Arkstfan

Looks like it's falling together like I thought.

If that's the worst spelling error I make today it will be one of the best days ever.

I think UNT wins out and finishes 13-5. MT has three of four on the road and is probably looking at 12-6. ASU probably drops 2 of @ULL, WKU at home and Troy at home (not worried about UNO at home) for a 12-6 record.

I think UNT has the inside track to take the top seed and yet not a lot of chatter.

You know USM has an odd fan base, some really, really super people and then there is a crazed fringe that thinks they have been denied their rightful place in the top four of the SEC and is really hard to deal with and almost no one in-between.

Stumbled on this while trying to find something in the archive. Couldn't resist quoting. I apologize and will move on now.

I don't think Texas will move (reason later) but here is why they'd be nuts to not consider it. First, it is a guaranteed increase in revenue of roughly $10 million if Big 10 revenue grows the 9% needed to not change the distribution. In truth more than that. The Big 10 Network charges a reported 10 cents per month to cable and a satellite providers in non-Big 10 markets per household. There are roughly 8 million TV households in Texas, roughly half (very old numbers) have cable or satellite so that's 4 million. Figure half have Big 10 Net (probably high percentage wise but makes up for old numbers regarding cable penetration), so that is 2 million. That means Big 10 Net makes about $200,000 a month or $1.2 million a year from subscribers in Texas without selling any ads. If they add a team in Texas, the rate goes to a reported $1 per month. That takes annual revenue to $12 million per year in Texas without adding any subscribers. If there is just a 25% increase in the number of subscribers that revenue now goes up to $15 million per year. Viewership also rises so do ad prices. Remember also that Texas represents the bulk of the value of the Big XII tv contract. The Big XII receives a reported $60 million per year. Conservatively I'd estimate that Texas represents $15 million to $20 million of that when it was negotiated and is worth easily double that (remember Vandy's share of the SEC contract is $17 million). Now why won't they go? Politics. In 1990 when Arkansas announced its departure, Texas was given a no leave mandate. It took a few years to soften it up into a partial leave and it required setting the stage for that. A bolt out of the blue won't cut it. But Texas also go concessions from the SWC to keep it patched together. If you are AD at Iowa State you might not like the idea of giving up part of your revenue in a new revenue sharing scheme that provides greater reward to schools for BCS appearances, NCAA appearances, and television appearances but the reduction in income pales in comparison to losing key home games and losing access to the best TV opportunities when you are playing well. Texas is going to hold the Big 12 hostage and take a larger cut of the pie. It will narrow their league revenue gap compared to Ohio State and Alabama and let them keep their local schedule. Texas Tech may not like having their check look like what Louisiville is getting from the Big East but its better than backfilling with MWC schools.

Why would Arkansas, Iowa, or Illinois leave one of the two wealthiest conferences to move to a league that makes significantly less money?

Boise is a small TV market, it only has 30,000 more households for TV purposes than Lafayette, it is less than half the size of the Tulsa TV market. The Pac-10 has hired Weinberg the former Big XII commissioner who was running the Big 10 Network. I would suspect they want to add their own TV network. Denver is the #16 market so they will go hard after CU. I'm not sure they would accept. I don't think there is any chance they will take BYU. The backlash from students at the 8 west coast schools would be intense. The honor code makes any display of affection among homosexuals grounds for expulsion. Utah is probably a lock to get in. The question left if CU says no is do they go with UNLV (close and a decent TV market) or Colorado State in hope of getting some traction in Denver or do they just say forget about it.

The Austin is attached to the convention center and arena (but not as close as Embassy). The past owners had financial problems and it was getting raggedy. I don't know if that has improved, at one point they lost their liquor license due to unpaid taxes. The situation there is different from the Arlington. The Arlington stays so freakin full the owners won't do a major renovation because they don't want to lose the steady income.

Hey try selling beer in Arkansas where you have dry counties and dry townships inside dry counties but have private clubs in dry areas. Throw in a dose of illegal to sell alcohol on state property (but its OK if the property is leased to a non-state party) and it all gets crazy.

The Ticketmaster seats are across the court from the benches. The seats from the school guarantee you will be behind the bench when your team plays. There really aren't bad seats in the Summit, first couple rows you deal with people walking in front of you but everything is close. Arkansas State has sold its allotment and is getting tickets from other schools. Since it isn't likely they can do that and guarantee behind the bench seating, I suspect that schools are getting a piece of the action for selling tickets.

Arkansas State's APR is 30 points higher than UNT's in football. Basketball is the only sport we've had real issues with and that's because when you hire a coach that can barely speak a coherent sentence odds are slim that he'll notice bad academics, but that's improving under Brady.

I know nothing but it would seem like the coach at Stephen F. Austin would be a safe and relatively inexpensive pick.

I'm right. 1/2 will go New Orleans and Mobile on some sort of rotation. We will sign 2-3 backup deals between New Mexico, the new Dallas game, Detroit, and whomever gets SEC #9. For the 2010-13 bowl cycle will be guaranteed two bowl teams and most years will get three and might sneak in a fourth.

