Conference that ought to but will never be. Epistle of Harry

[Arkstfan]

Thinking back over Harry's Epistle on realignment which was a great hammer/nail effort.

The Gang of Five (particularly Big East) are being driven by trying to do what the Rich 5 do. The problem with that is there is apparently insufficent value to drive a big national contract. Clearly nothing that remotely touches what the Rich 5 have and debatable that it can be significantly greater than CUSA much less MWC.

The only hope is that a newer player to the market (NBC Sports, the new Fox) will pay a premium merely to secure content and believes that there are enough national viewers vs any other available content to justify paying extra to lock that content in. This would require an NBCS vs. FoxS bidding war because ESPN will drop out quickly unless they want to pay a premium to keep NBCS or FoxS for getting it. I think ESPN drops out early because they aren't going to over-pay after Big East rejected the big offer.

So if you have a Big East that is now in the CUSA/Sun Belt/MAC realm of the nation deal being less about money and more about exposure, how do you drive maximum revenue? With regional TV. Drawing 1% of the national audience on a national channel gets you no premium, but let's say that you can draw the same number of viewers by only being available in 10% of the national market. Now you are drawing 10% of potential households for the network. That makes it more valuable for the network.

Look at Fox SW. It's divided into five zones that will carry different pro-content based on the NBA territorial limits but otherwise runs identical content across the zones as long as some black-out restriction or schedule conflict does not arise.

The Fox SW coverage area is: Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas with all but a sliver of Arkansas (during the NBA season due to territorial limits), parts of the Gulf Coast regions of Mississippi, Alabama and northern Florida (mainly again NBA territorial limits).

With a teams in each of Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas you've covered virtually the entire Fox SW system. Add a school near the Mississippi gulf coast and one in the far edge of Texas or southern New Mexico and you've covered every area of Fox SW coverage except the Alabama/Florida gulf coast area receiving Hornets coverage on Fox SW.

Fox SW covers 10.898% of the nations market.

With UTEP, Houston, Rice, SMU, UNT, UTSA, Tulsa, Tulane, ULL, La.Tech, Arkansas State, and Southern Miss you have a league that is present or reasonably strong in markets that make up 7.977% of the national market or 73% of the Fox SW market with areas I consider absent being Oklahoma City, Austin, Waco, Baton Rouge, Tyler, Corpus Christi, Amarillo, Lubbock, Wichita Falls, Abiliene, Laredo, and San Angelo.

I would think it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to assemble an over the air syndicated network across a big portion of this area and tap into local advertising dollars.

[VideoEagle]

This conference could hire a very small staff, just two or three, and fill in with contractors to own the network themselves. Plan on one "Game of the week" during football season and two or three a week during basketball season. They can rent a truck at a nice rate for an annual contract and get an annual rate on sattlite time as well. The conference can split the ads with the local stations and divide the profits with the conference members. Maybe even have an internet feed available trough someone like Amazon Video serices since the over the air broadcast will cover the production costs.

Yes, the confernce takes more of the risk but it should then get more of the reward for games that sell well.

Never happen happen though. It makes too much sense.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Have no idea of a timeline, but at some point I really do think ASU and ULaLa (or U of L) will be part of the new CUSA. I also think when that happens that the Sun Belt will have to hustle to stay in business.

GMG!

[Arkstfan]

Have no idea of a timeline, but at some point I really do think ASU and ULaLa (or U of L) will be part of the new CUSA. I also think when that happens that the Sun Belt will have to hustle to stay in business.

GMG!

I don't think Arkansas State will ever be in a Conference USA that has 10 or more of the current members. We don't fit the model.

Even if we did, CUSA is still a continuation of the same wrong thinking plaguing the Big East and CUSA of trying to be a national or multi-regional league with a national oriented revenue stream.

Until the thinking lines up with what MWC and MAC are doing, it will always be a mess in the south and east.

[techdawg88]

IA with the OP's conference except I can't see Tulane being in the same conference as ULL. The only reason they (Tulane) were willing to let Tech in was because we aren't as close to them geographically

[Harry]

IA with the OP's conference except I can't see Tulane being in the same conference as ULL. The only reason they (Tulane) were willing to let Tech in was because we aren't as close to them geographically

Out of interest -- have they ever been willing to schedule you guys? Can you recall the last time you played them? I have a feeling they may your version of what SMU is to us.

[techdawg88]

Out of interest -- have they ever been willing to schedule you guys? Can you recall the last time you played them? I have a feeling they may your version of what SMU is to us.

I don't think they care for us. We let their football team stay in a dorm that was scheduled to be demolished during Katrina, and all Tech heard were their players complaining about the state of the building they were living in

Edited January 10, 2013 by techdawg88

[JesseMartin]

That's pretty tacky. Tulane is a VERY nice school as far as academic reputation and standards, but really, somebody saves your ass by putting you in an "overflow" building and you're that snobby? I hope this is more of a rumor than a known fact. Not that this alone would alter my feelings about the school, but Tulane was on my short list for law school before I decided on grad school instead, and is one that I've considered for my sons in the future. If the standard attitude is to expect to be treated like a rock star everywhere you go, that's not something I want instilled in my kids in early adulthood.