The problem is that in all these scenarios

1) Every SBC team will lose CFP money as they'll be in a conference of 12 teams.
2) Exactly two SBC teams will have an overall shorter travel profile...App and Texas State. Every other team will have their travel increase.
3) There will be no more TV or other money for our schools
4) There will be no additional exposure for our schools

I say...lets wait it out for a couple of years and then take a team from the West and one from East from CUSA.

(04-08-2017 04:26 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  The problem is that in all these scenarios

1) Every SBC team will lose CFP money as they'll be in a conference of 12 teams.
2) Exactly two SBC teams will have an overall shorter travel profile...App and Texas State. Every other team will have their travel increase.
3) There will be no more TV or other money for our schools
4) There will be no additional exposure for our schools

I say...lets wait it out for a couple of years and then take a team from the West and one from East from CUSA.

Chasing pennies.

You can shuffle your hand over and over and it's still going to be the same hand.

I'm tired of musical chairs.

There is no magical conference alignment that will replace building your own program the hard way.

(04-08-2017 04:41 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(04-08-2017 04:26 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  The problem is that in all these scenarios

1) Every SBC team will lose CFP money as they'll be in a conference of 12 teams.
2) Exactly two SBC teams will have an overall shorter travel profile...App and Texas State. Every other team will have their travel increase.
3) There will be no more TV or other money for our schools
4) There will be no additional exposure for our schools

I say...lets wait it out for a couple of years and then take a team from the West and one from East from CUSA.

Chasing pennies.

You can shuffle your hand over and over and it's still going to be the same hand.

I'm tired of musical chairs.

There is no magical conference alignment that will replace building your own program the hard way.

Well, I mean if we got invited to the SEC, it would probably help a little.

(04-08-2017 04:43 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(04-08-2017 04:41 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(04-08-2017 04:26 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  The problem is that in all these scenarios

1) Every SBC team will lose CFP money as they'll be in a conference of 12 teams.
2) Exactly two SBC teams will have an overall shorter travel profile...App and Texas State. Every other team will have their travel increase.
3) There will be no more TV or other money for our schools
4) There will be no additional exposure for our schools

I say...lets wait it out for a couple of years and then take a team from the West and one from East from CUSA.

Chasing pennies.

You can shuffle your hand over and over and it's still going to be the same hand.

I'm tired of musical chairs.

There is no magical conference alignment that will replace building your own program the hard way.

Well, I mean if we got invited to the SEC, it would probably help a little.

Me winning that $500 million lottery a couple of years ago would have helped a lot too.

(04-08-2017 08:35 AM)Saint3333 Wrote:  http://pilotonline.com/sports/college/ol...abcf2.html

Anyone else find it funny that CUSA ADs are beginning to push for realignment.

It feels like the eastern based CUSA ADs are more willing to explore this idea. Perhaps I'm not as familiar with western news outlets to understand if the western members are as open.

I'm not so sure the SBC has as large an issue with travel based upon moves made and upcoming.

I don't follow western news outlets either but I do hear a lot of news out of NC.
http://www.greensboro.com/gnr/ed-hardin-...30e52.html


Note: If anyone saw this post before I edited it, I apologize. My brothers name is Sterling and today's his birthday.

(04-08-2017 04:41 PM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(04-08-2017 04:26 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  The problem is that in all these scenarios

1) Every SBC team will lose CFP money as they'll be in a conference of 12 teams.
2) Exactly two SBC teams will have an overall shorter travel profile...App and Texas State. Every other team will have their travel increase.
3) There will be no more TV or other money for our schools
4) There will be no additional exposure for our schools

I say...lets wait it out for a couple of years and then take a team from the West and one from East from CUSA.

Chasing pennies.

You can shuffle your hand over and over and it's still going to be the same hand.

I'm tired of musical chairs.

There is no magical conference alignment that will replace building your own program the hard way.

It depends. You split the CFP money 12 ways instead of 10 what we each get drops 17%. The question is whether the new members could increase our payouts at least 20%. It's not that cut-and-dry.

And there's probably no alignment of schools that will make the TV contract worth what the AAC is, but we could probably get it up to at least mid 6 figures with the right adds.

I don't think the math is as easy as you say it is.

I'll tell you what is definitely chasing pennies...realigning to cut travel costs. If we do that every SBC member could potentially end up in a conference that is worse in both football and basketball.

