Boosting bottom feeders a priority for C-USA

Coach Bill Lewis · June 5, 2016

http://www.bgdailynews.com/sports/wku/q-...a8622.html

League keeping an eye on realignment; Stewart praises Birmingham as hoops tourney site

Year 2 of Western Kentucky’s time in Conference USA is complete.

Daily News sports reporter Brad Stephens sat down Friday with WKU athletic director Todd Stewart and talked about various issues affecting C-USA.

The most pressing issue has been the league’s new two-year TV deal, which was announced late last month during the C-USA spring meetings. To read more about Stewart’s thoughts on the new TV contract, see Saturday’s Daily News.

Other issues of note for C-USA include elevating the bottom of the league, getting prepared for more potential realignment and picking sites for the conference basketball tournaments. Stewart discussed all those Friday.

Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and space.

BS: What’s the current state of Conference USA?

TS: “I think it’s really good with one thing that needs to improve. The reason I say it’s really good is that if you look at really every sport across the board – football, the league champion has finished the last two years in the top 25. And over the last two years we’re 7-2 in bowl games. Men’s basketball over the last two years, the conference tournament champion won an NCAA Tournament game against a 3-seed and a 2-seed. … So I think if you go across the board, the top half of the conference I really believe can compete with anybody in the country.

“What we talked about in the meetings and what we need to improve in all of those sports is not necessarily the bottom half, but the bottom third, probably. That’s where there needs to be improvement. The bottom three, four, five teams in each sport are what is keeping the league from elevating to a higher level and having a little bit more national respect.”

BS: Where does elevating that bottom third of the league begin?

TS: “It starts with scheduling and recruiting. Obviously every school wants to recruit. But as a conference we need to schedule the right way. That’s easier said than done. Sometimes there’s changes in getting games, getting home games. But I think we’ve shown if you’re creative then you can get some nice series that enable you to compete and also enable you to have some home games. I think that’s probably the biggest way out because when you have overall league rankings, it’s based on all 14 schools. If three, four, five schools – and it’s not the same schools – but if three, four, five in every sport could just improve then I think it could be a real positive across the board.”

BS: The Big 12 Conference’s potential expansion has been a hot topic all spring. Should the Big 12 take teams from the American Athletic Conference, it’s likely the AAC would look to replace them with C-USA programs. What discussion was there at spring meetings about realignment contingency plans for the league?

TS: “Not a lot. We have talked about it. The good news is there are a lot of schools that are interested in coming to Conference USA. So should we need to add schools, that would not be a problem or an issue. It’s a lot like a coaching search kind of thing. You always have to prepared. You never really know when, for the right reasons or the wrong reasons, you may have a coaching vacancy. It’s the same thing with realignment. …

“It was hot and heavy for about 2½ years and it really has settled down. Certainly whatever the Big 12 decides to do or not to do – and I’ve kind of heard conflicting reports coming out of their meetings – that could be another domino to fall that could affect things. I don’t think you’ll see, regardless of what they do, the nationwide impact of before.”

BS: Do you feel WKU’s move to C-USA, which took place in the summer of 2014, has produced the desired results?

TS: “I do, for a lot of reasons. First of all, I think the schools we’re associated with are like-minded schools. We have more in common, I feel, with the schools we’re with now than we did when we were in the Sun Belt Conference. Obviously Middle Tennessee, Marshall, Charlotte, Old Dominion, Louisiana Tech, UAB, Southern Miss – our fans really identify with those schools.

“The other thing is, from a football standpoint the bowl tie-ins are great, both in terms of the number of them and the locations. I don’t know that there’s another conference in the country that has better bowl destinations than Conference USA has, and that helps with recruiting. When you can talk about the fact we have five primary tie-ins and a secondary tie-in, it’s huge. We know what it was like when there were only two. So that’s been great with football.

“But in all of our sports, the television package in terms of exposure benefits every program in ways that didn’t before. Even though TV revenue is down from what it was, it’s still greater than what it was in the Sun Belt. In almost every area it’s been an improvement for us.”

BS: What were your thoughts on Birmingham, Ala., being selected to host the C-USA basketball tournaments again next season?

TS: “The choices were Birmingham and El Paso. I voted for Birmingham and just felt like for our fans, El Paso is a great place but it’s obviously much harder to get to. I think it’d be a lot easier for our fans to get to Birmingham than El Paso. And it’s worked well the last two years. People have gotten used to it. They know how everything works, they know where the hotels are, where the restaurants are, where the arenas are. For us it’s been a very good experience both times we’ve been there.”

BS: Is Birmingham a long-term home for that event, or will the league look at other options in coming years?

TS: “I think there’ll probably be different options. I think there are other people that want to get into the mix. I don’t see it being in the same city for every year, but then when we left Birmingham last year we thought that it would be somewhere different this year and then it turned out it was back. That’s a crystal ball that’s a little hard to see into right now but my sense is that more people will enter the mix in terms of hosting.”

– Follow Daily News sports reporter Brad Stephens on Twitter @Stephens_Brad or visit bgdailynews.com.

