(01-17-2020 01:11 PM)BearcatJerry Wrote:  

(01-17-2020 11:01 AM)Tiger1983 Wrote:  

(01-17-2020 10:44 AM)KNIGHTTIME Wrote:  

(01-17-2020 10:19 AM)BearcatJerry Wrote:  Not sure why people keep thrashing uConn... They won't be our problem much longer.

Good luck in the (new) Big East. Enjoy your new conference mates (like Xavier and Creighton)...

I'm not thrashing them. It is a win-win. UConn can focus on hoops which is the route they are going. The AAC drops the giant anchor in football. The Div 1 thing just isn't feasible so it will be a smart move as they move to FCS in a few years.

And UConn pays an exit fee...

Although I think the long term positive impact of UConn’s surrender is debatable, I do not fault them for pursuing their perceived self interest.

What irks me is the notion nurtured by many UConn followers and some media members that the AAC is somehow responsible for their problems rather than assigning the rightful blame only upon themselves.

And how's it going trying to convince them otherwise?:coffee3:

One can only show the wayward the path. It is up to the lost to take it.

(01-16-2020 09:47 PM)MemphisFan95 Wrote:  I never understand the it will help us recruit basketball better argument.... Memphis had top 10 classes in the suckhole CUSA conferences don't matter in recruiting

That's probably because you didn't fully read the argument he was making, or at least you didn't fully comprehend it. Memphis is a city known for its basketball recruits, and the school is centrally located within the AAC; there are plenty of games within driving distance a recruit's family can attend, so Memphis does not face the same issue despite being in the same conference. He made the point we are geographically on an island, which hurt our ability to recruit NY because it was a lot harder for a recruit's family to attend their games.

To his point, we're bringing in 2 more great recruits next year, one from NY and one from Canada, who cited our move back to the Big East and their families' ability to watch them play as reasons for ultimately choosing UConn

(01-16-2020 10:09 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 09:32 PM)UConnHusky Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 08:57 PM)Tiger1983 Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 07:46 PM)UConnHusky Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 05:05 PM)Tiger1983 Wrote:  UConn has P5 expenses on a P6 budget. Rather than scale back like the rest of us (eg, cut salaries and positions), the Administration decided to surrender and kill football while hoodwinking desperate fans that a return to the BE will cure all.

UConn has P5 expenses on a “G5” (FIFY) budget since we are the only school in this conference to win a national title (multiple ones) in a revenue sport in the last 60 years that doesn’t have an asterisk attached to it. We have dumped tons of money on facilities and, unlike Memphis being neatly tucked into the center of this conference, almost every game for us in a cash burning flight of 1200-1700 miles. Mike Aresco even complained about his travel to conference schools from Providence. So, it is okay for student athletes to deal with that travel when our overpaid commissioner is whining about it?

The Big East makes geographic and competitive sense. It will help our men’s hoop team recruit (no northeast recruit wants to deal with AAC crazy travel from New England) and our women’s team may finally find a team that can beat them.

As for football, we were smart enough to realize that G5 football is a scam created by the P5. G5 schools burn crazy amounts of money to maybe play in a New Year’s bowl that still doesn’t really mean anything. There is no chance for a national title and most available AAC bowl games are pretty lame tie-ins to teams nobody cares about.

UConn knows that there are no seats left at the P5 table and there will never be an official “P6”.... ever.

As a northeastern basketball school, we did what was best for us. You just do you and we won’t judge your decisions.

UConn has an enormous budget deficit. It is entirely UConn’s fault. UConn is nearly the worse team in football. It is entirely UConn’s fault. UConn has underachieved in basketball since their NC (even Memphis has performed better). It is entirely UConn’s fault.

Face it, your school surrendered because the AAC was too tough.

The deficit is certainly a lot of UConn’s fault. Having a football team that is terrible and can no longer draw a crowd as a result of being terrible is definitely UConn’s fault (that sport has been terribly mismanaged by our administration).

Men’s basketball is different, though. Our bread and butter was always recruiting NYC and those recruits don’t care about playing in the AAC. It is too far for a recruit’s family to see them play any road games and the tournament is now in Fort Worth (which may as well be on the moon from where we are). If you are in Memphis, Dallas, Houston, or Wichita the geographic reality is much different. Even flying in from Cincinnati is much closer.

We surrendered because it was a poor geographic fit that involved playing schools with whom we have no history. You all for the most part were in CUSA together (and for Temple and Wichita, this was a step up from the A-10 and MVC respectively). UConn’s history is the Big East and NYC. It will be nice to be “home” again up north.

