Old Dominion's move to C-USA has cost it 2 million a year

Coach Bill Lewis · April 4, 2020

https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/colle...story.html

A lot of really sad stuff here. including these things:

- CUSA will give members about $1 million less than years past
- Conference membership decisions need to be made” to reduce expenses and missed class time while generating more fan interest
- All schools must be prepared for partial or total interruption of the 2020 football season.”
- Losing the NCAA tournament resulted in a loss of $867 million

Tough times for all I'm afraid.

MCMLXXX · April 4, 2020

I foresee conference realignment coming sooner than expected and believe some schools in FBS will drop down to FCS or drop football altogether.

Mean Green 93-98 · April 4, 2020

2 minutes ago, MCMLXXX said:

I foresee conference realignment coming sooner than expected and believe some schools in FBS will drop down to FCS or drop football altogether.

Honestly, dropping down to FCS would probably be a good move for ODU. They'd have better regional rivalries (e.g., James Madison), and I doubt their fanbase perceives C-USA teams significantly higher.

Although it would make upsetting Va Tech tougher in the future.

Salsa_Verde · April 4, 2020

I don’t hold too high of hopes that the next round (if there is any) of realignment will benefit North Texas. Forgive me if I sound like a broken record but the AAC will not take us and my hope of joining the Mountain West is probably a pipe dream. North Texas is stuck in CUSA for the foreseeable future

UNTLifer · April 4, 2020

17 hours ago, Coach Bill Lewis said:

https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/colle...story.html

A lot of really sad stuff here. including these things:

- CUSA will give members about $1 million less than years past
- Conference membership decisions need to be made” to reduce expenses and missed class time while generating more fan interest
- All schools must be prepared for partial or total interruption of the 2020 football season.”
- Losing the NCAA tournament resulted in a loss of $867 million

Tough times for all I'm afraid.

The article says nothing about CUSA. Never mind. Odd, the “Read More” button was covered by an ad when I clicked it yesterday.

Edited April 4, 2020 by UNTLifer

Mean Green 93-98 · April 4, 2020

6 hours ago, UNTLifer said:

The article says nothing about CUSA

Quote

Among the other conclusions in the study are:

Joining Conference USA, which ODU did in 2013, has cost the school “a minimum of $2 million annually.” The study cites the departures of Memphis, Southern Methodist, Houston, Central Florida, Tulane and East Carolina as being damaging to the conference’s national profile.

C-USA, which is based near Dallas and has teams as far west as El Paso, Texas, estimates it will give $1 million less to member institutions this year than in years past.

wardly · April 4, 2020

At last year's CUSA basketball tournament I talked to two ODU members of their athletic department. They would move out of CUSA faster than the NFL Colts left Baltimore in the middle of the night for Indianapolis, hopefully to the AAC. In business its what do you want , what do you need, and what are you willing to pay for.Without a 2020 college football season universities who continue with a program are going to be forced to make hard decisions which become easier when there are no other choices. If UNT wants to continue football it will need reduce expenses in line with what it is willing and able to pay. You would think conference realignment with geographic friendly opponents would no longer be an option but an economic necessity, as well as dropping marginal sports programs. If you have less money coming in you must have less going out.

southsideguy · April 4, 2020

I think with all that is going on there will be conference coming a lot sooner than we expect. He just takes a couple of teams to start moving to start it. If we go to regional conferences it will be interesting who will be available. I know UTEP wants to go to the MW, UTSA to the big eight so that leaves us Rice, UTSA and UTEP for conference mates in the state. I don't think we can hope for any other teams in the state unless we want to add Texas State?????. Maybe we could keep LA TECH and maybe add some LA schools. Maybe Tulsa might be looking to cut expenses.

It doesn't look good for us in future. The P5 are killing college sports.

I was so excited about next years team but this does put a damper on it. Wish he change his mind and stay. Maybe I am depressed from all the is virus crap going on but I have a strange feeling the old denton might reappear in the near future.

GrandGreen · April 4, 2020

28 minutes ago, southsideguy said:

I think with all that is going on there will be conference coming a lot sooner than we expect. He just takes a couple of teams to start moving to start it. If we go to regional conferences it will be interesting who will be available. I know UTEP wants to go to the MW, UTSA to the big eight so that leaves us Rice, UTSA and UTEP for conference mates in the state. I don't think we can hope for any other teams in the state unless we want to add Texas State?????. Maybe we could keep LA TECH and maybe add some LA schools. Maybe Tulsa might be looking to cut expenses.

It doesn't look good for us in future. The P5 are killing college sports.

