Arkstfan

Those aren't permitted under NCAA rules.

The Big East only had 6 bowl eligible teams last year.

Folks like Vandy and Oklahoma State who don't have a strong TV draw when they whine to ESPN about lack of games televised are being told go on the road against the lesser conferences. While ESPN may not be fired up about Oklahoma State - Iowa State, they are thrilled when they can use a game like Oklahoma State - Troy to help satisfy their contractual obligation to carry a Sun Belt game. Plus a lot of those schools just can't afford $750,000 to get a home game.

The smart coaches and athletic directors understand that the computers and to some degree the pollsters will give you greater credit for road wins even if not over a great team, so those with national title aspirations are going to find some road game to play. They might go play another big name school for the benefit of TV or they will go to someone they expect to beat.

Two. Got the New Orleans Bowl on one tiebreaker, missed it on another.

The final rule in the NCAA for I-A football comes down to one president from each conference. Which president is going to stand up and say, I want to absolutely bar a 6-6 team from my conference from going to a bowl? Which five are going to join him or her in that declaration?

I think a better measure is to determine what percentage of possible first place points were earned. It is a more accurate measure of how a school is doing in the sports it sponsors. Though I believe the current point system is used as a reward for having a broad athletic department playing many sports. That is a good goal and a good justification for the system, it does not reveal clearly how well a school is doing in the sports it actually plays. For example I know there have been several years where Denver was fairly high up the standings despite playing far fewer sports.

Based on the known data, 12 game seasons will produce enough teams to support 35 bowls. Adding WKU to the I-A mix in 2009 just firms that up. The problem is that the NCAA rules on bowl certification are crap. As currently written if 40 groups want certification and they have the money in hand to post the required letter of credit the NCAA risks losing an anti-trust lawsuit if they aren't certified. The certification process has to be changed and there has to be a rational basis for a limit. Putting the cap at the fewest number of bowl eligible teams the past 3, 4, or 5 years would be start. Even that may not be sufficient, if the Elmer's Wing Shack Bowl is paying out a total of $750,000 per school but is bowl #35, denying certification to Moose Lodge Bingo Bowl that is willing to pay $775,000 per team and can demonstrate the resources to do it, may well be an anti-trust issue as well. The system really has to be rethought. Though I'll add that the NCAA was obviously one bowl short last year when 6-6 teams went and an 8-4 stayed home.

If I have time this weekend I'll post an adjusted weight ranking on BeltBoard.

With all schools having to move to 15 sports under the Sun Belt umbrella the not the same number of sports argument will carry less weight. Also if there are only six schools playing a sport, first place is only worth 6 points but a sport like men's or women's basketball is worth 13 points for first. Much better to be dominant in a couple of the sports all play than to be dominant in the sports few play. Winning Women's Swimming and Diving was worth 7 points for WKU, being sixth in men's basketball was worth 8 points for UNT. WKU finished first in five sports with 11 or more teams.

