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i just watched the archive of their presser today. Probably the most uncomfortable "celebration" that i have ever seen regarding conference announcements. If i was a member school of the Belt, not only would i be offended, I would ask for an apology. Follow Harrys link, go to media archives, and take a look. It was like watching a guy begging to keep his job. Benson did not look pleased that the AD did not want to take any questions and when he did agree to take a few questions, he had Karl answer them. Embarrasing for their school and program.

I think you could argue it either way. But recent indications have shown teams with no history have the advantage over teams with BAD history. They haven't pissed off their donors/fan base and the energy is high rather than apathetic. Obviously there are exceptions, like NT with our newly focused commitment to excellence through doubling the budget and building all new facilities. But you won't find another school in the Belt with that commitment. So you look for a school that HAS that commitment. That's where the likes of UTSA. ODU. and Charlotte come in.

CUSA has a history of helping schools make the move. UAB and USF both moved up to Div I football through CUSA. Each school added brings money to the table which is what you look for when expanding. They are not splitting the pie without adding value. The schools chosen would have had a home with the competition and brought that value to the Belt. Not smart business to leave then out there.

What we are witnessing is a good old cock block. CUSA knows that the Belt will look to expand and by taking two more of their prime candidates, they ensure that those schools do not go Sun Belt. Plus it keeps ECU happy and tightens the divisions for Olympic sports. Brilliant move.

First one looks perfect on my Nexus thanks so much!

It has 50 luxury suites and the city gets half the revenue from Twelve of them. UTSA keeps the rest. Alcohol sales go to the city along with all the liability. You can buy a beer anywhere in the stadium. Sorry to correct, been reading the 'Go Runnerssssssss' stupid posts on the WACky board and these questions have all been brought up /answered.

"According to Lipscomb and Athletics Director Lynn Hickey, plans for the complex have changed. “The (football stadium has) effectively been taken out of the Master Plan,” Lipscomb said. Last year, UTSAofficials distanced the university from the idea of a Park West stadium, citing a lack of space and the first-class fan and athlete experience at the Alamodome. Hickey solidified this position, saying, “We have a great place to play in the Alamodome, and we do not have enough land at Park West to accommodate a football stadium and the necessary parking. We have a great situation with the City of San Antonio in utilizing theAlamodome and are currently working on finalizing a long term contract for UTSA Football in the Alamodome.” http://www.paisano-online.com/...23#.T44XnqtZijt

I am so incredibly confused. We are complete agreement Plumm, 100%. The only point of my post was that this is not an article. It is some kid that wants to be a reporter or is a fan. He responded to the comments and apologized already. About as close to a retraction as you will get from what is essentially a message board post that has the appearance of an article.

I brought a friend with me that went to Florida State and he says they have something similar with their ex Letterman/fans but they play during halftime of the Spring game. Thought that would be a cool idea to have the game in that time slot for Mean Green.

Great story! Can't wait to read more. Fitting story for 4/20!

Bleacher Report is essentially a blog. The 'contributors' are just like you and I. They are sports fans that want to write. Any one of us could write for the Bleacher Report. It is 99.9999% volunteer and there only a few paid or professional writers. I don't even think they will allow a professional writer that was not a free contributor because that is their niche. Students can use this website to practice, get feedback, and build a resume. Or a sports fan that wants to sway opinion can post an article. Every time I see this site quoted as a 'source' it just makes me giggle. Its been a fantastic marketing tool and is modeled after financial websites like Motley Fool. I would love to see Harry's stuff on there because he is an excellent (and balanced) writer. There is a guy with the pen name "Toby Writes" that either went to NT or some Sun Belt school. He is also a pretty balanced writer. Just keep in mind that these writers are doing the articles on a volunteer basis. There are no editors (they use peer editing) and its really just a well packaged message board. What do you say Plumm? How about an article from you? Source: “It’s a meritocracy,” Grey says. (Lewis and I spoke with him separately.) About 1 percent of B/R’s 7,000 contributors receive stipends ranging from “a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars per month.” The effect is to reward those who deserve it — the site’s best writers and top traffic-getters — while giving everyone else something to reach for. Grey calls it “the gamification of the contributor base.” Not that getting paid is the only incentive. For many contributors who are also fans, “to be seen as an authority on their team is a motivating factor,” he says.

