Cusa Would Really Be A Step Up For Unt.......

[Arkstfan]

I would take the MAC in a heartbeat... The MAC has more bowl invites, better known teams, better t.v. exposure, and isnt a league that has worst stats than

a I-AA conference. WAC sucks but better opponents hands down...

I would prefer a conference alignment anyday over a new stadium, if you really think about it, we are not getting a new stadium...

1. Fouts got a new field, new bathrooms, and new facade...if a stadium was coming those wouldnt have happened to save money

2. Promises, commitments, and Timelines have all been broken by the Athletic Department

3. We lost President Norval Pohl, one of the greatest supporter of UNT Athletics in history, even better than some in the Athletic Department.

We lost out BIG TIME when we got pushed aside for UTEP, I mean we were the better candidate, seriously, we were taking TCU's spot, they needed a metroplex team to compete with SMU and a big media market.

We lost out because we didnt have baseball, are you F**&*#% kidding me....

We are a University system with 35,000 students and over 110 years of traditions, FIX THE DAMN PROBLEM ALREADY!!!!

The mighty MAC is in peril for their bowl berth in Mobile because they sell about 1,500 tickets and then pay for 6,000 that get thrown in the trash. The MAC is safe in Detroit because that game sells. The rest of their alliances are bought and paid for with BCS revenue and NCAA basketball units.

BCS Money

The Sun Belt passed the MAC this year. The BCS divides the bulk of the money paid to the non-auto leagues by dividing it into 15 shares. Top rated league takes 5 shares, #2 takes 4, #3 takes, #4 takes two, #5 takes one.

The Sun Belt was basically a couple non-conference wins from passing CUSA this year, that would have given the Sun Belt 3x the BCS money that the MAC made and 50% more than CUSA would have made. If someone hadn't been SMU's only win last season the Sun Belt would have had a real shot at passing them. ASU choking at USM and ULM gagging at home against Tulsa didn't help. Take two of those three and the check would have almost certainly been in the mail.

NCAA Money

The MAC ended 2007 with 10 units, a payout of $1.9 million. It ended 2008 with 7 units dropping nearly $600,000 off their revenue. Unless they get an at-large berth or a team to win a game in 2009, that falls by another $200,000.

CUSA earned 5 units this year, but they have nine about to fall off so they will experience a net loss of nearly $800,000. Unless something happens they are on the verge of having an 11 unit and 10 unit year falling off.

The Sun Belt gained 3 units this season.

The WAC had 3 units fall off last year replaced by 1 unit. They will have 2 fall off replaced by 1 and have a 4 unit year about to fall off. While BCS revenue has been a blessing, the league lost $750,000 this year because Idaho, Utah State, and New Mexico State have reportedly finished paying their admission fees.

[Green Mean]

Wrong.. The casual fans that you speek of are few and far between. They watch the game from the sofa. The impact of big name opponents has more to do with the number of fans that they bring. And neither Hawaii nor Boise travel that well to their own stadiums much less to others stadium. i would love to see ya'll in CUSA but there is nothing wrong with the direction that the belt is going in.

Okay I will give you that just the casual fan may not attend the games but I bet the attendance would be significantly higher if those schools came to Denton. I think a lot of regular CFB fans would want to come to the games since these schools are known and as for Hawaii has a high octane offense which people love to watch.

[AnotherEagleFan]

The mighty MAC is in peril for their bowl berth in Mobile because they sell about 1,500 tickets and then pay for 6,000 that get thrown in the trash. The MAC is safe in Detroit because that game sells. The rest of their alliances are bought and paid for with BCS revenue and NCAA basketball units.

BCS Money

The Sun Belt passed the MAC this year. The BCS divides the bulk of the money paid to the non-auto leagues by dividing it into 15 shares. Top rated league takes 5 shares, #2 takes 4, #3 takes, #4 takes two, #5 takes one.

