Arkstfan

FAU's plan was problematic from the start. The dome idea was to be able to generate additional revenue from convention space but from what I read, the area was considered to have an over-supply of meeting space. Fabric is the most cost effective way to dome but in their location there is a risk that every ten years you'd have to drive to Orlando to retrieve it after a hurricane or tropical storm so that requires a more expensive roof. The first plan was a much bigger real estate proposal including retail and office space in addition to housing but the real estate bust clobbered that idea. If they had started the deal about two years sooner they likely would have got it built and been able to retrieve most of the development back from bankruptcy court from the developers.

Little Rock TV gave it better coverage than they ever have, but part of that could be that once they saw stAte had pre-season players of the year on both sides of the ball that they scrambled to cover it, but one station drove to Jonesboro and interview Roberts and Carrington.

If CUSA East defected and gathered up mostly regional Sun Belt schools around them for a new league, SMU's survival instinct would create a pragmatic affinity for UNT.

The roaches have always been projected to survive nuclear winter. If you look at the typical Sun Belt, WAC, MAC school's real budget the things that stand out are: 1. Ticket revenue ain't a big chunk of change. 2. Donations don't amount to much. 3. Sponsorships are all but non-existent. 4. TV revenue is negligible. The source of revenue tends to be: 1. Student fees 2. Transfers from profitable university operations. 3. Game guarantees. A bad economy means sponsor and donor dollars dry up and people will give up football tickets if that's what's needed to keep the air conditioner running and the mortgage paid. Future TV deals will be weaker do to weak ad revenue. When you aren't counting on those things as a huge portion of your budget a downturn in those revenue sources isn't that harmful. Now historically a bad economy means more people go to college to ride out the economic storm. More people get advanced degrees to be more competitive in the marketplace. More students means more student fee income for athletics. Now if state budget cuts are bad enough, colleges will have to tap into dorm, cafeteria, vending machine and bookstore profits to make budget, but all of those revenue sources will likely grow with increased enrollments. Game guarantees are the tough call but the schools struggling to pay those are going to be more willing to sign 2 for 1 and home/home deals. Overall, the poor schools, will see their revenue available for athletics be in the flat area. Based on current tourism information I've received, the poor economy is helping local restaurants, movies and vacation options in most areas as people swap a weekend lake trip or two for a week at the beach, or at Disney or skiing. They are swapping a trip to the movies and/or a nice restaurant dinner for vacation spending. $15 for a Sun Belt game ticket vs. $40 to $55 for Big XII or SEC ticket is a trade you may see some people make who aren't hard-core fans. Having the weaker BCS schools struggle to pay guarantees can be good too by improving home schedules. I think the current climate is about as positive as it can be for the poorer programs.

FIU came into the Sun Belt with Denver because former commissioner Craig Thompson's vision of the league was urban basketball schools. When the last realignment hit the motivation for adding FIU and FAU in football was to meet NCAA requirements to remain a conference taking any school willing to move to I-A on an ultra-fast timetable. FIU and FAU met that bill. FAMU wanted to and likely would have been invited had they had the resources to do it. People who tout Georgia Southern and Appy need to remember that at the hour of need they weren't interested. Doesn't hurt to remember that WKU wasn't willing to make that move at the time either. FIU/FAU was in no way about vacation destinations, population demographics, or media outlets, it was simply to survive for another day.

Taking a look. Texas State joined I-AA/FCS in 1984. In 25 seasons has made it to the playoffs twice and went 2-2. Posted five winning seasons in 20 years. Basketball in the past six seasons didn't post a winning record and has never done better than .500 in basketball. The women got the auto WNIT berth and beat Prarie View by one and got crushed by Texas Tech. Baseball was 2 and out. The RPI of 34 is honestly the only thing I see compatible with the Sun Belt. If you equate playing a single FBS opponent per year with playing FBS football it shows how little you understand of what it is like being FBS. I've seen that so many times, I was guilty of it as well when ASU was I-AA for ten years (6-4 record in the playoffs, never lost in the first round) your opponent is less intense and your players are fired up to prove a point. Doing it once (or in our case often 3 times a year) is far different than doing it 11 times a year against schools that regard you as a peer. Western Kentucky (2002 I-AA champions) thought it was an easy transition and they've dropped 7 straight against the Belt in transition. Sorry I ruffled feathers but the Sun Belt and WAC are going to want to see expansion candidates that sell tickets and can play our key sports (football, men's and women's hoops, baseball, softball) at our level without us having to wait too long for the growth period.