I was so excited about next years team but this does put a damper on it. Wish he change his mind and stay. Maybe I am depressed from all the is virus crap going on but I have a strange feeling the old denton might reappear in the near future.

NT wants in the SEC, which means nothing.

More regional conferences would not be that hard if that what anyone really wanted. The AAC. Belt and CUSA all are conferences that could be split and combined into much more compact leagues.

The problem is that travel costs are just not that big of a concern when schools are paying coaches staffs millions of dollars.

If you really want to do something effective put a salary cap on coaches and administration. The NFL and other pro leagues have salary caps in the name of competition, why can't the NCAA.

As far fetched as proposals like this appear, under the present and near term economy; it is a lot more likely than before.

wardly · April 4, 2020

Well you could start with the 5 G5 programs in Texas and maybe throw in New Mexico State to get to 6 programs. Hopefully Ark. State, La. Tech, and ULL would move West with us, although that could be a coin toss. La. Monroe is out, as La. Tech will never join a conference with them. After that I can't come up with any reason why So. Miss. or any of the 3 Alabama programs would join what is basically a Texas /Louisiana conference .Tulsa and Tulane are wild cards, and I am clueless about SMU and Houston. Bottom line its easier to talk about regional conferences that to actually put one together.

Coach Andy Mac · April 4, 2020

UNT belongs in the AAC. We are more deserving than schools like Tulsa. I just don’t think SMU will allow us to join. So we need a plan B.

southsideguy · April 4, 2020

This team being so picky who is the conference with them may have to end just due to economics. Things are changing and the "better than thou" attitudes will have to change. SMUT can say all they want about us but we help their attendance more than they help ours. Why the metroplex teams don't play each other is beyond me. Close travel and built in interest.

greenminer · April 4, 2020

58 minutes ago, Coach Andy Mac said:

I just don’t think SMU will allow us to join.

There's that again.

All About UNT · April 4, 2020

4 hours ago, wardly said:

At last year's CUSA basketball tournament I talked to two ODU members of their athletic department. They would move out of CUSA faster than the NFL Colts left Baltimore in the middle of the night for Indianapolis, hopefully to the AAC. In business its what do you want , what do you need, and what are you willing to pay for.Without a 2020 college football season universities who continue with a program are going to be forced to make hard decisions which become easier when there are no other choices. If UNT wants to continue football it will need reduce expenses in line with what it is willing and able to pay. You would think conference realignment with geographic friendly opponents would no longer be an option but an economic necessity, as well as dropping marginal sports programs. If you have less money coming in you must have less going out.

and we would move to the BIG 12 if we could. Not gonna happen. They pride themselves on having sold out a 20k person stadium for some time. I've been on their campus and lived down the road from it. That town is full of transplants (Military) and shipyard workers who give little care to ODU Athletics.

Greenrex · April 4, 2020

Some y'all been hittin' the isopropyl.

NorthTexasSportsNetwork · April 4, 2020

3 hours ago, Coach Andy Mac said:

UNT belongs in the AAC. We are more deserving than schools like Tulsa. I just don’t think SMU will allow us to join. So we need a plan B.

Screw SMU

wardly · April 5, 2020

9 hours ago, Coach Andy Mac said:

UNT belongs in the AAC. We are more deserving than schools like Tulsa. I just don’t think SMU will allow us to join. So we need a plan B.

As Clint Eastwood told Little Bill in the movie" The Unforgiven" just before he shot him, "Deserves has nothing to do with it."

NorthTexasSportsNetwork · April 5, 2020

20 hours ago, wardly said:

As Clint Eastwood told Little Bill in the movie" The Unforgiven" just before he shot him, "Deserves has nothing to do with it."

If we don’t get into the AAC we are screwed

GrandGreen · April 6, 2020

On 4/4/2020 at 12:39 PM, Coach Andy Mac said:

UNT belongs in the AAC. We are more deserving than schools like Tulsa. I just don’t think SMU will allow us to join. So we need a plan B.

SMU could not stop NT if the others wanted NT. The truth I expect is that the other regional schools don't want to lose their advantage over NT by conference affiliation. The private schools like Tulsa and Tulane are probably just as opposed to NT as SMU,

UH also would likely not support NT either, not wanting to give a competing in-state large university any advantage.

The only way that NT would get any support would be to reach the point that it would obviously elevate the league overall.

In essence, NT would have to become a power g5 program in either/both football and men's basketball.

If NT could do that, then they would not even need the AAC.

GrayEagle · April 6, 2020

While I may not see it in my lifetime, I believe that North Texas will be in the AAC or Big XII in the not too distant future.