The Sun Belt was basically a couple non-conference wins from passing CUSA this year, that would have given the Sun Belt 3x the BCS money that the MAC made and 50% more than CUSA would have made. If someone hadn't been SMU's only win last season the Sun Belt would have had a real shot at passing them. ASU choking at USM and ULM gagging at home against Tulsa didn't help. Take two of those three and the check would have almost certainly been in the mail.

NCAA Money

The MAC ended 2007 with 10 units, a payout of $1.9 million. It ended 2008 with 7 units dropping nearly $600,000 off their revenue. Unless they get an at-large berth or a team to win a game in 2009, that falls by another $200,000.

CUSA earned 5 units this year, but they have nine about to fall off so they will experience a net loss of nearly $800,000. Unless something happens they are on the verge of having an 11 unit and 10 unit year falling off.

The Sun Belt gained 3 units this season.

The WAC had 3 units fall off last year replaced by 1 unit. They will have 2 fall off replaced by 1 and have a 4 unit year about to fall off. While BCS revenue has been a blessing, the league lost $750,000 this year because Idaho, Utah State, and New Mexico State have reportedly finished paying their admission fees.

ASU choking at USM... Kinda like the Memphis choking at ASU?? Do you really think that ULM had any chance at beating Tulsa? SMU had a better chance at beating ASU. (though that is not saying much). Our problem is stability due to sending teams to AQ conferences. There are some exciting things going on at CUSA the problem is stability. The belt seems to be more stable. I think that is your argument.

[Arkstfan]

ASU choking at USM... Kinda like the Memphis choking at ASU?? Do you really think that ULM had any chance at beating Tulsa? SMU had a better chance at beating ASU. (though that is not saying much). Our problem is stability due to sending teams to AQ conferences. There are some exciting things going on at CUSA the problem is stability. The belt seems to be more stable. I think that is your argument.

ASU choked at USM. Truthfully ASU got hosed at USM, the Tribe had 20% more offense than USM and facing 3rd and short at the USM 23 the CUSA officials refused to measure. On fourth down the officials marked the ball a foot behind the original line of scrimmage, measured and found ASU to be short by a couple inches.

While you may be hopped blowing Tulsa, ULM beat Bama this year and they lead Tulsa at the half before falling apart in the second half at home. Yeah ULM had a chance to beat Tulsa.

As for Memphis choking at ASU. You want to read it that way go for it. Memphis scored two TD's on trick plays and a third on a fumble return for a TD that the replay camera didn't have the angle to over-rule but the news video from the Jonesboro TV station and at least one Memphis station showed the ASU runner's knee was on the ground when the ball was stripped. Memphis was damn lucky to have a lead to blow.

Edited April 21, 2008 by Arkstfan

[TIgreen01]

Okay I will give you that just the casual fan may not attend the games but I bet the attendance would be significantly higher if those schools came to Denton. I think a lot of regular CFB fans would want to come to the games since these schools are known and as for Hawaii has a high octane offense which people love to watch.

...and I would bet that you'd be wrong. Serious question: Were you around to see the Big West conference days?

[Green Mean]

...and I would bet that you'd be wrong. Serious question: Were you around to see the Big West conference days?

I was around but not around the Big West conference....Look I totally understand that those days proved that these games would be bad for NT but I truly believe that its a different time and era in our world. In general theres a lot more avenues and chances for exposure and buzz if you know how to create it. As for Hawaii and Boise State, I think everybody knows them by now and they will know them for a while as long as they continue to have momentum in their programs.

[TIgreen01]

Thats already been done...UNT dominated the belt and no one gave a rats ass.

I'm sorry...I can't let that statement slide. We couldn't get 10k to more than one game a year before 2001's run began....we had a 'technical' avg. attendance somewhere in the 14-15k range but rarely had more than 7-8k actually in attendance for all but the first game of the year every year. Since that run we have had a 20+k crowd almost every season at least once (AT FOUTS, and mostly against non-BCS teams) and have 17-18k at every game (except the damn dirty Thanksgiving weekend games)....and those are verifiable crowds since we now scan tickets and IDs at the gate.