Harry · June 7, 2016

Hopefully we will improve our standing. The conference needs us to get it together.

rcade · June 7, 2016

On 6/5/2016 at 1:14 PM, Coach Bill Lewis said:

The good news is there are a lot of schools that are interested in coming to Conference USA.

I don't care how many times they ask. We're not taking Baylor. No means no.

Ben Gooding · June 7, 2016

Well, according to Athlons latest poll we're, uh, still going to be doing out hunting in the deepest depths of the ocean.

Aquila_Viridis · June 8, 2016

Screw WacKy. They and Marshall should form a 2-team conference of crappy schools in the middle of nowhere. We should not be in a conference with them. They can have LT and SO Miss too.

All About UNT · June 8, 2016

41 minutes ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

Screw WacKy. They and Marshall should form a 2-team conference of crappy schools in the middle of nowhere. We should not be in a conference with them. They can have LT and SO Miss too.

You're joking right?

Aldo · June 8, 2016

2 hours ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

Screw WacKy. They and Marshall should form a 2-team conference of crappy schools in the middle of nowhere. We should not be in a conference with them. They can have LT and SO Miss too.

1 hour ago, All About UNT said:

You're joking right?

I think he misses the sun belt

Arkstfan · June 8, 2016

Well with TV taking hit down to what the Sun Belt is paying, CUSA 3.x and Sun Belt earning the same number of basketball units, and the CFP money being better for the Sun Belt members other than changing patches what has really changed?

There are now three ain't AAC or MWC conferences with very similar success and money and of the three, only one makes a lick of sense geographically.

NTXCoog · June 8, 2016

5 hours ago, Arkstfan said:

There are now three ain't AAC or MWC conferences with very similar success and money and of the three, only one makes a lick of sense geographically.

But the one that makes sense geographically has the lowest attendance.

Arkstfan · June 8, 2016

17 hours ago, NTXCoog said:

But the one that makes sense geographically has the lowest attendance.

Toledo and BGSU are 24 miles apart. Akron and Kent 14 miles apart.

Now let's look at MAC schools who reported attendance under 15k last year.

Eastern Michigan located 7 miles or so from the University of Michigan.

Ball State 165 miles from nearest divisional opponent

UMass 385 from nearest opponent.

Kent mentioned above.

NIU 206 miles from nearest opponent.

With the exception of EMU and Kent, the worst attendance tends to belong to the schools furthest from their conference opponents.

The key to geographically compact is "close but not too close"

If you are fighting for sports report coverage on your local TV station with the school, you are too close.

If you are worried about a school that only gets regular local coverage when they play a road game in the market (ie. not a rerun of an AP story or press release) you got problems too big to solve with your athletic department.

Edited June 9, 2016 by Arkstfan

Aquila_Viridis · June 9, 2016

No I don't miss the Fun Belt and in the near term I don't care about attendance. I care about winning, alot. I also care about playing against schools that are near decent airports for example, not ones who can kill it on a low budget and enjoy support cause there's nothing else going on there.

TreeFiddy · June 9, 2016

2 minutes ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

No I don't miss the Fun Belt and in the near term I don't care about attendance. I care about winning, alot. I also care about playing against schools that are near decent airports for example, not ones who can kill it on a low budget and enjoy support cause there's nothing else going on there.

I agree. Teams like Latech and other small schools do not help the conference in the long run when they do well and represent the conference. They are already pretty much tapped out in terms of support. We need teams that have large alumni bases that can get excited when the school starts doing well.

No offense to Latech. Props to them for making in work on a small budget and a small following, but there is not a ton of room for growth.

Arkstfan · June 9, 2016

If you don't sell tickets you have to pay for the athletic program somehow. I'm not confident that fees and institutional support can be relied upon. Look at WKU the state has cut funding and enrollment dipped resulting in budget cuts.

TreeFiddy · June 9, 2016

54 minutes ago, Arkstfan said:

If you don't sell tickets you have to pay for the athletic program somehow. I'm not confident that fees and institutional support can be relied upon. Look at WKU the state has cut funding and enrollment dipped resulting in budget cuts.

Don't disagree, but schools like WKU are already maxing out their student fees just to survive and they only have a mid tier student base to begin with. When it shrinks it really hurts. Fortunately, we have a much large base of student and annual university revenue from which to work. I think this is going to be about weathering the storm over the next decade. I could see teams making the decision that it is not worth staying at the FBS level. Decreasing TV dollars will only serve to accelerate that action.

Matt from A700 · June 9, 2016

I thought Shreveport and Biloxi had been the two finalists?

Arkstfan · June 9, 2016

9 hours ago, TreeFiddy said:

Don't disagree, but schools like WKU are already maxing out their student fees just to survive and they only have a mid tier student base to begin with. When it shrinks it really hurts. Fortunately, we have a much large base of student and annual university revenue from which to work. I think this is going to be about weathering the storm over the next decade. I could see teams making the decision that it is not worth staying at the FBS level. Decreasing TV dollars will only serve to accelerate that action.

