(02-21-2013 09:10 AM)gocards#1 Wrote:  

(02-21-2013 12:09 AM)Texas2Step Wrote:  

(02-20-2013 10:18 PM)gocards#1 Wrote:  The MWC is less likely to lose members in the future. The Pac 12 and Big 10 don't want anybody from that conference, and it's a step above CUSA, the MAC, and the Sun Belt and at worst on equal footing with the Big East.

Meanwhile there isn't a team in the Big East right now that can't wait to jump. UConn is as good as gone at this point. That alone makes the MWC better in the long term. Who knows what the Big East will look like tomorrow?

When did UConn receive an invite? When did Cincinnati receive an invite? The only thing a reputable journalist can do is talk about reality, not hypothetical futures, when comparing the futures of two or more leagues. How would you react if he were comparing the Big 12 and ACC, and said "Well UNC/UVA/VTech/etc. are as good as gone, so let's just take them out of our analysis". Wouldn't make sense right?

The major sticking point of this whole analysis, is that with all of the crap the Big East has endured for the last 12 months, from the media and their own members alike, there is still a clear competitive advantage top to bottom over the MWC. You can talk about Boise's individual BCS runs in the WAC all you like, but the numbers as a league don't lie. The MWC needed historic seasons in the past 5 years from three schools who all lost their head coaches this off season, in order to even make it close with a conference who just added a couple of schools who have been not only CUSA, but national bottom dwellers for these past several years.

My point is that the Big East is unstable, the MWC is not. The thread was about the future of the two conferences, and I think the fact that everyone in the Big East wants to jump ASAP proves it doesn't have a very bright future. Compare that to the MWC, who just had two members thumb their noses at the Big East.

The Big East with Louisville and Rutgers gives it a competitive advantage over the MWC, without them the MWC is a better conference. Yes, the MWC has some God awful teams, but the top half of the conference is much better than the top half of the Big East going forward. The Big East is mostly average programs and crappy programs, the MWC is an elite program, a bunch of average programs, and a bunch of crappy programs. The two are similar, but the MWC is slightly better.

The MWC and Big East is full of teams that would leave for more money. Geography simply protects the MWC more as only 2 potential threats are there instead of 4 superior paying leagues in the BE footprint could possibly start a chain reaction that gets the BE raided.