(09-07-2021 09:13 AM)solohawks Wrote:  After the AAC makes their move likely from CUSA west and if UTA and UALR do leave, add UTSA and USM. Those 2 are going to be in a depleted CUSA West with eastern schools who are likely going to make an western expansion difficult. If think they would be open to the conversation

UTSA can fill UTA's role as travel partner to Texas St and USM can be the travel partner for Louisiana

ULM and Ark St can then be travel partners.

Now that...is a very intriguing scenario right there. I could get behind that

(09-06-2021 08:48 PM)Usajags Wrote:  UTA is just another school in the UT system. UTD, just a few miles from UTA has over 29k students and they play DIII sports.

it's actually quite a ways over to utd and their student body is more of a bookworm type of group with very few of the rah rah types a successful D-1 program would need. they do have a great chess team and probably a good battlebot program. they are not similar to UTA in very many ways.

(09-07-2021 07:58 AM)Ed Harley Wrote:  

(09-06-2021 10:45 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-06-2021 08:57 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(09-03-2021 08:50 AM)SENOREIDA Wrote:  

(09-03-2021 08:10 AM)RamblinRedWolf Wrote:  Talked to my buddy who works for Little Rock he told me they want out of the belt ("I know LR (admin) hates Sun Belt. Scheduling and promotion sucks-unless its astate or uca no one cares about other belt schools")

Please, no offense. But I forget UALR and UTA are even in this conference. Until we are playing them.

To be fair to Little Rock, they rely heavily on Razorback fans to attend their games, as they don't have large dedicated fanbase on their own. Razorback fans will gladly go watch games with AState and UCA, but they aren't going to care one iota about a game against Coastal Carolina for example. While the same problems exist in the Valley, they'd also be looking at a conference that is basketball first, so the league is going to naturally spend more time helping with promotions.

The Sun Belt is just not going to spend the same amount of time helping LR and UTA with marketing and promotion and scheduling when the two schools don't sponsor the league's biggest moneymaking sport.

While there are absolutely some UALR first folks out there, I recall my surprise walking through the donor lot at the Jack my first time there and seeing a significant number of cars with the UA Fayetteville Hog plates (in Arkansas you pay an extra $10 to the state and $25 to the school to get a plate with the school logo.

To further illustrate there are five Division II and one Division III who sell more official plates than UALR in addition to the other four Division I schools.

When UALR was still connecting with the fans back when they were in the TAAC and early Sun Belt days there wasn’t a big difference between UALR hoops attendance and Central Arkansas football attendance and they posted some crowds at Alltel Arena (now Simmons Bank) and Barton Coliseum as larger or larger than UCA football capacity.

It’s not unlike how it often was in Memphis where you’d find season ticket holders in basketball who were 100% Tennessee, Ole Miss, or Arkansas fans in football.

Little Rock has lost its fan mojo in hoops. The way fan support has changed now that nearly every game is available on some sort of TV, I don’t know if that can be recovered.

So, honest question here, what exactly does UALR and UTA bring to the table? I don’t see how the SBC is a good fit for them or us.

Looking at it from Little Rock, I think our men's basketball program has been somewhat better than average in the Belt over the years. Our women's basketball program has probably been the best program in the Belt over the last 18-20 years. We are in a relatively decent sized city and media market. We have been a member of the current version of the Sun Belt since it started. Is this enough to keep us in the league? I don't really know. I never believed we would be "pushed out", but if UTA leaves maybe a split would be best for everyone. The Sun Belt's focus has obviously become football (it used to be primarily a basketball league) and they have done quite a good job in this area. I don't believe LR will ever get football, so a mutual parting of the ways may make sense. Personally, I would still prefer the Belt over the other (possibly) available options. I guess if we could get in the Valley, MoSt, SIU, and (possibly) UTA would be natural geographic rivals. But, folks in LR would have little or no interest in Drake, UNI, Valpo, etc. Not that attendance was ever great, but not sure how we recover from the fall-out from Covid with most of our fanbase being over 60.

1. What % of revenue does LR/UTA get?
2. Is there any reason NOT to keep them?
3. Would 14 for olympic sports be too many if we expanded by 2?

You say your fans wouldn’t be interested in some of the MVC teams, but how interested are they in some in the SBC teams??? The golden age of SBC basketball are years behind us unfortunately, and the times aren’t making it easy to even try to resemble the past. So many more options for your entertainment time as well as streaming services that allow you to watch all your games from the comfort of your own living room. I think it would take a special team with special circumstances to get the crowds to return to 80’s/90’s era basketball.

(09-07-2021 05:59 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(09-07-2021 07:58 AM)Ed Harley Wrote:  

(09-06-2021 10:45 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(09-06-2021 08:57 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(09-03-2021 08:50 AM)SENOREIDA Wrote:  Please, no offense. But I forget UALR and UTA are even in this conference. Until we are playing them.

To be fair to Little Rock, they rely heavily on Razorback fans to attend their games, as they don't have large dedicated fanbase on their own. Razorback fans will gladly go watch games with AState and UCA, but they aren't going to care one iota about a game against Coastal Carolina for example. While the same problems exist in the Valley, they'd also be looking at a conference that is basketball first, so the league is going to naturally spend more time helping with promotions.