We were near death before 2001. Winning saved us.

Do I even need to remind you of the catastrophically bad offenses that we used to run that made our style of play almost near unwatchable to anyone that wasn't already a die-hard UNT fan?!?

[DirtySavage]

There is no doubt that winning solves a lot of problems.

[AnotherEagleFan]

ASU choked at USM. Truthfully ASU got hosed at USM, the Tribe had 20% more offense than USM and facing 3rd and short at the USM 23 the CUSA officials refused to measure. On fourth down the officials marked the ball a foot behind the original line of scrimmage, measured and found ASU to be short by a couple inches.

While you may be hopped blowing Tulsa, ULM beat Bama this year and they lead Tulsa at the half before falling apart in the second half at home. Yeah ULM had a chance to beat Tulsa.

As for Memphis choking at ASU. You want to read it that way go for it. Memphis scored two TD's on trick plays and a third on a fumble return for a TD that the replay camera didn't have the angle to over-rule but the news video from the Jonesboro TV station and at least one Memphis station showed the ASU runner's knee was on the ground when the ball was stripped. Memphis was damn lucky to have a lead to blow.

For the record I stated earlier in this thread that I believe that the Sunbelt is a good conference and is a great fit for UNT. I think that UNT can build the program that they want in this conference. The competition is much better in the Sunbelt then it was just 3 years ago. A team that can dominate in the Sunbelt year in and year out will (at minimum) be a top 25 team.

Back to your post.. which I normally find pretty insightful and fun to read. I will respectfully disagree with you concerning those games. And do not care to debate what could have happened. The w's and l's are recorded. But CUSA is currently a better conference then the Sunbelt. My original point is that can possibly change in the future. CUSA is currently down. But the Sunbelt is not in a position to play catch up. IF CUSA has a couple of teams to jump ship in the next few years the sunbelt will be in a better position to pass CUSA. But some things need to happen.

1. The big market teams must perform.

2. Attendance at the games must improve.

3. You have to keep having the ULM's beat the Alabama's (or at least give them a really good game)

4. It helps for those wins to be on tv.

5. You need half of your teams to have winning records not 2.

6. Stability - Something that CUSA has not had... I;m sure you saw my earlier post of the teams who were tied to CUSA.

[TIgreen01]

I was around but not around the Big West conference....Look I totally understand that those days proved that these games would be bad for NT but I truly believe that its a different time and era in our world. In general theres a lot more avenues and chances for exposure and buzz if you know how to create it. As for Hawaii and Boise State, I think everybody knows them by now and they will know them for a while as long as they continue to have momentum in their programs.

That was only 7-8 years ago. The internet boom had already happened if that's what you're referring to. Heck, SMU was in that conference up until 2-3 years ago and they couldn't get 10k into a game to watch the "great" WAC opponents. I was actually con'ed into attending a game of their's against LaTech. LaTech probably brought 1/8 the crowd that UNT brought last year to Ford and SMU got *maybe* 5k more to show up. I am NOT kidding. I've been to UNT games where we had 500 people in the stands (not counting the band)....against the Big West (now WAC). SMU had the same problems playing those same teams even after several of those teams made names for themselves.

As for Hawaii---they are DONE. D. O. N. E. The coach that built them is gone and he left no good successor like Hawkins did at Boise. Maybe the state will step up, but when your coach leaves for SMU you know things can't be good.

[AnotherEagleFan]

I was around but not around the Big West conference....Look I totally understand that those days proved that these games would be bad for NT but I truly believe that its a different time and era in our world. In general theres a lot more avenues and chances for exposure and buzz if you know how to create it. As for Hawaii and Boise State, I think everybody knows them by now and they will know them for a while as long as they continue to have momentum in their programs.

Utah, Marshall and Tulane also had great runs in the last 10-15 years. Look at where they are... You must build attendance based with your fanbase and the willingness of the rival fans to travel (not many fans fly to games). If that happens then you may pick up 1500 locals like me who just want to support the local team.