My ire was at the posters on the WAC board who cannot accept the fact that at an instant in time when the Sun Belt was on the verge of collapse, UNT turned them down. They believe that now despite the fact that the Sun Belt is closing the quality of play gap and the financial gap and is much more stable that UNT still would come a running. The idea that the WAC members who rejected the idea of taking UNT, ULL, ASU, and MTSU as group would suddenly turn around and invite UNT and two programs that have never played a down of FBS football, one which hasn't played a down of any sort of football is simply ridiculous. No one other than the infamous HogDawg would for a minute think that UNT would be better off with an annual schedule of: Tech, UTSA, TexSt, Utah State, and NMSU, while rotating three of San Jose State, Idaho, Nevada, Hawaii, Boise, and Fresno every other year vs. a Sun Belt schedule. That eastern division is the Southland on back of a comic book muscle pills. Even if UNT were interested, where is the benefit to the remainder of the WAC? The Sun Belt bet its future on schools climbing up out of need, not want. The WAC isn't going to base its future on such schools out of want. Now you can cut the math anyway you want, but there ain't going to be an EWAC like that. As for travel, people just don't grasp the distances out west. If you rode a bus from Ruston to New Mexico State and then took that bus to your next closest WAC school, the drive that school (Utah State) takes almost exactly the same amount of time as Ruston to Las Cruces. There is simply no way Utah State supports an expansion that increases their travel that dramatically. Nevada is on record stating that they want any WAC expansion to focus on a team moving from I-AA to I-A.... in CALIFORNIA. Of nine WAC members one and only one has any interest in Texas.

Petrino has been far more strict than Nutt. His brother Dickie was no better, I know a couple people who quit ASU basketball when a player arrested for pot possession was suspended for exhibition games.

The "story" is that Stephens went to buy certain merchandise from an acquaintance and when he didn't come to the door went to the back door and entered but it was the wrong apartment and got himself shot. As I always say when this stuff comes up, coaches can't babysit 'em 24/7 and some are always going to get in trouble. The difference in coaches is how they react to it. At a major institution a few hours away the prior coach would ask the team what to do and invariably they handed out some secret punishment and got to stay on the team. A few years ago a player there and a player at stAte got arrested within days of each other for forging checks. On player missed a game the one at stAte got sent home.

At a moment in time when the Sun Belt was having to rely on FAU and FIU moving their plans for I-A forward by a couple years and WKU was actively attempting to join the MAC, the WAC called UNT and then ULL and they were told then that if they wanted either they would have to take both not one of them and would also have to take ASU and MTSU to create a division with the four plus Tech and NMSU. The WAC said no they would take one and if the one offered said no the other will leap at it and it didn't happen. Since then, the BCS has created a new deal that started giving the Sun Belt an OK amount of money, and it will be replaced by a deal that will bump that money by about 40% next year. The Sun Belt has started on the track to make more NCAA money than the WAC. The Belt TV deal has increased and there will be more money and more exposure. FAU has proven stable and has knocked off a BCS team and won two bowl games. WKU has lost interest in the MAC and upgraded to FBS football. USA has started on the path to FBS football. Denver is on a firm timetable to leave. When the WAC was interested in only one team, defection was a real threat because there was no assurance there would be a Sun Belt, at least for football. Now the Sun Belt is stronger and improving and there will suddenly be interest to defect? Worse, the idea for pigdog is to take schools that have shown little commitment to excellence in athletics. USA has demonstrated for years that they are devoted to playing very good basketball and baseball. Where is that in UTSA or Texas State? Serious disconnect with reality for some people.

The moratorium will have to be lifted. It cannot remain in place permanently without running afoul of anti-trust law. It is unlikely it will be extended or another imposed for a few years due to anti-trust issues. That however does not mean that the criteria for joining FBS football will remain the same. I've not heard diddly but wouldn't be surprised to see a few changes. If they were asking me, the changes would be: 1. A four year transition process instead of two. 2. Must meet attendance requirements in years 2, 3, and 4 (15,000 average). 3. Cannot use neutral site games to meet attendance in transition. 4. Must meet schedule requirements in years 3 and 4 (play 5 home games against FBS and a total of 8 on a 12 game schedule) 5. Cannot use an FCS opponent or transitional opponent to meet the five FBS home game requirement. 6. Must meet sport sponsorship requirement in year 1 (16 sports) 7 Must meet scholarship requirements in year 3 and 4 (200 scholarships awarded across all sports and 79.5 avg in football).

And none of them were in the top 50 in attendance, only Utah was even in the top half. Boise was 70th and TCU 74th. BYU is the only one drawing really big crowds (more than TCU and Boise combined). Sad part is TCU, 74th in the nation in attendance is in the 5th largest TV market and Utah at 51st in attendance is in the 33rd largest TV market so they both have large population bases to draw from. Admittedly Utah is hurt considerably by BYU who is just a skip outside of Salt Lake.

That can be said for any team outside the BCS AQ leagues. The six AQ leagues could pull out and form their own association and the bulk of the viewing public would never notice.

Anyone who misses playing Idaho never traveled with the team to Idaho.