The Sun Belt is just not going to spend the same amount of time helping LR and UTA with marketing and promotion and scheduling when the two schools don't sponsor the league's biggest moneymaking sport.

While there are absolutely some UALR first folks out there, I recall my surprise walking through the donor lot at the Jack my first time there and seeing a significant number of cars with the UA Fayetteville Hog plates (in Arkansas you pay an extra $10 to the state and $25 to the school to get a plate with the school logo.

To further illustrate there are five Division II and one Division III who sell more official plates than UALR in addition to the other four Division I schools.

When UALR was still connecting with the fans back when they were in the TAAC and early Sun Belt days there wasn’t a big difference between UALR hoops attendance and Central Arkansas football attendance and they posted some crowds at Alltel Arena (now Simmons Bank) and Barton Coliseum as larger or larger than UCA football capacity.

It’s not unlike how it often was in Memphis where you’d find season ticket holders in basketball who were 100% Tennessee, Ole Miss, or Arkansas fans in football.

Little Rock has lost its fan mojo in hoops. The way fan support has changed now that nearly every game is available on some sort of TV, I don’t know if that can be recovered.

So, honest question here, what exactly does UALR and UTA bring to the table? I don’t see how the SBC is a good fit for them or us.

Looking at it from Little Rock, I think our men's basketball program has been somewhat better than average in the Belt over the years. Our women's basketball program has probably been the best program in the Belt over the last 18-20 years. We are in a relatively decent sized city and media market. We have been a member of the current version of the Sun Belt since it started. Is this enough to keep us in the league? I don't really know. I never believed we would be "pushed out", but if UTA leaves maybe a split would be best for everyone. The Sun Belt's focus has obviously become football (it used to be primarily a basketball league) and they have done quite a good job in this area. I don't believe LR will ever get football, so a mutual parting of the ways may make sense. Personally, I would still prefer the Belt over the other (possibly) available options. I guess if we could get in the Valley, MoSt, SIU, and (possibly) UTA would be natural geographic rivals. But, folks in LR would have little or no interest in Drake, UNI, Valpo, etc. Not that attendance was ever great, but not sure how we recover from the fall-out from Covid with most of our fanbase being over 60.

Problem is there just isn’t a regional hoops oriented league

(09-07-2021 10:29 AM)runamuck Wrote:  

(09-06-2021 08:48 PM)Usajags Wrote:  UTA is just another school in the UT system. UTD, just a few miles from UTA has over 29k students and they play DIII sports.

it's actually quite a ways over to utd and their student body is more of a bookworm type of group with very few of the rah rah types a successful D-1 program would need. they do have a great chess team and probably a good battlebot program. they are not similar to UTA in very many ways.

UTD is also 20% international students. It's a unique school in Texas that has a good home for its sports in D3.

Problem is there just isn’t a regional hoops oriented league.

That's true. But, we could have a pretty regionalized division if we moved to the Atlantic Sun- LR plus UCA, Lipscomb, North Alabama, Jacksonville State, and Bellarmine. I believe they have 12 teams right now, but Liberty clearly would want a DI football conference if they could find one. It would be pretty crazy for us to end up in what was the TAAC conference that we dominated before leaving. It would be a step down in basketball, but "winning" is the only thing that might bring crowds back to our arena. Most folks in Little Rock wouldn't know the difference between South and North Alabama or the Eagles of FCGU and the Eagles of GaSou.

Regardless, if the MoValley adds UTA, adding LR to go to 12 teams seems to make a lot of sense.

(09-08-2021 12:19 AM)mjs Wrote:  Problem is there just isn’t a regional hoops oriented league.

That's true. But, we could have a pretty regionalized division if we moved to the Atlantic Sun- LR plus UCA, Lipscomb, North Alabama, Jacksonville State, and Bellarmine. I believe they have 12 teams right now, but Liberty clearly would want a DI football conference if they could find one. It would be pretty crazy for us to end up in what was the TAAC conference that we dominated before leaving. It would be a step down in basketball, but "winning" is the only thing that might bring crowds back to our arena. Most folks in Little Rock wouldn't know the difference between South and North Alabama or the Eagles of FCGU and the Eagles of GaSou.

Regardless, if the MoValley adds UTA, adding LR to go to 12 teams seems to make a lot of sense.

I was thinking the Summit. Non football conference with members in Tulsa and Kansas City currently. Little Rock and Arlington would create a solid southern wing of that conference. If WIU gets snapped up by the OVC you can then add a New Orleans or A&M Corpus Christi. Either way, the non football Summit could accommodate the southwestern non football schools.

I think the OVC makes more sense for UALR than the Summit.

Just look at the map.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...ce_Map.svg


vs


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...ue_map.svg

(09-08-2021 09:58 AM)Yosef Himself Wrote:  I think the OVC makes more sense for UALR than the Summit.

Just look at the map.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...ce_Map.svg


vs


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...ue_map.svg

One big question mark though is the future stability of the OVC.

(09-08-2021 10:05 AM)RamblinRedWolf Wrote:  

(09-08-2021 09:58 AM)Yosef Himself Wrote:  I think the OVC makes more sense for UALR than the Summit.