Buzzz. Wrong. Thanks for playing. Go ahead mark this down. Sun Belt champ is going to Mobile one or two years of the agreement. The opt-out applies only to the MAC. The opt-out will only apply when. 1. SEC or ACC have a 6-6 not tied to a bowl game. 2. The MAC representative can be placed in another game. 3. No other 7 or better is out there without a place to go. Now, tell me quickly. What bowl game with a vacancy is going to say please, please, please, Mobile release your 8 or 9 win MAC team so we can have them? Any bowl worth its salt laughs at Mobile and signs the available SEC or ACC team rather than take the MAC team. The opt-out is a load of garbage placed in the MAC's agreement so a couple BCS jock sniffers on the Mobile Bowl committee could be appeased. Probably a couple old farts who can't figure out why they can't get SEC #3 or #4 vs. ACC #2 or #3 in the game. Put some meaningless language in the agreement to get them to shut up and keep putting their money in. At least once and maybe twice Mobile is going to be MAC #1 vs. Sun Belt #2 and we're going to find out just how well this league has grown.

ASU wasn't running to milk the clock. On the first five pass attempts ASU threw 3 incompletions and was sacked twice. Nebraska brough bucket loads of pressure. ASU threw a 40+ yarder to the tight end and had a 21 yard pass on 4th and one, all after going down by 21. The amount of running was a reflection of it being the only consistent "success" we found all day.

Thought you had moved it all to one place to make it easier to find.

No one questioned whether he went out-of-bounds. The sole matter of the ruling was whether contact caused him to go out. The official on the play said he was forced out because he ruled it complete (The hat coming off merely recognizes he went out). That placed the burden on the replay official to see evidence that he cleary WAS NOT out-of-bounds due to contact. If all they had was the ESPN video, then they lacked the evidence to overturn the call, if the official on the ground had called it the other way, that video would not have overturned an incomplete call either.

Basketball should be a very high priority. Football isn't the bill payer at home people think outside the well supported schools. Sellout at $20 a ticket and you are are only netting a half million or less depending on the opponent. You can go on the road and net more. An increase of 1,000 in average attendance in basketball will produce greater revenue. Post-season, a good bowl trip is break even, in basketball you generate income for six years. Basketball can be made competitive much faster at a lower cost and return more profit per dollar invested. Producing in basketball makes it easier to make the long-term more expensive investment required to excel in football. If you don't have basketball in order, it holds you back from growing football.

The argument that it doesn't represent a full sample applies to any medium now. The old coffee shop, sports hang-out method gauging opinion excludes people who don't gather in such places and I can tell you the opinions in the ASU camp when we gather in Central Arkansas often are very different from those in Jonesboro. You can't reach everyone via newspaper, readership numbers are falling. TV? Audience is flat and splintering. Could do a phone poll but you miss the people who no longer have landline and you miss people like me who won't answer their landline unless they recognize the number on caller ID. Sports radio? Self-selected and tends to skew older and less educated than the net. But what I find interesting and I think aztecskin nailed in his blog is that the establishment view is the difference. They might not like an opinon column by a sports writer for the newspaper or the rants of a radio host, but rare is the admin person willing to dismiss newspapers or radio. When have you ever seen or heard an official be critical of those jerks at Clyde's Wing Shack for what they are saying about the program? Intercollegiate athletic departments ought to be well equipped to deal with the net and they are generally very bad at it because they focus on: 1. Figuring a way to monetize it 2. Using it as a one-way communication vehicle. 3. Disparage it because they can't seem to see anything other than the opinions they don't like.

Wonder what Facebook ads tied to accounts within a 20-30 mile radius of the stadium would cost.

One thing that I feel compelled to add. I like what UNT has done with its blog. It's a nice outward communication vehicle. Arkansas State has hired a free lance writer who does feature stories regarding the athletic department (right now its all features on football players) and that too is good outward communication step. I'd suggest making video clips, photos and logos available for people to mash-up their own schedule wallpapers for the computer or their cell phone and promo videos, etc. Not a huge deal, but it would be a nice touch. ASU is doing a good job on Twitter (athletics is still weak there but the main campus account has their slack). My point of concern is handling inward and sideways communication. It would be nice to send a DM or an @ reply on Twitter and get a reply or post a question on a message board or Facebook and the school address it. Would do wonders for perception and customer relations. The fans complaining part, wasted breath. Nothing is going to stop it but knowing the people you are complaining about are reading and responding can help reduce it.

With 70 online (not all registered) as of a few minutes ago, I'd guess there are in the neighborhood of 400 that visit the site at least 3x weekly. EagleGreen, yeah you guys are whiners, find me sports fans that aren't. I remember when the hot t-shirt in Arkansas said "Pass interference my a$$" regarding a controversial pass interference call on national tv that led to a loss to SMU at Texas Stadium. When Villanova beat Georgetown in the NCAA final you could buy bumper stickers that said "Georgetown 3 National Champs 1" regarding the fact that they had won three of four over them that year. Want to stir up ASU fans, ask about the 5th down at Memphis, want to stir up Memphis fans ask them about the Bluff City Miracle in 2006 (I can gleefully link to the video)

I can name 10 people right now who hold ASU season tickets who have either never visited The Den or do so very infrequently who regularly contact me about what is happening with the program. There are another handful of people who I don't know who they are who reposting stuff on Facebook and using like tags on my articles that get scrapped by an ASU fan group on facebook. 200 people can easily influence 2,000 directly and indirectly 20,000 is a piece of cake.