(04-11-2013 08:43 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-10-2013 11:29 PM)stever20 Wrote:  The problem with your logic is you are putting things like tickets etc in there which is a totally different ball of wax.

I mean- and I've proven it- it's almost going to be impossible for a 16 team CUSA to match a 12 team SBC in football playoff revenue. The ONLY way is if they are either the top conference or get the representative in the playoff. Both are extremely unlikely with MWC and AAC on the prowl. While football money isn't everything, it's a pretty big thing. The NCAA units are almost a total wash. The other things will be the ultimate differential- but a 16 team CUSA would likely be down about 225k per school. That's not chump change at all. NCAA units won't make that difference up. Likely FB money, NCAA units, plus league TV money would total be equal between 16 team CUSA and 12 team SBC. Travel between SBC and CUSA isn't going to be a 300k difference like you are trying to infer. It just won't.

First any business model that excludes consideration of the impact of a change on the two largest revenue streams of most schools is a bad model.

That's like telling Apple to ignore the profit from selling iPads and iPhones and let's just talk about iTunes and App store profits that aren't high enough and they should focus on increasing those profits with higher prices or a higher commission on sales even if it negatively impacts the sale of phones and tablets.

Conference revenue is generally less than one-third of revenue for college athletic programs. The exception being lower performing schools in the Rich 5 leagues.

Your first priority is to enhance the real money. Tickets sold and donations.

Everyone is lining up their conferences to maximize income that is ancillary to the business when the focus should be to maximize the income that is the core business.

I don't believe UCF or Temple or USF builds the eagerness of Tulane or Houston or Tulsa fans to purchase tickets or donate to compete against them (or make the ticket a valuable commodity that permits forcibly extracting donations from potential ticket buyers). That simply defies belief.

The assumption here is that the local small no-name schools will sell more tickets. Why would that be the case? Do local small no name bands sell more tickets than moderately well known bands from elsewhere?

The CUSA schools were not much of a draw in Houston and they represented the better more well known names in non-AQ football at the time. Just because Sam Houston State and Lamar are about an hours drive from Houston isnt going to mean an increase in ticket sales. Folks in Houston dont drive an hour to see thier games in Beaumont or Huntsville. Heck, attendance in Huntsville and Beaumont from local citizens is pretty underwelming.

Fact is, given non-name opponents, the casual fan in Houston might rather spend that dicretionary money on Astros tickets or Texasns tickets. Maybe they'd rather just stay home and watch Texas play on tv. There is a reason that the AAC schools are willing to travel farther to play a different level of competition.

Are UConn, Temple, ECU, USF, and Navy on the same level as Texas and Florida State? Nope. But they are more well known than most of the teams that currently make up the Sunbelt or CUSA. They have a similar commitment to athletics (read as atheletic budget) and they are peer universities. Will they result in large increases in local attendance--probably not. Maybe a little at best. However, the national TV contract that has us playing games on ESPN and ABC rather than CBS-Sports and CSS might help some.

Besides, I think many miss the entire point of modern college athletics--especially at the mid-major level. It has nothing to do with the athletic department making money. Hardly any athletic departments actually make money. Though they all would love love love to make money---they are mostly all money losers. So why do they exist?

The athletic departments have become a major PR and advertising arm of the university. Every year every high school senior and junior gets tons of mailers from universities hoping for thier tuition money in a future fall. Most of these mailers get immediately thown in the garbage. The ones that get a second look are the schools the kid has heard of.

When Houston plays football in Philly, the University of Houston will get print articles in the paper for a week. The game will be on national television (supposedly) and get a nice audience in Philly. Thousands will actually be at the game. The game scores and recap will be on the Philly news and in the Philly newspaper on Sunday. You cant buy that kind of exposure and increased name recognition any other way. People pay far more attention to this than they would any advertisement you could buy.

Thats what todays modern athletic departments do for todays universites---they increase school awareness and are a driver of enrollment. Looking at the athletic budget expenses and revenue figures doesnt tell the entire story. This is one of the big reasons the Houston administration prefers the east to the west--more money and people (read as potential students) in the east.