so six votes were needed to admit a school and three required to block a school. To avoid being stuck at 8 a grand bargain was struck to extend six invitations. If you look at the likely wants and needs of the eight voting schools. I believe my assumption at the time that UNT was in no matter what was wrong. If that had been the case when things locked up the easy thing is to admit the school(s) that can get the votes. Almost certainly ECU, Marshall and UAB jointly blocked UNT. Merely adding FIU to the mix (the second most rumored sure thing) did not break the deadlock. It took adding six to garner the required 6 affirmative votes because the interests of Marshall, ECU, and UAB had diverged from the interests of the five. Agreeing to add Charlotte and ODU (and arguably) FIU was not consistent with the interests of Tulane, USM, Tulsa, Rice, UTEP, it was the cost to get a UNT that they truly wanted a La.Tech of presumably less interest and a future bet on UTSA that did not have to be placed, except as balance against what happened in the east. The mega-expansion isn't Bankowsky's "fault" it is the product of the power of a super-majority vote being required and the power it vests within a minority. Look back at what ECU's AD Terry Holland was calling for almost four years ago. 16 teams adding MTSU and WKU to the east and a big "I don't care" about which two would join the west. CUSA lost two southwestern schools, two mid-south, two east. The eastern voting block replaced that with 2 southwestern, 1 mid-south, and 5 eastern schools (counting MTSU as eastern because they were part of Holland's vision for the eastern division). By using the super-majority voting, Marshall and UAB (and before the last raid ECU), leveraged CUSA from three eastern oriented, three mid-south, six southwest into seven eastern oriented, two mid-south, five southwestern. That's not Bankowsky, he's just there to write down the vote totals.

If it were just Marshall or just ECU, the votes were there to ignore them. Telling ya' UAB had to be in Marshall and ECU's corner.

Except the problem was that CUSA had Marshall and ECU and to a lesser degree UAB to contend with. While much is made of ECU/Marshall wanting eastern schools and a Florida more specifically, I believe UAB was a firm supporter of ODU and Charlotte with them. CUSA had 8 voting members. To add schools required 6 affirmative votes. UAB's interests were served with ODU and Charlotte, not North Texas, UTSA, La.Tech, Louisiana Lafayette, or Arkansas State. UAB's core sport is basketball and they needed quality additions even if they had never played a down of FBS ball or even a down of football at all. If the Big East had taken ECU and Tulane at the same time as Memphis, the dynamic changes dramatically. Five affirmitative votes would have been required out of UTEP, Tulsa, Rice, USM, UAB, and Marshall. A scenario much closer to the WAC post Tulsa, SMU, Rice, UTEP. There might have been willingness to throw Marshall a regional bone but would have otherwise lacked the clout to force half of the expansion within their desired region. Change the timing and CUSA probably adds at least five of UNT, UTSA, Arkansas State, Louisiana Lafayette, Louisiana Tech, MTSU, WKU with no FIU, no FAU, no ODU, no Charlotte.

Here's the rub. Take his expansion list. Charlotte, ODU, Tulsa, UMass, Marshall and Southern Miss. If I am UConn, I think UMass is quite appealing. I might think that at Memphis and Cincy. ECU probably doesn't share that view nor would Tulane, Houston SMU. Probably much the same as you move through Charlotte and ODU. Marshall? Not sure that anyone outside Greenville is terribly excited. Tulsa and USM? Cannot fathom UConn finding USM at all appealing and probably UConn is asking why Tulsa when superior basketball programs like UMass, Charlotte and ODU are so handy. So that leaves you with. 1. Deadlock and do nothing which is unlikely given the claims that a title game is essential to the TV strategy. 2. Compromise and select one but that may be easier said than done given the geographic reach of the league. 3. Compromise and select three (or four if Navy is not as firm as advertised). Starts looking a lot like WAC in 1993-94 when their expansion committee returned and said we support going to 12 but have failed to reach consensus on which two of the 10 or so schools we've looked at should be added and the process basically locks up until the decision is reached to go to 16 by adding six rather than adding two. It looks a lot like CUSA March-May of 2012 when it is widely believed that CUSA is adding one maybe two teams but the disparate interests of east/west led to adding six schools. If Big East walks out of this taking one compromise school, Aresco has earned his pay.