I think that is essentially correct. Conference's are economic enterprises with five basic economic functions. 1. Provide a framework for basketball that allows for maximizing NCAA Tournament money. 2. Market electronic media rights. 3. Provide a framework for maximum post-season football revenue (with the caveat that some post-season opportunities are accepted as a financial loss for marketing reasons). 4. Provide a framework for cost efficiency. 5. Align institutions of similar reputation and profile for marketing reasons. (example, remember back in realignment got going at the start of the 90's that Texas seriously toyed with the idea of trying to get in the Big 10 or Pac 10 because of identification with their academics). When you look at the rich six leagues these things pop out when you view them through that prism. -Conventional television revenue models are maxed out. The only thing that keeps television revenue up for them in an era where the tv audience is more fractured and often loss to online activity is that sports programming still delivers an audience though heavily influenced by the fan bases of the teams. It is the rare bit of programming that people are highly unlikely to record and then skip through the commercials. There is still some potential growth in on-demand programming but we are still not at a point where that is at such critical mass that it is more profitable than what the broadcast and cable networks will offer. Note the problem the Big 10 is having with its network. The available inventory is third-choice content (after ABC and ESPN have selected games) and to preserve the value of the profitable contracts they cannot compete against ABC or ESPN broadcasts of Big 10 games leaving a small broadcast window. ANALYSIS. There is little growth potential to drive expansion. Attendance can be a strong clue to TV value. Only one school outside those leagues is in the top 30 in attendance, BYU. UCF is the only other one in the top 50 and that was aided by a new field and a sellout against Texas. Three other schools made top half of the nation: Hawaii, Utah and ECU. - The basketball revenue essentially becomes an issue of institutional commitment. That is why aligning like-minded schools with similar budgets is vital. You want all your schools to enter league play with good out-of-conference records because the overall conference RPI is all but set when OOC play ends. - Keeping costs down is an important element, it was a factor in the Texas flirtation with the Big 10 and Pac-10, the cost increases didn't justify the PR value nor did the increase in revenue balance the cost. ANALYSIS. The Big East has demonstrated big works in basketball, I doubt though that the money would fuel anyone attempting to replicate their success. - The PR value of alignments is valuable but there has to be a meeting of minds. The Big 12 struggled with that early on. The ACC has according to rumor had some interesting public/private school disagreements and the same has been said of CUSA. ANALYSIS. Looking at the schools who have BCS type attendance in football none have a compelling national reputation academically that makes them a must have and outside of BYU and to a lesser degree Utah none have had the sort of sustained national success athletically that makes them truly compelling. - Post-season football is an interesting area because the rich six do have a few loss leader bowls (some more than others), that is the league will take the financial loss for purely public relations reasons. But there are highly profitable games even outside the BCS framework. This is the p ANALYSIS. This is where it gets very interesting. If the BCS contract is basically rolled over for another four years (expected) there is little change in the dynamic that makes expansion interesting. The value of the quasi-post-season of a conference championship game has not been strong enough to get the Big 10 nor Pac-10 to expand. The Big 10 has its target and they are willing to wait them out. The Pac-10 only has two BCS caliber schools in their region Utah and BYU adding both doesn't make much TV sense and neither is of such academic reputation that the Pac-10 would be eager to add them. The Big East is unlikely to find four schools willing to take football only affiliation. If a playoff enters the picture, there could be real drama. A playoff would produce massive money and actually reward a smaller membership football conference by avoiding the potential loss of a team that could go deep and earn more money by knocking them out in a conference title game or knock a good team into a bad seed. If a playoff produces enough money it could easily be that splitting money 9 or 10 ways instead of 12 would make more sense than a title game and splitting 12 ways. If that happens contraction could be the new expansion. Barring a playoff, the top of the heap should be more stable than we've seen since the early 80's. Down below them, inefficiency rules. Most conferences could get better regional television packages if not for the fact that they have so many games that cross regions (as determined by cable networks, not common sense). The bowl alignments these schools have basically revolve around how much cash the league has to guarantee the deals and the bowl committee's best guess on what attendance would be if the right (ie. fairly local) teams make the game and if the wrong team makes it (ie. the long drive teams). Efficient line-ups place more teams in the same regional sports network coverage area and reduce the number of teams that could end up driving a long way to get to a bowl. The Mountain West and MAC are in most efficient line-ups. Relatively geographic compactness except for the great TCU and Temple experiments designed to maximize TV and in the case of TCU, open the BCS door. The core six schools of the MWC can reach each other by bus quite easily if they choose to do so. The WAC is middle of the pack in efficiency. Only one school is within 3 hours of another. The Sun Belt and CUSA are at the bottom in efficiency. CUSA mitigates it to some degree with divisions yet as has been noted by the ECU AD, their fans don't give a rip about playing the Texas teams and vice versa.

They didn't turn out at La.Tech to see them play NMSU, USU, San Jose, or Nevada when Tech was in the Big West. Changing the uniform patches from Big West to WAC changed nothing.... except of course the uniform patches.

ASU choked at USM. Truthfully ASU got hosed at USM, the Tribe had 20% more offense than USM and facing 3rd and short at the USM 23 the CUSA officials refused to measure. On fourth down the officials marked the ball a foot behind the original line of scrimmage, measured and found ASU to be short by a couple inches. While you may be hopped blowing Tulsa, ULM beat Bama this year and they lead Tulsa at the half before falling apart in the second half at home. Yeah ULM had a chance to beat Tulsa. As for Memphis choking at ASU. You want to read it that way go for it. Memphis scored two TD's on trick plays and a third on a fumble return for a TD that the replay camera didn't have the angle to over-rule but the news video from the Jonesboro TV station and at least one Memphis station showed the ASU runner's knee was on the ground when the ball was stripped. Memphis was damn lucky to have a lead to blow.

The mighty MAC is in peril for their bowl berth in Mobile because they sell about 1,500 tickets and then pay for 6,000 that get thrown in the trash. The MAC is safe in Detroit because that game sells. The rest of their alliances are bought and paid for with BCS revenue and NCAA basketball units. BCS Money The Sun Belt passed the MAC this year. The BCS divides the bulk of the money paid to the non-auto leagues by dividing it into 15 shares. Top rated league takes 5 shares, #2 takes 4, #3 takes, #4 takes two, #5 takes one. The Sun Belt was basically a couple non-conference wins from passing CUSA this year, that would have given the Sun Belt 3x the BCS money that the MAC made and 50% more than CUSA would have made. If someone hadn't been SMU's only win last season the Sun Belt would have had a real shot at passing them. ASU choking at USM and ULM gagging at home against Tulsa didn't help. Take two of those three and the check would have almost certainly been in the mail. NCAA Money The MAC ended 2007 with 10 units, a payout of $1.9 million. It ended 2008 with 7 units dropping nearly $600,000 off their revenue. Unless they get an at-large berth or a team to win a game in 2009, that falls by another $200,000. CUSA earned 5 units this year, but they have nine about to fall off so they will experience a net loss of nearly $800,000. Unless something happens they are on the verge of having an 11 unit and 10 unit year falling off. The Sun Belt gained 3 units this season. The WAC had 3 units fall off last year replaced by 1 unit. They will have 2 fall off replaced by 1 and have a 4 unit year about to fall off. While BCS revenue has been a blessing, the league lost $750,000 this year because Idaho, Utah State, and New Mexico State have reportedly finished paying their admission fees.