[eeally]

I would enjoy being in the Southland again. I just loved our 4 way with us, SFA, SWT AND SAM HOUSTON

[Cerebus]

I'm sorry...I can't let that statement slide. We couldn't get 10k to more than one game a year before 2001's run began....we had a 'technical' avg. attendance somewhere in the 14-15k range but rarely had more than 7-8k actually in attendance for all but the first game of the year every year. Since that run we have had a 20+k crowd almost every season at least once (AT FOUTS, and mostly against non-BCS teams) and have 17-18k at every game (except the damn dirty Thanksgiving weekend games)....and those are verifiable crowds since we now scan tickets and IDs at the gate.

We were near death before 2001. Winning saved us.

Ping.

Before the SBC championship run we where in terrible shape. If the NCAA had enforced the 15k rule, it would have been a big risk to us. That winning got us over that hump, but we need more to continue to build.

[UNTLifer]

As for Hawaii---they are DONE. D. O. N. E. The coach that built them is gone and he left no good successor like Hawkins did at Boise. Maybe the state will step up, but when your coach leaves for SMU you know things can't be good.

Yep.

[badgerwolf]

Okay I will give you that just the casual fan may not attend the games but I bet the attendance would be significantly higher if those schools came to Denton. I think a lot of regular CFB fans would want to come to the games since these schools are known and as for Hawaii has a high octane offense which people love to watch.

Fans on the La Tech Board often question why their fans do not turn out in significant numbers to see these same WAC football teams; I suspect it is because the locals have little interest in Far West teams. Would it be any different at UNT -- maybe, maybe not.

[KingDL1]

I'm sorry...I can't let that statement slide. We couldn't get 10k to more than one game a year before 2001's run began....we had a 'technical' avg. attendance somewhere in the 14-15k range but rarely had more than 7-8k actually in attendance for all but the first game of the year every year. Since that run we have had a 20+k crowd almost every season at least once (AT FOUTS, and mostly against non-BCS teams) and have 17-18k at every game (except the damn dirty Thanksgiving weekend games)....and those are verifiable crowds since we now scan tickets and IDs at the gate.

We were near death before 2001. Winning saved us.

Do I even need to remind you of the catastrophically bad offenses that we used to run that made our style of play almost near unwatchable to anyone that wasn't already a die-hard UNT fan?!?

I do like that RV brought back tailgating. I think it has helped also.

Edited April 22, 2008 by KingDL1

[Arkstfan]

Fans on the La Tech Board often question why their fans do not turn out in significant numbers to see these same WAC football teams; I suspect it is because the locals have little interest in Far West teams. Would it be any different at UNT -- maybe, maybe not.

They didn't turn out at La.Tech to see them play NMSU, USU, San Jose, or Nevada when Tech was in the Big West. Changing the uniform patches from Big West to WAC changed nothing.... except of course the uniform patches.

[DeepGreen]

They didn't turn out at La.Tech to see them play NMSU, USU, San Jose, or Nevada when Tech was in the Big West. Changing the uniform patches from Big West to WAC changed nothing.... except of course the uniform patches.

Like I've always said, the WAC should be renamed to BWAC, or, Big West Athletic Consortium. After all, many of the teams were once part of the Big West or Big Sky at one time or another.

But, perception is everthing sometimes. Even changing patches on a uniform can help in elevating a group of teams to a stature that is better than what it should be.

[Guest 97and03]

I still can't believe this thread actually turned into an actual conference discussion.

Besides we all know that the future involves realignments, not just a simple conference move.

[NT80]

I still can't believe this thread actually turned into an actual conference discussion.

Besides we all know that the future involves realignments, not just a simple conference move.

I believe travel expenses (fans and teams) will become the main issue that spurs the next round of shifting to more regional allignments within conferences, either by forming divisions or new members. Eventually the light will come on and a UNT/SMU game will be seen as more efficient and cost effective than a SMU/Marshall game. La Tech's fuel bill gets higher each year.