For all the talk of the importance of athletics, I think that is true only in specific cases.

Eastern Michigan has been dreadful at football and not that hot of late in basketball but their enrollment has grown. I'm not sure you can rationally defend heavy fees when athletics doesn't seem core to the school identity, being non-football Division I or once again being a really good Division II would seem to produce similar return at lower cost.

FIU according to the USA Today numbers, didn't bring in a million bucks in ticket sales and donations combined. Huge market, huge student body but if no one voluntarily puts money into the program, is it accomplishing its purpose? Just up the road FAU with football only a year longer and same time in FBS pulled in $2.9 million. South Al is newer in football than FIU and pulled in $1.8 million.

Some of these schools really need to get out of the "me too" mindset and figure out if they are being good stewards of the money from students and the school budget.

TreeFiddy · June 9, 2016

54 minutes ago, Arkstfan said:

For all the talk of the importance of athletics, I think that is true only in specific cases.

Eastern Michigan has been dreadful at football and not that hot of late in basketball but their enrollment has grown. I'm not sure you can rationally defend heavy fees when athletics doesn't seem core to the school identity, being non-football Division I or once again being a really good Division II would seem to produce similar return at lower cost.

FIU according to the USA Today numbers, didn't bring in a million bucks in ticket sales and donations combined. Huge market, huge student body but if no one voluntarily puts money into the program, is it accomplishing its purpose? Just up the road FAU with football only a year longer and same time in FBS pulled in $2.9 million. South Al is newer in football than FIU and pulled in $1.8 million.

Some of these schools really need to get out of the "me too" mindset and figure out if they are being good stewards of the money from students and the school budget.

Agree, the reckoning is coming.

In many reports, the larger schools seem to be getting larger and the smaller schools losing students. It will be interesting, and possibly painful to watch unfold.

GrandGreen · June 9, 2016

11 hours ago, TreeFiddy said:

Don't disagree, but schools like WKU are already maxing out their student fees just to survive and they only have a mid tier student base to begin with. When it shrinks it really hurts. Fortunately, we have a much large base of student and annual university revenue from which to work. I think this is going to be about weathering the storm over the next decade. I could see teams making the decision that it is not worth staying at the FBS level. Decreasing TV dollars will only serve to accelerate that action.

Not sure why you think WKU is maxing out student fees. WKU is very reliant on state funds and are having problems because those are being cut. Not sure they even have a dedicated athletic fee. The vast majority of their funding is transfers from the general fund just like NT, other than in WKU's case they can use state funds for athletics.

TreeFiddy · June 9, 2016

42 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

Not sure why you think WKU is maxing out student fees. WKU is very reliant on state funds and are having problems because those are being cut. Not sure they even have a dedicated athletic fee. The vast majority of their funding is transfers from the general fund just like NT, other than in WKU's case they can use state funds for athletics.

I did not realize you could use state funds for athletics. Maybe you mean institutional support, but I am sure if the state funds are cut it will impact overall budget available for athletics.

I did look further and you are right, WKU student fees are actually quite low.

WKU institutional support is around $15M, UNT $9M. I hope UNT is ready to increase that number fairly substantially to cover the TV revenue shortfall as well as COA. Not to mention baseball.

Ben Gooding · June 9, 2016

2 minutes ago, TreeFiddy said:

I did not realize you could use state funds for athletics. Maybe you mean institutional support, but I am sure if the state funds are cut it will impact overall budget available for athletics.

I did look further and you are right, WKU student fees are actually quite low.

WKU institutional support is around $15M, UNT $9M. I hope UNT is ready to increase that number fairly substantially to cover the TV revenue shortfall as well as COA. Not to mention baseball.

I agree that UNT needs to step up its game. However, donors need to increase and step up their game as well. This is where getting a new AD in here is highly important. The "minute few" must mean something and they must be cultivated as well. They must grow.

forevereagle · June 9, 2016

3 minutes ago, TreeFiddy said:

I did not realize you could use state funds for athletics.

Different states have different rules on that.

GrandGreen · June 9, 2016

2 minutes ago, TreeFiddy said:

I did not realize you could use state funds for athletics. Maybe you mean institutional support, but I am sure if the state funds are cut it will impact overall budget available for athletics.

I did look further and you are right, WKU student fees are actually quite low.

WKU institutional support is around $15M, UNT $9M. I hope UNT is ready to increase that number fairly substantially to cover the TV revenue shortfall as well as COA. Not to mention baseball.

In Texas, you can not use state funds; at least directly. Obviously, what state funds pay for; can free up monies for other uses. Kentucky and many other states don't have such a restriction.

oldguystudent · June 9, 2016

All I know is that this CUSA detritus is delicious.

TreeFiddy · June 9, 2016

5 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

I agree that UNT needs to step up its game. However, donors need to increase and step up their game as well. This is where getting a new AD in here is highly important. The "minute few" must mean something and they must be cultivated as well. They must grow.

Agreed, the money has to come from multiple places. Alumni is a huge, virtually untapped resource. Hoping the new regime can give the alumni at large a reason to care.