I feel so much better knowing that the economy, the energy situation, and the war in Iraq are now sufficiently well managed so that Congress can deal with the real issues of the day. The current BCS system is a gift to schools outside of the six rich leagues. Those games never invited the Hawaii, Boise, Utah type schools before the BCS. The BCS has actually increased access to those games. If they really want to do something about the insanity in intercollegiate athletics the answer is sitting over in the tax code. If a conference generates in excess of say $50 million declare it to be a taxable entity that has to pay income tax on its entire revenue. If a college athletic department has revenue of $45 million or more declare that donations are entirely not taxable nor are any advertising or sponsorship agreements. If a college athletic department has revenue of $30 million to $45 million reduce the deductibility of donations, advertising and sponsorship to 50%. Use the revenue from the tax collections for something important like increasing Pell Grants and low cost student loans. Maybe it won't fix the problems but it is criminal that a donation to Texas Longhorn football is considered a "charitable" donation when that athletic department is so flush with cash that they can't figure out anything better to do with the money than building a video screen the size of an airport runway and they are putting internet workstations at every locker in the football complex.

Think I found part of it. Hawaii's AD didn't take all the tickets they were allotted they apparently didn't have as large of a traveling party as most schools try to have.

Tech is doing well. I just got an email from them looking for sponsors for the WAC baseball tournament they are hosting (never a good sign when you are still seeking sponsors this close to the event). I was floored by the offer when I got it because sponsoring the whole shooting match of three or four days is cheaper than sponsoring a single ASU home baseball game and you get a lot more for your money with the Tech deal. How an event that is likely to fill the local hotels and restaurants for half a week isn't already fully sponsored has me scratching my head. You can tout the prestige of who they play until you are green in the face, the bottom line is that in 2006 Tech hosted in-state Nichols State, Fresno, Nevada, Idaho and Utah State and outdrew only ULL, FAU, Idaho and Utah State. This past year they hosted Hawaii, Boise, Central Arkansas, NMSU, and San Jose and had the excitement of a new coach and barely outdrew MTSU, UNT and ASU. Basketball barely outdrew UNT last year and was behind ASU, WKU, USA, and MT by a good bit. Playing names isn't selling that well.

Wonder how they kept costs so low. Florida State reported expenses in excess of $2 million for the Orange Bowl back in the 2003 season and you know their travel costs were dramatically less than Hawaii's.

I don't know why you guys are so down on Fouts. From my visits I didn't see anything that wasn't easily cured with well placed high explosives. Keep the kettle corn and you're off to a good start.

Good answer.

Can you identify this Sun Belt stadium?

One start-up that might bear watching is Charlotte. Develop a relationship and maybe down the road lure them out of the A10.

Something was flat wrong there. He was apparently seriously considering taking the Mercer job.

There is no such thing as mid-major. You've got the six BCS leagues. You've got the MWC and to a lesser degree CUSA, then the WAC, then the MAC/Sun Belt (taking note that there is overlap between tiers). Yet there are only about 10 FCS schools that spend what the MAC/Sun Belt spend. Of course there is a simple mathematics issue that will always remain in play. If you were to cut the Sun Belt, MAC, and poorest WAC schools the end result is that the differences within the remaining schools is magnified. There will always be haves and there will always be have nots. The NFL and NBA have each taken deliberate steps to cure the gap and yet there remain some franchises much more valuable than others on a consistent basis and there remain franchises more successful than others on a consistent basis. The ugly truth is that if the bottom tier schools among the wealthy cannot purchase the chance to be successful by buying games from programs with fewer resources and they have to play more top quality games, their limited current success will seem like a fond memory as they become even less successful and find drawing support more difficult. For example, Baylor has won 12 games the past three seasons. What is their program like if they don't get to play the seven lower caliber programs they defeated in that span? They're winning percentage against "peer" schools is 0.160 against the lower caliber it is 0.700. The support gap though is far more pronounced in college basketball. The worst drawing FBS school drew 6.2% of what the best drawing team put in the stands in basketball the worst drawing Division I school drew 1.2% of what the best did.

But could there be anything better than being successful at your alma mater? Most guys at that level think they could win at New Jersey Institute of Technology if the budget were right.