Slow news day. There is nothing new here. They will allign first, maximize the units and exit fees, and merge later if the money is there. In the meantime they have a binding agreement to not raid one another and this stops the musical chairs. Here is a huge question. If the invite is up to us (in a perfect world) then which side do we join? The MWC has to add another baseball team to stay at 6. I wouldn't be surprised if we make sure that is available to them if needed. I am really torn on which side I would prefer during the transitional years pre merger but I lean towards CUSA.

It seems that it will be both. The alliance will start things off for a couple of years so that neither conference loses their NCAA units, exit fees from departing teams, and auto bids. During that time, the alliance will petition for an extra game for the semi finals of the conference championship. Since Hawaii is in the league, this could be tricky because teams already get an extra game for playing on the islands. After the time has elapsed and the conferences have collected all the money possible, they will merge. As for UTSA, they had almost 5k people show up to their Spring game. To me, they are like an annoying kid brother that wants to play with the big kids. But there is no arguing that start ups have a bit of an edge over established programs in that their fan bases haven't become apathetic. Sometimes 'no history' is better than bad history.

The Belt just got played by the CAA

This move just baffles me. The only thing that makes sense is that the Belt wants to add them now for the appearance of being proactive. That way when the conference loses teams, the new schools are not labeled as 'replacement ' schools. Going to 11 is a weird number. It's 12 for all other sports but 11 in football indicates there is more movement ahead. I do not like this move unless the Belt is trying to add to replace us.

I would bet that the alliance would be a temporary fix. All of the worries with merging are about losing units to departing teams and giving up the millions in exit fees. How do you get around that? You have an "alliance" for a few years to collect exit fees and units and then merge when there is no longer a significant monetary loss. It stabilizes the situation and establishes a relationship so that they don't raid one another. It also allows the conferences to negotiate television as a group rather than on their own. I think the alliance is better for NT. Merging would give both conferences stability and plenty of time to wait for the expansion. If they are just entering an alliance for the first few years, both conferences will need to reload to replace all the departing teams.

I actually do expect them to be in business because of the changes they made. They were on course to getting killed (financially) with the old setup and had to move away from it. They handled it terribly and I was mad... but I got over it after considering dropping the service. Once I got past the anger, I realized that for that price - I was still getting a hell of a deal. For about the price of a burrito at Chipotle, I get a pretty damn good product (unlimited and without commercials). It is basically our household "movie channel" now. Will the others catch up? Probably - but they will never have the penetration that Netflix has with phones, all game systems, various streaming boxes, etc... They really have become like another network. And with millions of subscribers hungry for sports, they could add something that they have never been able to get away with - commercials. I would even pay extra to have a "sports" package for my Netflix (with the non-BCS games like the Belt, MAC, MWCUSA, etc). Football is just the start - you have year round programming with basketball and other sports.

I was reading the Belt Board and the other Belt fans were discussing the Benson hire. Securing a better TV package should be one of his top priorities - the deal with ESPN is pretty weak. One of the fans mentioned "out of the box" thinking and mentioned Netflix as a Network to air the games. Personally, I think that is a brilliant idea. Netflix has turned to producing its own content because they are having a hard time getting quality programming. Netflix is looking for original programming and could pump some money into the league that takes the first leap. I would love to have access to any game from the Belt. ESPN360 is great but if you don't subscribe to one of the participating ISP's - the options to watch get pretty expensive. And nobody has perfected smooth streaming to my TV the way that Netflix has. I have tried them all: iTunes, Blockbuster Pass, HBO Go, Amazon Instant, etc - none of them work as well as Netflix does. Can they do it live? I am not sure. I remember reading something about YouTube trying to get into the sports streaming business. I would imagine that the biggest problem would be that ESPN would have a problem with it but if we can license our games (the Belt) to Cox and Charter, why not Netflix? Just not sure if they can pull it off live... but maybe with a 15 minute buffer it would be possible. The infrastructure is already in place at most schools with the internet feeds. You get Netflix to pay for the rights and break new ground in terms of production quality. I could even see Jub Jub and and Hank as the home broadcasting team. What does everyone think? Good idea or keep pushing for ESPN? My main concern with ESPN has always been the MAC route - where more games on TV mean more weeknight games - which equals lower attendance numbers. Kind of a catch-22 for the little guys out there.