[Arkstfan]

I still can't believe this thread actually turned into an actual conference discussion.

Besides we all know that the future involves realignments, not just a simple conference move.

I think that is essentially correct.

Conference's are economic enterprises with five basic economic functions.

1. Provide a framework for basketball that allows for maximizing NCAA Tournament money.

2. Market electronic media rights.

3. Provide a framework for maximum post-season football revenue (with the caveat that some post-season opportunities are accepted as a financial loss for marketing reasons).

4. Provide a framework for cost efficiency.

5. Align institutions of similar reputation and profile for marketing reasons. (example, remember back in realignment got going at the start of the 90's that Texas seriously toyed with the idea of trying to get in the Big 10 or Pac 10 because of identification with their academics).

When you look at the rich six leagues these things pop out when you view them through that prism.

-Conventional television revenue models are maxed out. The only thing that keeps television revenue up for them in an era where the tv audience is more fractured and often loss to online activity is that sports programming still delivers an audience though heavily influenced by the fan bases of the teams. It is the rare bit of programming that people are highly unlikely to record and then skip through the commercials. There is still some potential growth in on-demand programming but we are still not at a point where that is at such critical mass that it is more profitable than what the broadcast and cable networks will offer. Note the problem the Big 10 is having with its network. The available inventory is third-choice content (after ABC and ESPN have selected games) and to preserve the value of the profitable contracts they cannot compete against ABC or ESPN broadcasts of Big 10 games leaving a small broadcast window.

ANALYSIS. There is little growth potential to drive expansion. Attendance can be a strong clue to TV value. Only one school outside those leagues is in the top 30 in attendance, BYU. UCF is the only other one in the top 50 and that was aided by a new field and a sellout against Texas. Three other schools made top half of the nation: Hawaii, Utah and ECU.

- The basketball revenue essentially becomes an issue of institutional commitment. That is why aligning like-minded schools with similar budgets is vital. You want all your schools to enter league play with good out-of-conference records because the overall conference RPI is all but set when OOC play ends.

- Keeping costs down is an important element, it was a factor in the Texas flirtation with the Big 10 and Pac-10, the cost increases didn't justify the PR value nor did the increase in revenue balance the cost.

ANALYSIS. The Big East has demonstrated big works in basketball, I doubt though that the money would fuel anyone attempting to replicate their success.

- The PR value of alignments is valuable but there has to be a meeting of minds. The Big 12 struggled with that early on. The ACC has according to rumor had some interesting public/private school disagreements and the same has been said of CUSA.

ANALYSIS. Looking at the schools who have BCS type attendance in football none have a compelling national reputation academically that makes them a must have and outside of BYU and to a lesser degree Utah none have had the sort of sustained national success athletically that makes them truly compelling.

- Post-season football is an interesting area because the rich six do have a few loss leader bowls (some more than others), that is the league will take the financial loss for purely public relations reasons. But there are highly profitable games even outside the BCS framework. This is the p

ANALYSIS. This is where it gets very interesting. If the BCS contract is basically rolled over for another four years (expected) there is little change in the dynamic that makes expansion interesting. The value of the quasi-post-season of a conference championship game has not been strong enough to get the Big 10 nor Pac-10 to expand. The Big 10 has its target and they are willing to wait them out. The Pac-10 only has two BCS caliber schools in their region Utah and BYU adding both doesn't make much TV sense and neither is of such academic reputation that the Pac-10 would be eager to add them. The Big East is unlikely to find four schools willing to take football only affiliation. If a playoff enters the picture, there could be real drama. A playoff would produce massive money and actually reward a smaller membership football conference by avoiding the potential loss of a team that could go deep and earn more money by knocking them out in a conference title game or knock a good team into a bad seed. If a playoff produces enough money it could easily be that splitting money 9 or 10 ways instead of 12 would make more sense than a title game and splitting 12 ways. If that happens contraction could be the new expansion.