NYC doesn't give a $hit about UConn all your games were blacked out

Lol. He was talking about recruiting NYC, so whether or not people in NYC watch our games is irrelevant. But even so, there are plenty of UConn alums in NYC that regularly watch UConn games so not sure what you're talking about

(01-17-2020 01:12 PM)panama Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 08:53 AM)The Knight Time Wrote:  And football alone lost $10M.

If UConn were a business, it would have been put out of its' misery long ago.

http://www.courant.com/sports/hc-sp-ucon...story.html

From the article:

Though the athletic department’s deficit remains one of the highest in the nation, the figure is, in some ways, less dramatic than “$42 million” makes it sound. Sports economists, note that the “expenses” side of a school’s ledger typically counts each scholarship as costing the full rate of tuition, even though money doesn’t actually change hands when athletes attend school for free. Additionally, UConn pays more than $3.5 million in rent each year to the publicly run Capital Region Development Authority — money that effectively returns to the department through state subsidies to the university.

University officials also point out that UConn derives intangible benefits from a robust athletic department, such as school spirit and alumni engagement. A 2019 Courant analysis found that applications to the school spike following years when the men’s and women’s basketball programs have had successful seasons.



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Do you have a cite for the idea that athletics doesn’t actually send cash to the academic side to pay for a scholarship? My background in public sector budgeting and finance disagrees, but I’m not a CPA, so I may have a hole in my public sector accounting knowledge.

It was the Randy Edsall performance incentives that broke the bank at UConn.

(01-16-2020 09:47 PM)MemphisFan95 Wrote:  I never understand the it will help us recruit basketball better argument.... Memphis had top 10 classes in the suckhole CUSA conferences don't matter in recruiting

On top of that... Wichita has had multiple players from the NE... They have 2 on this year's team alone. If Gregg Marshall can get them to come play 75% of their games all the way in Wichita, then UConn can get them to play 25% away from the NE.

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(01-17-2020 01:32 PM)Nameless Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 10:09 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 09:32 PM)UConnHusky Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 08:57 PM)Tiger1983 Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 07:46 PM)UConnHusky Wrote:  UConn has P5 expenses on a “G5” (FIFY) budget since we are the only school in this conference to win a national title (multiple ones) in a revenue sport in the last 60 years that doesn’t have an asterisk attached to it. We have dumped tons of money on facilities and, unlike Memphis being neatly tucked into the center of this conference, almost every game for us in a cash burning flight of 1200-1700 miles. Mike Aresco even complained about his travel to conference schools from Providence. So, it is okay for student athletes to deal with that travel when our overpaid commissioner is whining about it?

The Big East makes geographic and competitive sense. It will help our men’s hoop team recruit (no northeast recruit wants to deal with AAC crazy travel from New England) and our women’s team may finally find a team that can beat them.

As for football, we were smart enough to realize that G5 football is a scam created by the P5. G5 schools burn crazy amounts of money to maybe play in a New Year’s bowl that still doesn’t really mean anything. There is no chance for a national title and most available AAC bowl games are pretty lame tie-ins to teams nobody cares about.

UConn knows that there are no seats left at the P5 table and there will never be an official “P6”.... ever.

As a northeastern basketball school, we did what was best for us. You just do you and we won’t judge your decisions.

UConn has an enormous budget deficit. It is entirely UConn’s fault. UConn is nearly the worse team in football. It is entirely UConn’s fault. UConn has underachieved in basketball since their NC (even Memphis has performed better). It is entirely UConn’s fault.

Face it, your school surrendered because the AAC was too tough.

The deficit is certainly a lot of UConn’s fault. Having a football team that is terrible and can no longer draw a crowd as a result of being terrible is definitely UConn’s fault (that sport has been terribly mismanaged by our administration).

Men’s basketball is different, though. Our bread and butter was always recruiting NYC and those recruits don’t care about playing in the AAC. It is too far for a recruit’s family to see them play any road games and the tournament is now in Fort Worth (which may as well be on the moon from where we are). If you are in Memphis, Dallas, Houston, or Wichita the geographic reality is much different. Even flying in from Cincinnati is much closer.

We surrendered because it was a poor geographic fit that involved playing schools with whom we have no history. You all for the most part were in CUSA together (and for Temple and Wichita, this was a step up from the A-10 and MVC respectively). UConn’s history is the Big East and NYC. It will be nice to be “home” again up north.

