Extreme Makeover

[MeanGreen61]

Charleston WV Gazette article

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Sports/2005062531

Extreme Makeover

C-USA's new look becomes official Friday

By Doug Smock

Staff writer

In many ways, Thursday and Friday will be two ordinary, perhaps hot, summer days.

“I’ll probably go out and hit golf balls,” joked Marshall athletic director Bob Marcum.

But Friday, July 1 on the Gregorian calendar, won’t be an ordinary day for the Thundering Herd and a slew of other athletic programs. That’s the day the earthquake of conference realignment officially takes place.

In the 10-year-old Conference USA, this has been one whale of a temblor.

Louisville, Cincinnati and South Florida head off to the Big East, along with basketball schools DePaul, and Marquette. Texas Christian heads to the Mountain West Conference, while Army declares its independence. Two other basketball schools, Charlotte and Saint Louis, trot off to the semi-Atlantic more-than-10.

That leaves six holdovers to be joined by six new teams: Marshall, Central Florida, Southern Methodist, Rice, Tulsa and Texas-El Paso.

Don’t expect Dick Clark to stand atop Marshall’s Old Main and preside over a block party down Fourth Avenue, but there will be some public rejoicing.

Rice and crosstown rival Houston are throwing a joint celebration. SMU’s Web site is running a down-to-the-millisecond countdown. Marshall is dovetailing its celebration with a July 4 party, previously planned by a Huntington radio station.

C-USA officials will unveil a revamped Web site at the appointed hour. A low-key excitement is bubbling at the league office in Irving, Texas.

“It’s like having a birthday. I don’t know if I feel any older,” said commissioner Britton Banowsky. “But I feel the excitement and enthusiasm in the league, and I think it’s wonderful.”

The league may take a hit in prestige with the loss of Louisville and some solid basketball programs, but there is a delight in having a 12-team, all-sports league. From its 1995 launch, C-USA has been a convolution of football, no-football and football-only institutions.

Each institution has its reasons to be excited. UTEP, Tulsa, SMU and Rice are happy to escape the brutal travel demands of the Western Athletic Conference. SMU and Rice are pleased to rejoin Houston, a fellow alum of the old Southwest Conference.

UCF, a large school that wasn’t founded until 1963, finally escapes its purgatory in the Atlantic Sun. It was a football-only member of the Mid-American Conference for three seasons.

Marshall? It eyeballed a move to C-USA almost from its start in Division I-A, and might have joined in football a few years ago had it found a home for its other sports.

With 12 schools in football, the league may now hold an exempt conference championship game. For now, that will be played at the home stadium of the team with the best league record.

In the 20 months since five of the six newcomers were admitted to C-USA, the league has worked at a frenzied clip toward Friday.

Early in the process, the league had to find another team when TCU bolted. It did so in April 2004 by pushing its western reach to UTEP. That summer, C-USA offices were moved from Chicago to Texas.

Banowsky had to pull off a delicate contract renegotiation with ESPN Inc. He has succeeded in getting 13 ESPN or ESPN2 games scheduled so far, plus the league’s five bowl games.

C-USA also brought in the fledgling College Sports Television to the fold. Currently, a game involving a league home team is booked on the first eight Saturdays, with games after Oct. 22 to be named.

Reportedly, the contracts, which run through 2011, are worth $11.3 million per year to the league — meaning more revenue to the schools than before and certainly more than MAC television contracts brought in.

CSTV is working to maximize its exposure. In fact, network officials met last week with cable operators in the Charleston-Huntington area, with some success.

Following agreements struck nationally, CSTV is on Adelphia’s Digital Plus tier, channel 174, and on Charter’s digital sports tier, channel 317. Elsewhere in the region, the network expects to join the lineup on Armstrong and Time-Warner systems this summer.

But CSTV, whose existence has spurred ESPN and Fox Sports to launch their college-niche networks, is looking for more.

“We’re working with [cable systems] now to get on a more broadly based programming package,” said CSTV co-founder Chris Bevilacqua. “They recognize Conference USA and Marshall were going to televise a good part of their games and, basically, that’s what their customers want.”

With TV negotiations finished, the post-2005 bowl situation tops the current C-USA agenda. Currently, the league sends its champ to the Liberty Bowl, with other teams going to the GMAC (Mobile, Ala.), New Orleans, Hawaii and Fort Worth bowls.

Contracts with the GMAC and Hawaii bowls go beyond this December. The league is “very close” to re-upping with New Orleans, but its Fort Worth spot likely will go with TCU to the Mountain West. Then again, the Big 12 could vacate the other spot, seeing as how it hasn’t been able to fill it in the bowl’s two seasons.

[Black Scholes]

Does anyone know what the Sunbelt TV package is worth? Also, in 2006, does the sunbelt begin to receive some sort of BCS share money that we do not currently receive today? thanks

[GreenEddieNT]

Does anyone know what the Sunbelt TV package is worth?  Also, in 2006, does the sunbelt begin to receive some sort of BCS share money that we do not currently receive today?  thanks

In terms of money, I think the Sun Belt tv package is similar to that of the WAC and MAC.

[NT80]

The league is “very close” to re-upping with New Orleans

I wish NT was joining CUSA...maybe someday.

As for the CUSA contract back into the New Orleans Bowl, I know it fits, but what if we took the SEC # 6, 7, or 8 instead?

[PlummMeanGreen]

I wish NT was joining CUSA...maybe someday.

As for the CUSA contract back into the New Orleans Bowl, I know it fits, but what if we took the SEC # 6, 7, or 8 instead?

Have thought the same thing, NT80, except the SEC host a game in the Big Easy about 2 weeks later we know as the Sugar Bowl. I don't see the SEC working with the SBC or NO's Bowl because of that.

CUSA wants BCS competition, too, because we all want to have a chance to play someone ranked as high as possible. In fact, how high was USM ranked when we played them in the NO's Bowl last year? I know after we saw them almost beat the #2 ranked Cal Bears that we would have our hands more than full (which we did).

FWIW, would you want to be the member of a conference you can win OR one you might not win too often? CUSA is not through with their membership turnover yet, IMO, and then you have the danger the SWC had of having all schools in one state. TV folks don't get excited about that kind of thing, especially when most of the schools are private or have small constituencies.

Edited June 27, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen