RE: Life in the G5
A lot of activity to update on this subject, all of it pretty much involving money (actually, the lack of it) and the strain that is starting to become more intense with this field.
There is a separate thread on Idaho's decision to move over to the Big Sky and back home to FCS. That was a no brainer. Someone had run some numbers and shown their attendance never increased from their previous days in the Big Sky, they were playing in the same stadium and had no real rivals to work with.
More recently, Eastern Michigan and Akron from the MAC have raised red flags. The issue again is money - the amount they are spending/losing now looking almost obscene and indefensible for a University to be allocating on an athletic position. Doubtful any changes here as the MAC in total is not much different and they are logical members geographically. The decisions here would likely come down to whether they maintain their football programs at all. Eastern Michigan averages home attendance at roughly half the level of W&M.
ODU is encountering issues with the much discussed new stadium. They among all schools that moved up had all the right signals in my view, large fan base, large metro market with little competition - yet you can read the strain involved from comments through their AD. It seems to me that the quick pro/con money analysis they apparently conducted on moving CAA to CUSA was extremely inflated on the revenue side and grossly understated on the expenses. They are in a pool where the expenses are being driven by the really big programs - it's not going to slow down. I can't imagine ODU would turn back - the strain on the University though along with I would predict more years of losing on the field will be their reward for being able to play Tech and NC State occasionally. Not sure how long their fan base will support that. They have always impressed me as bandwagon fans who love supporting a winner, which they have had most of their life.
Now the latest - issues which in many ways mirror ODU - is the sudden strain at Coastal Carolina - who made a similar, snap decision to "move up" to the Sun Belt. Their issue is also a stadium (currently seats 9,000, about 75% of Zable's capacity). As of Thursday, the State of SC denied the funds requested for the expansion needed for a second time. Suddenly, CCU needs to find some private donors - and quickly - if they want to run down this course.
The arguments from CCU seem shallow and are part of the shell game proponents play on these moves. They included that there will be a new groundswell of alumni support when they made the announcement to FBS. This did not happen - now CCU is saying it will happen once they announce the stadium construction as confirmed (really?). Second, they are already counting money for body bag games lost as a "cost" of now having to reconsider. Meanwhile, the cost of entry keeps accelerating.
On one brighter side, UMass will now be bringing the bulk of their games back to Amherst as the Foxboro experiment was an utter failure. The stadium capacity though is the same as when they were in the CAA (17,000) and the opponents are lower G5 and FCS teams, not quite the upgrade expected for all the money spent and all the inconvenience this program put on their fan base. It would interesting to see the full income statement from the UMass move, how much this folly cost the tax payers in MA - all so a blustery, ego driven minority can at least pretend they are swimming with the big boys.
It's not a joy to watch all this as in the end, it hurts college football. Very similar to the housing bubble. You could see it coming. The shame is that unless the NCAA steps in to reorganize, a number of schools may just drop football altogether due to overextending,
(This post was last modified: 05-07-2016 09:09 AM by Sitting bull.)
|