NYC doesn't give a $hit about UConn all your games were blacked out

Lol. He was talking about recruiting NYC, so whether or not people in NYC watch our games is irrelevant. But even so, there are plenty of UConn alums in NYC that regularly watch UConn games so not sure what you're talking about

Only if they have SNY... SNY is in a separate package than ESPN so in essence it would be cheaper to subscribe to ESPN+ to watch UConn than what it costs to subscribe to the package that contains SNY, furthermore, it is cheaper to subscribe to ESPN+ to watch UConn than what it costs to subscribe to the package that contains FS1 and FS2.

(01-16-2020 07:46 PM)UConnHusky Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 05:05 PM)Tiger1983 Wrote:  UConn has P5 expenses on a P6 budget. Rather than scale back like the rest of us (eg, cut salaries and positions), the Administration decided to surrender and kill football while hoodwinking desperate fans that a return to the BE will cure all.

UConn has P5 expenses on a “G5” (FIFY) budget since we are the only school in this conference to win a national title (multiple ones) in a revenue sport in the last 60 years that doesn’t have an asterisk attached to it. We have dumped tons of money on facilities and, unlike Memphis being neatly tucked into the center of this conference, almost every game for us in a cash burning flight of 1200-1700 miles. Mike Aresco even complained about his travel to conference schools from Providence. So, it is okay for student athletes to deal with that travel when our overpaid commissioner is whining about it?

The Big East makes geographic and competitive sense. It will help our men’s hoop team recruit (no northeast recruit wants to deal with AAC crazy travel from New England) and our women’s team may finally find a team that can beat them.

As for football, we were smart enough to realize that G5 football is a scam created by the P5. G5 schools burn crazy amounts of money to maybe play in a New Year’s bowl that still doesn’t really mean anything. There is no chance for a national title and most available AAC bowl games are pretty lame tie-ins to teams nobody cares about.

UConn knows that there are no seats left at the P5 table and there will never be an official “P6”.... ever.

As a northeastern basketball school, we did what was best for us. You just do you and we won’t judge your decisions.

You guys keep talking about basketball championships. Honestly, most of the debate is about football. You can keep spinning this like you went to an elite BB conference... but it's really just a (relatively) lateral move made to excuse killing FB. You already proved you can win big from the AAC, negating your own argument.

As for P6, your negative hopes are ridiculous. There certainly can be a P6, or close to it, if the AAC can get even more money next round and secure a NY6 bowl. Given our track record in only a few years of existence, that's very feasible. P6 does not mean we become the SEC. It means we keep up with them, once the SBC, cUSA, etc. fall away.

Good luck though...

The old big east screwed them. The promise of BCS money and help to compete
at the D1 level. If not for the implosion of the BE, UConn would be making 15+ million easily while still in a basketball conference.

They never would have went the D1 without the old BE prodding them to do so.
UConn was artificially inflated into a BCS conference. They are just going back where they should be. They took their shot, it didn't work out. Just that easy.

(01-17-2020 04:49 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  

(01-17-2020 01:32 PM)Nameless Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 10:09 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 09:32 PM)UConnHusky Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 08:57 PM)Tiger1983 Wrote:  UConn has an enormous budget deficit. It is entirely UConn’s fault. UConn is nearly the worse team in football. It is entirely UConn’s fault. UConn has underachieved in basketball since their NC (even Memphis has performed better). It is entirely UConn’s fault.

Face it, your school surrendered because the AAC was too tough.

The deficit is certainly a lot of UConn’s fault. Having a football team that is terrible and can no longer draw a crowd as a result of being terrible is definitely UConn’s fault (that sport has been terribly mismanaged by our administration).

Men’s basketball is different, though. Our bread and butter was always recruiting NYC and those recruits don’t care about playing in the AAC. It is too far for a recruit’s family to see them play any road games and the tournament is now in Fort Worth (which may as well be on the moon from where we are). If you are in Memphis, Dallas, Houston, or Wichita the geographic reality is much different. Even flying in from Cincinnati is much closer.

We surrendered because it was a poor geographic fit that involved playing schools with whom we have no history. You all for the most part were in CUSA together (and for Temple and Wichita, this was a step up from the A-10 and MVC respectively). UConn’s history is the Big East and NYC. It will be nice to be “home” again up north.

NYC doesn't give a $hit about UConn all your games were blacked out

Lol. He was talking about recruiting NYC, so whether or not people in NYC watch our games is irrelevant. But even so, there are plenty of UConn alums in NYC that regularly watch UConn games so not sure what you're talking about

Only if they have SNY... SNY is in a separate package than ESPN so in essence it would be cheaper to subscribe to ESPN+ to watch UConn than what it costs to subscribe to the package that contains SNY, furthermore, it is cheaper to subscribe to ESPN+ to watch UConn than what it costs to subscribe to the package that contains FS1 and FS2.

LMFAO... So NYC doesn't give a crap about UConn because SNY, a regional NY sports network, has sublicensed their games from ESPN, leading to a blackout on ESPN's main channel in regions SNY is covering those games? Yea, sound logic

If you want to make an argument that it is cheaper for UConn fans to watch UConn athletics on ESPN and ESPN+ then fine, but stop moving the goalposts. That has nothing to do with anything we were discussing here, and I don't think anyone has even tried to make an argument stating fs1/2 is a cheaper alternative to watching UConn than ESPN+

(01-17-2020 04:49 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  

(01-17-2020 01:32 PM)Nameless Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 10:09 PM)GoOwls111 Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 09:32 PM)UConnHusky Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 08:57 PM)Tiger1983 Wrote:  UConn has an enormous budget deficit. It is entirely UConn’s fault. UConn is nearly the worse team in football. It is entirely UConn’s fault. UConn has underachieved in basketball since their NC (even Memphis has performed better). It is entirely UConn’s fault.

Face it, your school surrendered because the AAC was too tough.

The deficit is certainly a lot of UConn’s fault. Having a football team that is terrible and can no longer draw a crowd as a result of being terrible is definitely UConn’s fault (that sport has been terribly mismanaged by our administration).

Men’s basketball is different, though. Our bread and butter was always recruiting NYC and those recruits don’t care about playing in the AAC. It is too far for a recruit’s family to see them play any road games and the tournament is now in Fort Worth (which may as well be on the moon from where we are). If you are in Memphis, Dallas, Houston, or Wichita the geographic reality is much different. Even flying in from Cincinnati is much closer.

We surrendered because it was a poor geographic fit that involved playing schools with whom we have no history. You all for the most part were in CUSA together (and for Temple and Wichita, this was a step up from the A-10 and MVC respectively). UConn’s history is the Big East and NYC. It will be nice to be “home” again up north.

NYC doesn't give a $hit about UConn all your games were blacked out

Lol. He was talking about recruiting NYC, so whether or not people in NYC watch our games is irrelevant. But even so, there are plenty of UConn alums in NYC that regularly watch UConn games so not sure what you're talking about

Only if they have SNY... SNY is in a separate package than ESPN so in essence it would be cheaper to subscribe to ESPN+ to watch UConn than what it costs to subscribe to the package that contains SNY, furthermore, it is cheaper to subscribe to ESPN+ to watch UConn than what it costs to subscribe to the package that contains FS1 and FS2.

The fact that an NYC based regional sports network has dedicated UConn broadcasts, studios, and analysts proves that NYC doesn't give a **** about UConn, I guess.

Pretty sure all AAC athletic department lose money. Most in the 10’s of millions.

(01-17-2020 06:24 PM)IAH Wrote:  Pretty sure all AAC athletic department lose money. Most in the 10’s of millions.

Last I saw Wichita was in the black by a few million. But also no football

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(01-17-2020 06:24 PM)IAH Wrote:  Pretty sure all AAC athletic department lose money. Most in the 10’s of millions.

UCF is setup to break even. Supposedly going over $70 million in revenue though.

(01-17-2020 05:34 PM)bearcat29 Wrote:  The old big east screwed them. The promise of BCS money and help to compete
at the D1 level. If not for the implosion of the BE, UConn would be making 15+ million easily while still in a basketball conference.

They never would have went the D1 without the old BE prodding them to do so.
UConn was artificially inflated into a BCS conference. They are just going back where they should be. They took their shot, it didn't work out. Just that easy.

This is basically on point.

The difference in the current state of UConn's and Villanova's athletic programs is their respective decisions to elevate football, or not to. UConn jumped on the opportunity several years before Villanova had the chance to or at least seriously considered it. The Wildcat administration wisely decided not to pursue the idea and keep its successful FCS program in place and focus on hoops. UConn obviously did not and the results turned out to be catastrophic.

The Huskies never had much success at the 1-AA/FCS level relative to some of their Yankee/A10 peers. Villanova was steady force in 1-AA/FCS within a few years of restarting their program in the mid 80's. Andy Talley was a helluva a coach. I know they found success early on under Edsell but it was always going to be an uphill battle to maintain it given the Northeast's "weird" big-time college football fandom outside of State College, PA, Morgantown, WV if you want to include them geographically and in semi-seriously South Bend, IN. Notre Dame has always had a major presence in the Northeast; especially in NYC, Philly and Boston.