Barring a playoff, the top of the heap should be more stable than we've seen since the early 80's. Down below them, inefficiency rules. Most conferences could get better regional television packages if not for the fact that they have so many games that cross regions (as determined by cable networks, not common sense). The bowl alignments these schools have basically revolve around how much cash the league has to guarantee the deals and the bowl committee's best guess on what attendance would be if the right (ie. fairly local) teams make the game and if the wrong team makes it (ie. the long drive teams). Efficient line-ups place more teams in the same regional sports network coverage area and reduce the number of teams that could end up driving a long way to get to a bowl.

The Mountain West and MAC are in most efficient line-ups. Relatively geographic compactness except for the great TCU and Temple experiments designed to maximize TV and in the case of TCU, open the BCS door. The core six schools of the MWC can reach each other by bus quite easily if they choose to do so.

The WAC is middle of the pack in efficiency. Only one school is within 3 hours of another.

The Sun Belt and CUSA are at the bottom in efficiency. CUSA mitigates it to some degree with divisions yet as has been noted by the ECU AD, their fans don't give a rip about playing the Texas teams and vice versa.

[nautique]

Who would be the ideal conference foes in football for North Texas?

SMU, TCU, Rice, Houston, Tulsa, Texas State, UTEP, and some or all the Academies.

Play one or two money games and that's it.

Basketball has schools playing AA football but D-1 B-ball, why couldn't that be the same in baseball?

Traveling costs are going to eat up any potential profits for the Sunbelt schools. As far as fans, No one is going to travel with fuel prices reaching $4 to $5 a gallon.

Edited April 22, 2008 by nautique

[KAjunRaider]

On fourth down the officials marked the ball a foot behind the original line of scrimmage, measured and found ASU to be short by a couple inches.

Sounds almost exactly how we got hosed vs. Virginia. We had a 1st down to run out the clock (1:20 left-- UVa 1 timeout), and the refs put the ball a full yard behind where it should have been marked.

See for yourselves here http://www.goblueraiders.com/ondemand/play.../id/28047#28047 . Our coach should have thrown the flag, but did not, so in that regard it's our own fault. Then he punted instead of going for 4th and short, and UVa kicks a last second FG to win the game.

[AnotherEagleFan]

Sounds almost exactly how we got hosed vs. Virginia. We had a 1st down to run out the clock (1:20 left-- UVa 1 timeout), and the refs put the ball a full yard behind where it should have been marked.

See for yourselves here http://www.goblueraiders.com/ondemand/play.../id/28047#28047 . Our coach should have thrown the flag, but did not, so in that regard it's our own fault. Then he punted instead of going for 4th and short, and UVa kicks a last second FG to win the game.

I was at the game in question. ASU had a great QB. Southern Miss is know to have a bend but dont break defense. I knew at the half that (despite how bad Southern Miss was playing) we were going to win. ASU just could not put anything away. I was thinking the whole time what a year we would have had if we had their QB.

But the Sunbelt is a good conference that is getting better... It is a great place for UNT.

[the real grad88]

I believe travel expenses (fans and teams) will become the main issue that spurs the next round of shifting to more regional allignments within conferences, either by forming divisions or new members. Eventually the light will come on and a UNT/SMU game will be seen as more efficient and cost effective than a SMU/Marshall game. La Tech's fuel bill gets higher each year.

Exactly. Costs for team travel is going up exponentially. Who can justify midmajors playing across the country when they can play a school of equal athletic stature within a short drive. I really look to state governments to get involved. Coordination (and new laws) in fuel conservation measures within state institutions are in our near future. It may very well be this gas crisis that forces the hand of ego-driven schools to use common sense. The thing that makes the difference is that presidents of institutions now have (or will have) the rational that they need to do what they would like to have done a long time ago, but were prevented by deep pocket alums who prevent local matchups. Before it is over, even TCU may be looking for a change and join the group that I look to come together.

If oil goes to $200 a barrel like many in the industry are predicting, we are looking at a major cultural shift that will effect all aspects of our lives...including this one.