(03-26-2014 12:30 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(03-26-2014 10:09 AM)JMU2004 Wrote:  

(03-26-2014 10:01 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  What is the fascination with bringing in schools who would look around and say, "Yep. Good 'nuff. I'm content to be this and nothing more"?

simple. It's insecurity.

Every Single Member of the SBC would listen if another FBS conference came calling. JMU gets crucified because we are looking out for our own interests? huh?

It's like we're supposed to bow and beg for inclusion.

If JMU joins the SBC, it's because both sides see it as beneficial.

While I've stated at length that my sense of the mood at AState is our fans don't really give a rip about C-USA since Tulsa, Memphis, SMU, and Houston left, with only USM left as a school our fans WANT to play, there is no question AState would talk to ANY of the other four FBS leagues if contacted and weigh what they have to say. That's just what you do.

But if JMU's intention is to be FBS, the reality is that the rules say you must have an invitation from an existing FBS league. There are only 10 groups capable of providing JMU with the essential pre-requisite to FBS members. You can scratch the P5 leagues and MWC and JMU's own study concluded that AAC was improbable as well.

That leaves three entities controlling whether JMU can enter FBS.

The CFP agreement contains an economic disincentive for any conference to expand past 12 while offering no incentive to expand beyond the bare eight required to be a conference (the CFP that is). For example the MAC membership would lose roughly $66,000 per member by going to 14. A new member for the MAC has to be worth $924,000 in new revenue on an annual basis just to be revenue neutral and that does not take into account the impact of an additional share of basketball revenue.

C-USA to add two members if their TV numbers remain static, needs $3.7 million from the new members to be revenue neutral before accounting for two more shares of the basketball pie.

Neither the MAC nor C-USA gain the bonus of added revenue from a conference title game if they expand.

Their decision to expand rests rather firmly within the hands of the TV executives.

The Sun Belt's $1 million per football member remains static if the Sun Belt adds a 12th football member and with conference likely taking the lions share of gate receipts from the school hosting the title game and having a new product to sell to television the league is basically assured that a new addition is at worst revenue neutral and likely revenue positive.

The question simply boils down to whether JMU desires to be FBS in football. If FBS football is part of the identity JMU wants, the study commissioned by the school reflects that from an economic stand-point there is no fundamental difference in C-USA, Sun Belt, and MAC for JMU.

The remaining differences are window dressing and more significantly as I've noted before, this isn't an issue of trying to remain pure for your wedding night. It is an issue of becoming the most attractive candidate for the desired home. TCU desired membership in the Big XII, to become the most attractive candidate they had to go to the WAC, then C-USA, then MWC, and was headed to Big East when the call came.

When La.Tech and Boise State went to the WAC, conventional wisdom said the MWC would eventually raid the WAC leaving a few western stragglers and SMU, Rice, Tulsa, UTEP and La.Tech would determine the fate and future additions. The expectation was the WAC would eventually be the fabled "new Southwest Conference". Instead before that could happen, the ACC raided the Big East, the Big East raided C-USA, and C-USA took two MAC and eventually four of the five schools on the WAC's eastern flank. The MWC did eventually gut the WAC but there was no new SWC because there were not enough teams left.

You can't pick the future.

JMU might opt to wait for the MAC and the MAC might end up losing UMass, Buffalo and Ohio to the AAC or a new league and sitting in FCS with no FBS track record, be passed over and the MAC (as the ACC learned with Va.Tech) might get hometown politicked. You have Indiana State and Illinois State who have made a bit of noise about maybe going FBS. What if they are ready and NIU and Ball State go to the meeting under orders that they cannot vote for any expansion that doesn't include little brother? What if the MAC concludes their best way to compete with MWC and AAC is to go into the deep south rather than the coastal south?

What happens if Big XII chooses to become 12 again and raids AAC and one of the AAC replacements is from CUSA west and one is UMass? MAC has no pressing need to get to 14 and CUSA takes a western Sun Belt.

It's all unknown until it happens and it rarely plays out as forecast.

That's why the question is do you want to be FBS? If the answer is yes, you take the bird in hand and position yourself as best possible for where you want to go next.