As someone who grew up with Big Monday/Big East basketball in the late 80's and throughout the 90's I have no issue with UConn's decision. I went to several awesome 'Cuse-UConn games at the Carrier Dome over the last 25 years. I do think it will ultimately re-energize the Huskie program and the fan base.

UConn taking advantage of the opportunity to compete in FBS football in a BCS conference was not a mistake. I also don’t think we’re dropping or downgrading football. We had a decade of relative success and now we’ve had a decade of struggle. Many college football programs have had long periods of being down. I like the AAC but from a basketball standpoint the Big East move will be a huge shot in the arm in terms of fan interest which will result in much better ticket sales which will go a long way towards alleviating the current issues with the athletic department. It remains to be seen what the next Big East TV contract will look like but I would not be surprised to see it double. We’ll get some money for our football rights and schedule more pay games and we’ll just have to see what that all looks like in a few years.

(01-16-2020 08:53 AM)The Knight Time Wrote:  And football alone lost $10M.

If UConn were a business, it would have been put out of its' misery long ago.

http://www.courant.com/sports/hc-sp-ucon...story.html

If they were a tech startup this would be a huge profit win.

(01-17-2020 01:26 PM)Nameless Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 09:47 PM)MemphisFan95 Wrote:  I never understand the it will help us recruit basketball better argument.... Memphis had top 10 classes in the suckhole CUSA conferences don't matter in recruiting

That's probably because you didn't fully read the argument he was making, or at least you didn't fully comprehend it. Memphis is a city known for its basketball recruits, and the school is centrally located within the AAC; there are plenty of games within driving distance a recruit's family can attend, so Memphis does not face the same issue despite being in the same conference. He made the point we are geographically on an island, which hurt our ability to recruit NY because it was a lot harder for a recruit's family to attend their games.

To his point, we're bringing in 2 more great recruits next year, one from NY and one from Canada, who cited our move back to the Big East and their families' ability to watch them play as reasons for ultimately choosing UConn

That makes no sense. Memphis recruits/fans might drive to Cincinnati, but they’re not driving to Tulsa, Texas or New Orleans. UConn fans could drive to Temple, ECU and Cincy just as easily.

(01-17-2020 11:59 PM)PowderKeg! Wrote:  

(01-17-2020 01:26 PM)Nameless Wrote:  

(01-16-2020 09:47 PM)MemphisFan95 Wrote:  I never understand the it will help us recruit basketball better argument.... Memphis had top 10 classes in the suckhole CUSA conferences don't matter in recruiting

That's probably because you didn't fully read the argument he was making, or at least you didn't fully comprehend it. Memphis is a city known for its basketball recruits, and the school is centrally located within the AAC; there are plenty of games within driving distance a recruit's family can attend, so Memphis does not face the same issue despite being in the same conference. He made the point we are geographically on an island, which hurt our ability to recruit NY because it was a lot harder for a recruit's family to attend their games.

To his point, we're bringing in 2 more great recruits next year, one from NY and one from Canada, who cited our move back to the Big East and their families' ability to watch them play as reasons for ultimately choosing UConn

That makes no sense. Memphis recruits/fans might drive to Cincinnati, but they’re not driving to Tulsa, Texas or New Orleans. UConn fans could drive to Temple, ECU and Cincy just as easily.

You're kidding, right?

How far is Tulsa from Memphis? It's got to be fewer miles than Cincinnati is from Memphis?

New Orleans? Dallas? Even Houston has to be at least a similar distance... You're telling me that Memphis fans travel to Cincinnati but not these other places???

But beyond that the "island" mentality is real. Memphis is in the "South." Culturally, geographically...Memphis has much more in common with the majority of the AAC. Uconn? Not so much. Temple? Not so much. Cincinnati? Not so much. Uconn didn't even have the benefit of shared history with the conference mates.

The puppies have a point...they were a very poor fit for what the AAC evolved to be.

Seems much of this thread has been about UConn FB which lost $10M of the overall $42M loss in the athletic dept. OK disband the FB program today & UConn still has a $32M deficit & likely more because there would then be no FB revenues. And this while the WBB seems to be losing a little of its dominate edge & MBB becoming a middle of the road program. Then add the AAC exit expense & lower BE revenues. This doesn't appear to provide for a promising future for UConn athletics, with or without FB or in the BE or the AAC.