I don't disagree with you on some points. But let's not let facts get in the way of emotion. I will go through them just like you did and then we can agree to disagree. Houston and K State are return games of series - both team have already traveled to Denton. The return Houston game "would" have been in 2013 but we moved the date to accomodate the stadium opening. LSU is a payday game, we play one of those a year and there is no secret to that. Instead of bitching about it, how about we go out and win it? As for reworking the schedule at the "last minute" (in the offseason) - we had a coaching change take place. So a new coach is coming in and the department knows we are going to be rebuilding. How do you maximize the marketing? Get the fans in early before the losses pile up. That is basic marketing. If the team had been winning and mature with Dodge at the helm, the schedule probably wouldn't have to be fiddled with to maximize the finicky crowds. Now on to UTSA - Dallas and Austin/San Antonio are two completely different markets. When a team plays in a market to recruit, they do so with the intention of bringing their recruits into the game. You are not going to get recruits from Austin and San Antonio to drive up to Denton to watch a team play. It just won't happen so I am not sure where you are going with that point... there are 3 schools to play in this area and up until UTSA, there has been only one option down south. What better way to recruit kids in the Austin/San Antonio markets but to beat the living crap out of the home team in the Alamo Bowl? Seems like a win/win to me and the teams do not have to pay a school like North Texas $750K to fill out their home schedule. UTSA has scheduled all series - no money games - so a school can have their cake and eat it too with those series. They can get UTSA for free at home and they can go there and have a cupcake on the road in fertile recruiting grounds. Schedules are done a few years in advance but the actual dates are not locked in until the offseason. We really had no idea where Indiana was going to pencil us in and I guarantee this board would have been pissing and moaning about opening up the stadium at 0-3 if RV hadn't moved the game. Happy New Year - life is good feller.

First off - Happy New Years to all! Quick reminder - the Houston game was moved to 2011 in order to have a recognizable opponent for the stadium opening. This allowed our inaugural season to contain both Houston and Indiana (in OOC) at home this year. That hurts the 2012 schedule but you have to weigh the pros vs the cons. We moved that game and were able to open the stadium in week 2 rather than week 4. I believe that our OOC home opponents have been pretty solid over the last few years: Tulsa (2008), Ohio (2009), Army (2009), Rice (2010), Kansas State (2010), Houston (2011), Indiana (2011). I am sure that RV is trying to get another team into Denton but I don't want him to move away from his scheduling philosophy to make it happen. We need wins in 2012 and if that means one less game at home, I am ok with that. As for UTSA's schedule... Most of those game were scehduled when UTSA planned to move up as an Independent. When the WAC invite came along, it was a perfect alignment of the stars. Half of those games get cancelled if they start winning. As it stands - they are an easy win on the road and it is a great opportunity for a school to recruit that area without risking a loss. In the past, the only option they had was Austin. I still would like to see them invited to the Belt. It is very impressive that they were able to schedule that many games with recognizable teams and their attendance was outstanding for Year 1. This post has been promoted to an article

Hawaii is a football only member of the MWC, they parked the rest of their sports in the Big West. They cannot be counted towards the 8 member statute.

Ben E Keith is now the official supplier for all food at UNT. The original poster is an employee and Mean Green fan/alumnus. So cool to see this business embrace their UNT partnership and become a highway billboard for our Alma Mater.

That's not exactly accurate. The NO Bowl has a guarantee of $375k but a school can make more from it by selling more tickets. Its one of the few bowl games that has incentives to sell more tickets to get a bigger payout. Kind of a profit sharing model. The Cajuns probably made a pretty penny off of this game. Maybe more than they would have with any other non AQ bowl this year.

Or maybe we walk in there and win the game with Coach Mac having a second year to move things along....