(04-08-2017 08:35 AM)Saint3333 Wrote:  http://pilotonline.com/sports/college/ol...abcf2.html

Anyone else find it funny that CUSA ADs are beginning to push for realignment.

It feels like the eastern based CUSA ADs are more willing to explore this idea. Perhaps I'm not as familiar with western news outlets to understand if the western members are as open.

I'm not so sure the SBC has as large an issue with travel based upon moves made and upcoming.

this is a c-usa problem not a G5. MW and MAC are fine as they are with regards to c-usa teams, and AAC just made its last move for awhile. this is all one sided talk, based on c-usa doom and gloom situation they now find themselves in. has anyone considered you wont find enough members of the sunbelt to go along with this merger idea.

(04-08-2017 09:28 AM)Saint3333 Wrote:  JMU was mentioned again, but unless CUSA loses a member I'm not sure there's room at the inn.

I don't think Minimum can write a CUSA column anymore without trying to include JMU in the discussion somehow.

My guess is Wood Selig slips him a $20 every time he does either to poke at the Dukes or because they really want to limit their travel as much as possible.

I'm past wanting JMU in the Sun Belt. Would have been nice.

I'm going to pile on and say this is CUSA problem and not one they'll find an easy answer for. You look around at peer conferences and they're all pretty stable. There's no real upside to realignment other than geography. Will MAC, Sunbelt see any great benefit from this? Educate me if I'm wrong but not enough to see any stampede to bail them out now that their money has dried up. Now if the P5 comes raiding on the AAC, everything goes into turmoil. That creates a whole new set of dynamics.

If the SBC has strong leadership, this doesn't effect us. I could see this being the beginning of the division of CUSA. The western teams breaking off, they could take TxSt, and I would understand.

The new western conference would be

UTSA
NMSU
UTEP
TXSt
Rice
LaTech
North Texas
And possibly three more FCS call ups

Eastern half becomes

Everyone else minus USM as we pick them up to take TxSt place.
They could include Liberty, JMU, and any other eastern FCS that wants to move up.

We stay at 10, with room for UTA and LR if the football talks continue.

(04-08-2017 10:40 AM)Fanof49ASU Wrote:  

(04-08-2017 10:29 AM)chiefsfan Wrote:  The interesting difference here is that the SBC is more prepared for financial issues than most of CUSA because we never had TV money to begin with. Any TV money we actually get is a certain raise.

Many CUSA programs built athletic budgets around 7 figure TV revenue. Now they get 200K. That's tough for anyone at this level to deal with. Problem is, there are certain CUSA programs who would rather face football obscurity than join the Sun Belt.

Not to mention the CUSA schools are still paying off that entrance/exit fee.

They need change much more than us. Let's wait and see what happens. We have a good thing going. Let's not dilute it too quickly.

No one in CUSA is paying off entrance/exit fee. The only two schools that paid any exit fees were FIU and Middle. Western was the last school added and the entrance fees were paid by CUSA TV dollars that Western received.

The only schools paying more in travel is the east coast schools.....

Western is paying less travel cost today than when we was in the SBC. So I assume that will be the same for Middle. I know Tech is paying less than they were in the WAC.

Football and basketball travel is not changing unless you are truly in a bus league. The SBC and CUSA is not bus leagues and there really isn't any way to combine the two into bus leagues. For Western it's cheaper flying to Miami than it was Texas or ULL. Anything over 4 or 5 hours away teams will fly. Anyways below is the travel cost for most of Western's sports programs

from our last year in SBC to our 2nd year in CUSA. I don't think most of CUSA is in the same boat as a ODU. I also don't think any school in CUSA is joining the SBC (or the other way either) just to save $300,000 to $500,000 a year. It's not worth it.

If there's a shake up in schools between the two conference....it will most likely be a power play. Other words..something like this for a very good basketball/football 9 team conference. I added a Fla school because I know Western wants in a conference with 1 Fla school and so does Marshall and I assume Middle since we all recruit t hard. But if you remove FIU and add ASU it really its push the MWC and the AAC in football and can grow into just as good of a basketball conference.

Travel partners
Marshall/Western
Middle/UAB
S.Miss/USA
Tech/ULL
FIU

Below are the part of the expenditures (actual cost) and budgets (line item-est)for Western's football and two basketball teams. The first picture is used to put the columns by the year. The fist year Western was in the SBC. Budgets & expenditures usually will not match. In sports most of the time the expenditures will run 10% or so over the budget on things that are fluid, like travel cost.