The scenery has/is changing. We have somewhat buried the hatchet with SMU and Houston as far as scheduling goes. Each of us seem to draw well when we play each other.We have a new forward-thinking university with a less combative president and athletic director. We have a nice new stadium, built to be expandable to 50,000. We have a large, beautiful campus. We are in the fourth largest TV market. The culture of the students is changing for the better. We've come a long way and keep improving.

While it was true in the past I'm not so sure that SMU might try to keep us out of the AAC. Even if they did they are only one vote. They will need 12 teams for a playoff so I believe that a replacement for Connecticut will be made when their TV contract runs out. We have been in the same conference (some very briefly) with five of the teams in that league and I hope that we have good relations with them.

untjim1995 · April 6, 2020

Until TV money stops dominating the makeup of conferences, we are stuck in CUSA. The networks don’t want market overlap. The days of Rice and UH being conference mates are over.

In the short term, the easiest thing to fix is realignment of CUSA and the SBC. ODU, Appy State, Marshall, F_Us, and GSUs don’t need to be in a conference with anyone in Texas or Louisiana.

Salsa_Verde · April 6, 2020

2 hours ago, GrandGreen said:

SMU could not stop NT if the others wanted NT. The truth I expect is that the other regional schools don't want to lose their advantage over NT by conference affiliation. The private schools like Tulsa and Tulane are probably just as opposed to NT as SMU,

UH also would likely not support NT either, not wanting to give a competing in-state large university any advantage.

The only way that NT would get any support would be to reach the point that it would obviously elevate the league overall.

In essence, NT would have to become a power g5 program in either/both football and men's basketball.

If NT could do that, then they would not even need the AAC.

You honestly think there is a grand conspiracy about North Texas moving up? You’ve probably been saying the same thing for 20 years...the IPF is great...it should have been built 10 years ago if not more. As it stands North Texas is not ready to join the AAC without major improvements to the volleyball venue, super pit, athletic center, swim and dive facilities....the list goes on. There is no conspiracy, we need more money to compete and it’s not there.

RBP79 · April 6, 2020

We might come up short on some facilities but we off set that with what we've built......APPOGEE, IPF...just the whole Atheltic Complex. If we fall short it's because we lack a BB team that seems most others have.

untjim1995 · April 6, 2020

11 hours ago, Salsa_Verde said:

You honestly think there is a grand conspiracy about North Texas moving up? You’ve probably been saying the same thing for 20 years...the IPF is great...it should have been built 10 years ago if not more. As it stands North Texas is not ready to join the AAC without major improvements to the volleyball venue, super pit, athletic center, swim and dive facilities....the list goes on. There is no conspiracy, we need more money to compete and it’s not there.

We aren't moving up because we aren't seen as bringing value to anyone above our current home. We aren't going to make the AAC or the networks look at SMU and say that the need to overlap that market by adding in UNT. Look at what they've done since UConn announced they were leaving to go back to the Big East. Nobody was added or even considered. Why? Because the AAC, like the Big XII, looked at the landscape and their network money and decided it wasn't worth it to add anyone. So UH gets stuck in the AAC, much like we are stuck in CUSA.

The best path forward is to reorganize the SBCUSA. The way I look at it, the Western Teams should be: UTEP, UTSA, TX State, UNT, Rice, ULL, ULM, La Tech, Arky State, and USM. The East would be in 2 divisions: FAU, FIU, USA, Troy, UAB, Ga Southern, and Ga State in the South, while in the North would be Charlotte, Appy State, Coastal Carolina, ODU, Marshall, WKU, and MUTS.

GrandGreen · April 6, 2020

12 hours ago, Salsa_Verde said:

You honestly think there is a grand conspiracy about North Texas moving up? You’ve probably been saying the same thing for 20 years...the IPF is great...it should have been built 10 years ago if not more. As it stands North Texas is not ready to join the AAC without major improvements to the volleyball venue, super pit, athletic center, swim and dive facilities....the list goes on. There is no conspiracy, we need more money to compete and it’s not there.

Yes, they all have a cabal that meets regularly to determine the best methods to keep NT in place.

No, I do not believe for one second that facilities have anything to do with NT not moving up. No one gives a ' damn, what your volleyball or swimming facilities are. Apogee and the Super Pit are fine

You do realize that you can make reported budget numbers look about any way you want them. Allocate more cost to the athletic department than make institutional transfers to cover the expense. Not one cent is actually spent.

What is holding NT back is not facilities or money. It is timing, NT went for decades funding athletics just enough to have a D1 program and for a long period did not even do that. The current NT has moved up substantially in terms of support and could easily fit in any G5 league.

Edited April 6, 2020 by GrandGreen