(11-20-2012 11:33 AM)FIUFan Wrote: (11-20-2012 11:09 AM)arkstfan Wrote: Cute response, yet you would have been well served reading the remainder. The money gap is narrowing. As I pointed out yesterday. Big East has lost 1/3 of its TV footprint. That means their TV contract is going to look a helluva lot more like the MWC and CUSA deals than the new members had believed. The bulk of the CUSA contract is premium paid by alternate networks to accept presence on channels that draw few eyeballs. More viewers will see the MAC and Sun Belt in regular season games this year than saw CUSA and MWC.
But you're encouraging these fantastic realignment scenarios every time you say forget about the money as it is narrowing. As long as tv money is different, bowl game pay-outs are different, hoops units are different, etc., there's going to be a pecking order. And you can't play these 'Risk-like' games of haphazardly realigning conferences based on past history, regional rivalries and wish-lists.
It's been shown over and over again, there's only one thing that matters in all of this and that is future revenue potential. It sucks but that's the world we live in.
Let's look at where things are.
ESPN is reporting Boise, SDSU, and BYU are talking to the MWC. Why would that be?
Simple. The difference in money and bowls has narrowed so much that MWC may well make sense.
Consider this. I've been involved in an athletic program where basketball and football played in different conferences and there was little overlap in those schedules. That comes with a significant marketing cost. Boise is looking at a scenario where San Diego State is the only team on their football schedule that is consistently on their basketball schedule.
Bowl access. Either way for the elite, the game is the same. Be the highest ranked conference champ from among the non-AQ. Playoff be ranked 1-4. Either target is just as achievable in the MWC as in the Big East. (Past data says it is more achievable in MWC).
So what about bowls? Big East options look to be Orlando, Charlotte, New York, Birmingham, Memphis, St. Pete.
MWC options: Las Vegas, San Diego, Fort Worth, Hawaii, New Mexico.
In either case, Tater Bowl could be in the mix.
With each of these bowls very little cash is guaranteed, the bulk comes from ticket sales. Which set of bowls has the highest probability of producing strong sales among the Boise State fan base? Which set of bowls is played in areas Boise strongly recruits?
Which regular season schedule produces the most games in places where Boise concentrates its recruiting?
When this whole deal came up, the Boise president reportedly said they had to come up with $4 million in new revenue just to make the finances work. Anything less and they would end up worse off.
Based on the numbers out there, the financial gap for Boise is going to at best be $4 million and it may well end up being less.
Let's listen to ECU's athletic director. A few years back he was advocating that C-USA go to 16 teams despite the fact that there were not four schools out there that could be added without reducing the per team share of revenue. What sort of idiot proposes cutting revenue? The sort of idiot who understands that the balance sheet isn't simply revenue, it also includes expenses.
He proposed cutting revenue because the change would cut expenses even more. ECU would no longer travel to Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Non-revenue sports would fly less. Opponents would have greater regional name value driving ticket sales and increasing school revenue even though it would reduce league revenue.
You can think its my pie-in-the-sky thinking but take a look at the current CUSA. They went into the expansion process expecting to take UNT and maybe FIU. Four more teams came in, partly because they wanted to help alleviate the impact of the WAC being killed but in large part because they reached the conclusion that feeding more mouths while negatively impacting league distribution would cut expenses and hopefully drive local ticket sales. Your team is moving to a league that is following my advice.