But I do have the 2016-2017 Western budget and it shows the expenditures 2014-15 our first year in CUSA and travel cost is still lower overall when you take out the bowl travel cost.




Below are the travel

Men basketball



LadyToppers



football



Here's a few other sports

baseball


softball


track (men)


track(lady's)


V-ball

(04-08-2017 08:27 PM)Usajags Wrote:  If the SBC has strong leadership, this doesn't effect us. I could see this being the beginning of the division of CUSA. The western teams breaking off, they could take TxSt, and I would understand.

The new western conference would be

UTSA
NMSU
UTEP
TXSt
Rice
LaTech
North Texas
And possibly three more FCS call ups

Eastern half becomes

Everyone else minus USM as we pick them up to take TxSt place.
They could include Liberty, JMU, and any other eastern FCS that wants to move up.

We stay at 10, with room for UTA and LR if the football talks continue.

Dream on.

You can pretty much split these conferences up using I-65 as the dividing line. USA UAB MTSU WKU are the four programs that can go either west or east. Of course all of this will need the approval of the "P5" conferences. They could end up giving us less money in the end if we all decide to do this.

I can envision a couple of new conferences forming out of current SBC and CUSA members. I don't, however, see EVERY current member of the two current conferences making the cut. If the current 24 all sports members reconfigure themselves into two new 8, 9, or 10 member conferences, it would be catastrophic for 4 to 6 universities. I look for lots of new inter-conference alliances to start forming. Nobody will want to be left out of any new alignment that happens, but the cold hard fact is that some will be. The universities that I think are on the bubble early are, in order, ULM, Coastal Carolina, FAU, FIU, GA State, and TX State.

Listing six schools is an interesting place for a LA Tech fan to stop.

If either conference were picking teams for a new hypothetical conference GA St and Texas St would be ahead of LA Tech don't kid yourself.

(04-09-2017 07:22 AM)Saint3333 Wrote:  Listing six schools is an interesting place for a LA Tech fan to stop.

If either conference were picking teams for a new hypothetical conference GA St and Texas St would be ahead of LA Tech don't kid yourself.

If you actually believe that, you have no idea of what university presidents look for in conference mates.

As far as stopping at six goes, I stopped at six because I don't see two 8 member conferences forming, but who knows? App State's position might very well indeed be in jeopardy.

The only conferences txst will leave the Sun Belt for is the MWC or AAC (obviously a P5 too but let's be realistic) other than that we are here for the long haul. I agree that this is a CUSA problem not a G5 problem. Let them die and pick up the schools we want and the rest can start a new league with FCS call-ups. There is no incentive to split up both conferences when we could just wait and become the clear cut dominant conference of the two.

(04-09-2017 07:38 AM)BRtransplant Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 07:22 AM)Saint3333 Wrote:  Listing six schools is an interesting place for a LA Tech fan to stop.

If either conference were picking teams for a new hypothetical conference GA St and Texas St would be ahead of LA Tech don't kid yourself.

If you actually believe that, you have no idea of what university presidents look for in conference mates.

As far as stopping at six goes, I stopped at six because I don't see two 8 member conferences forming, but who knows? App State's position might very well indeed be in jeopardy.

Schools that are good at sports? That's why I'm wondering why you listed La Tech in this hypothetical conference? Not even good in a bad CUSA conference.

(04-09-2017 07:38 AM)BRtransplant Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 07:22 AM)Saint3333 Wrote:  Listing six schools is an interesting place for a LA Tech fan to stop.

If either conference were picking teams for a new hypothetical conference GA St and Texas St would be ahead of LA Tech don't kid yourself.

If you actually believe that, you have no idea of what university presidents look for in conference mates.

As far as stopping at six goes, I stopped at six because I don't see two 8 member conferences forming, but who knows? App State's position might very well indeed be in jeopardy.

Yes I really do believe that, no one else on this board believes LA Tech is driving any decisions. Your failure to realize the rest of the conference doesn't care about your dislike of ULM will be a fun meltdown to watch in the near future.

ODU's AD doesn't seem to agree with your last statement.

CUSA could become the achilles heel of the G5. They've become the poster child for bad decisions and best define the struggles of university athletics in the current system. Just when things seem to be working for the rest of us the one bad apple could spoil the bunch.