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A declining cable television market, a growing gap between the major and midmajor conferences and some losses suffered in realignment are about to add up to a significant loss in revenue for Conference USA. The league will soon announce its new television deal, likely in a week at the C-USA meetings in Dustin, Fla., and a number of reports show revenues declining by about half, to around $7 million a year total for the 14 schools from the current amount of just over $14 million. That means the University of Texas at El Paso's cut of revenue will go from about $1 million a year to half that. "We anticipate around that," UTEP athletic director Bob Stull said. "It will be down. We don't know how much." The current deal was negotiated in 2011 and C-USA is the first midmajor conference (a group including the Sun Belt, Mountain West, American Athletic and MAC) to negotiate a new deal since the 2012 realignment. Conference USA won't comment until the deal is announced, but Commissioner Judy MacLeod did make some general statements in a speech to the Norfolk Sports Club last week. "Right now, the television market is horrible," she said in comments reported by the Virginian-Pilot. "ESPN eliminated 300 jobs and Fox Sports is doing away with a lot of its regional staffs. "The way people consume content is rapidly changing. We have young people who work in our office who don’t have cable or DirecTV. The pool of money that's there is going to the big guys. The Big Ten and the SEC are must-see TV." Read more: El Paso Times

UTEP and Louisiana Tech were Western Athletic Conference rivals from 2001-04. We have also played Charlotte, Florida International and UTSA in basketball in recent years, so there’s some familiarity with those schools as well. While we are excited about all the new additions to C-USA, we are particularly thrilled that the league will maintain a footprint across the state of Texas. Our alumni in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio will still have the opportunity to watch our teams play, and it is important for recruiting that we have a presence in those areas. Conference USA and Mountain West presidents and chancellors announced earlier this year that the two leagues would be forming an alliance in 2013. There has been a lot of speculation about what form the alliance will take, with everything from a straight merger to a revenue-sharing model being discussed. The fact is, nothing has been determined to this point but conversations are still taking place. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out in the coming months. In the meantime, it’s clear that Conference USA is as strong as ever, and we’re excited about the future of UTEP Athletics. Read More: http://www.elpasoinc.com/lifestyle/local_features/article_c0c8dfaa-a220-11e1-916d-001a4bcf6878.html