Just look at the map.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...ce_Map.svg


vs


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...ue_map.svg

One big question mark though is the future stability of the OVC.

I don't think the OVC will ever die, but it can certainly lose some of its luster if Belmont or Murray were to depart.

Matt Brown of Extra Points said in the General Realignment thread on this issue that the MVC isn't an option and they aren't adding football... if that's worth anything.

(09-08-2021 08:35 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(09-08-2021 12:19 AM)mjs Wrote:  Problem is there just isn’t a regional hoops oriented league.

That's true. But, we could have a pretty regionalized division if we moved to the Atlantic Sun- LR plus UCA, Lipscomb, North Alabama, Jacksonville State, and Bellarmine. I believe they have 12 teams right now, but Liberty clearly would want a DI football conference if they could find one. It would be pretty crazy for us to end up in what was the TAAC conference that we dominated before leaving. It would be a step down in basketball, but "winning" is the only thing that might bring crowds back to our arena. Most folks in Little Rock wouldn't know the difference between South and North Alabama or the Eagles of FCGU and the Eagles of GaSou.

Regardless, if the MoValley adds UTA, adding LR to go to 12 teams seems to make a lot of sense.

I was thinking the Summit. Non football conference with members in Tulsa and Kansas City currently. Little Rock and Arlington would create a solid southern wing of that conference. If WIU gets snapped up by the OVC you can then add a New Orleans or A&M Corpus Christi. Either way, the non football Summit could accommodate the southwestern non football schools.

I looked at the Summit as well. ORU, UMKC, and even Omaha are reasonable trips. But having 4 teams in the Dakotas and another in Minnesota is just crazy travel-wise.

(09-08-2021 04:10 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(09-08-2021 08:35 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(09-08-2021 12:19 AM)mjs Wrote:  Problem is there just isn’t a regional hoops oriented league.

That's true. But, we could have a pretty regionalized division if we moved to the Atlantic Sun- LR plus UCA, Lipscomb, North Alabama, Jacksonville State, and Bellarmine. I believe they have 12 teams right now, but Liberty clearly would want a DI football conference if they could find one. It would be pretty crazy for us to end up in what was the TAAC conference that we dominated before leaving. It would be a step down in basketball, but "winning" is the only thing that might bring crowds back to our arena. Most folks in Little Rock wouldn't know the difference between South and North Alabama or the Eagles of FCGU and the Eagles of GaSou.

Regardless, if the MoValley adds UTA, adding LR to go to 12 teams seems to make a lot of sense.

I was thinking the Summit. Non football conference with members in Tulsa and Kansas City currently. Little Rock and Arlington would create a solid southern wing of that conference. If WIU gets snapped up by the OVC you can then add a New Orleans or A&M Corpus Christi. Either way, the non football Summit could accommodate the southwestern non football schools.

I looked at the Summit as well. ORU, UMKC, and even Omaha are reasonable trips. But having 4 teams in the Dakotas and another in Minnesota is just crazy travel-wise.

UTA has little in common with any of those mostly small regional schools. quite a dilema for sure.

(09-08-2021 04:10 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(09-08-2021 08:35 AM)solohawks Wrote:  

(09-08-2021 12:19 AM)mjs Wrote:  Problem is there just isn’t a regional hoops oriented league.

That's true. But, we could have a pretty regionalized division if we moved to the Atlantic Sun- LR plus UCA, Lipscomb, North Alabama, Jacksonville State, and Bellarmine. I believe they have 12 teams right now, but Liberty clearly would want a DI football conference if they could find one. It would be pretty crazy for us to end up in what was the TAAC conference that we dominated before leaving. It would be a step down in basketball, but "winning" is the only thing that might bring crowds back to our arena. Most folks in Little Rock wouldn't know the difference between South and North Alabama or the Eagles of FCGU and the Eagles of GaSou.

Regardless, if the MoValley adds UTA, adding LR to go to 12 teams seems to make a lot of sense.

I was thinking the Summit. Non football conference with members in Tulsa and Kansas City currently. Little Rock and Arlington would create a solid southern wing of that conference. If WIU gets snapped up by the OVC you can then add a New Orleans or A&M Corpus Christi. Either way, the non football Summit could accommodate the southwestern non football schools.

I looked at the Summit as well. ORU, UMKC, and even Omaha are reasonable trips. But having 4 teams in the Dakotas and another in Minnesota is just crazy travel-wise.

Summit once made a run at UALR, UNO and USA which obviously didn’t happen.

Going to be interesting to see what Southland does. Obviously seeking football schools and I’d imagine a non-starter for UTA and I’d be surprised if it looks attractive to UALR with UCA gone.

(09-08-2021 07:48 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Going to be interesting to see what Southland does. Obviously seeking football schools and I’d imagine a non-starter for UTA and I’d be surprised if it looks attractive to UALR with UCA gone.

The WAC would be a better fit than the Southland if they are looking to stay regional.

Slightly off topic, but would the ASUN or OVC make sense for UALR in the event that UTA added football and, say, either Marshall or S. Miss joined?