ASU and NMSU played some fantastic games. They rallied once to beat us in OT, another time we were down 21 with 13 minutes left and won in OT. One year we went for two and the win and they stopped it with a fumble return for 2 points, then there was the time we scored 14 unanswered to win by 11 out there. Just a bunch of great games. Here's the interesting thing about NMSU. The closest WAC school to NMSU is Utah State. The second closest is La.Tech (about a 20 mile difference). From a geography stand point the two leagues make no difference for them and their attendance has fallen since going to the WAC.

Huh? ASU has finished at or above its pre-season pick in 6 of 8 seasons. ASU has been picked in the bottom half of the league 6 times out of eight. ASU was consensus pick 5th last year and finished 4th 2007 picked 3rd finished 5th 2006 picked 2nd finished 3rd 2005 picked 7th finished 1st 2004 picked 7th finished 6th 2003 picked 4th finished 4th 2002 picked 6th finished 3rd 2001 picked 5th finished 4th

Rick, one could argue the UNLV syndrome with Marshall, that you can rise to national prominence by being great in a mediocre league (then someone will point out UNLV's problems had less to do with WAC and then MWC competition than it did NCAA setting up a branch office in Las Vegas and the whole thing falls apart).

Like Tulane, Rice, SMU and Tulsa would support a plan that busts them up.

More bowl invites The closest is in New Mexico. Others are in Boise and Hawaii. More nationally televised games And they tend to involve the schools who accomplished something who brought a quality opponent. Last year's national games under the WAC contract: Miss. St. at La.Tech Wisconsin at Boise State Tech at Boise Hawaii at Boise Boise at San Jose Nevada at Fresno Fresno at San Jose Boise at Nevada Fresno at Boise Cincinnati at Hawaii. Zero national appearances by: Idaho, Utah State, and New Mexico State. Every televised game involved either Boise, Fresno or a BCS school. More national recognition See above. Unless you are going to be Boise or Fresno and have long-term sustained success in and out of the league, you won't get recognition. Hawaii got two games a year after making the BCS> More attendance numbers for home games The numbers out of New Mexico State and Utah State say you are wrong. They drew better in the Belt. Point of comparison. ASU drew a larger crowd for Southern Miss than Tech drew for Mississippi State, despite the fact more Miss. St. fans traveled to their game and they have the value of being an SEC team. Middle drew more fans for Troy than Tech drew for any WAC opponent, even including the buy one-get-one promotion for the Nevada game where everyone under 18 was admitted for free to drum up a crowd to try impress bowl scouts. More of that BCS money Difference of about $300,000. More rivalries ( we are really lacking in that department, look at my thread on the HOF) Yeah the Hawaii, San Jose, and Nevada fans flowing into Denton will really heat up the rivalries. More interest from DFW WAC member alums as opposed to Sun Belt alums Other than Tech who has any significant number of alums in DFW? Tech's numbers should be roughly similar to ULM's. More of a turnout for conference games. Again. See LaTech, See New Mexico State. See Utah State.

Memphis is the cash cow of the conference. Their bowls cost them about what they make off them. The money they make is mostly from: 1. TV rights where the greatest value is Memphis basketball. 2. NCAA Tournament proceeds (Memphis has generated all 8 of the units earned the last two years, Sun Belt earned 6 same time period). 3. Profits from the basketball tournament (who sells most of those tickets?) Memphis doesn't even have to get it. If llosing Cal and the cloud of investigation causes Memphis to fall from being a top 10 team to a top 30 team, the impact is big.

The Big East couldn't get the votes to expand without adding some hoop only to balance the expansion. Basketball may drive the bus in C-USA but its a really short bus given that only Memphis has gone to the tournament the last two years and they now have NCAA buzzards circling.

I was rather pleased with ASU's win over TAMU after the "accidental officiating mistake" at Texas last year. I thought middle of the Sun Belt pack MTSU's win over ACC member and bowl game winner Maryland was pretty nice. I thought FAU's win over Central Michigan was pretty good too given it was played in a bowl game 2 1/2 hours from CMU's campus, and CMU did beat Indiana, albeit a bad Indiana team but still a BCS win.

#1. The MAC is at 13 in football and generally unhappy with that number but quite happy with 12 in other sports. #2. MAC revenue is falling because basketball has become worse so that per-team the money is basically identical to the Belt and the MAC probably not looking to split more ways. #3. WKU talked to the MAC before committing to I-A in the Belt and I don't think they are particularly interested. My sense of MT is that they have zero MAC interest because their recruiting is all done south of Tennessee, not north.

Generally in home/home deals, you pay your opponent enough to cover expenses ($50,000 to $100,000) to come play you and then they pay you that amount when you return the game.

For the couple who think the WAC is your ticket to respectablity.... Go look at the football standings. Sucking in the Sun Belt = sucking in the WAC. Right now UNT is playing football roughly at the caliber Idaho played it in the Sun Belt, playing in the WAC and being with a cross-state rival has rocketed them into the top 118 schools. USU and NMSU who were convinced the WAC was their ticket... their attendance has fallen and they aren't playing any better. Humm could it be success has more to do with taking care of YOUR program than being a tick sucking off someone else?