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(09-15-2021 09:36 AM)DuelingDragon Wrote:  One thing Chris and others need to look at -- and something schools should be advocating themselves is -- is WHY these AAC schools have larger budgets.

It ain't exactly them pouring many more dollars into their program.

1) A big chunk is straight up difference in media rights. AAC vs. CUSa is hundred dollar bills vs. pennies and slugs.

2) Student-fees. The AAC schools like USF are larger and their subsidies as a result are higher. This is counted as "budget." UCF's budget went from around $14 million when they were in the A-Sun/MAC to what it is today almost exclusively on their student enrollment going from 30K to 70K. AAC schools are among the most subsidized in the country. Houston, UCF and Cincinnati in particular.

3) Better scheduling opportunities. Obviously this impacts the bottom line.

4) NCAA units. Being a multi-bid conference has its advantages.

5) Expensive tuition. The private schools report what they want to report and don't report what looks bad for them, but when they talk about budget to beat their chests about it, they count their expensive tuition as "budget."

Bottom line, budget and expenses are kinda one and the same. And a lot of that is a paper game.

Also, add debt for some schools. While UAB has been paying cash for most things, schools like ECU ($84 Million in athletic debt), USF ($32 Million), ODU ($78 Million), WKU ($34M), UNT ($81M), UAB ($15M)

(09-15-2021 09:36 AM)DuelingDragon Wrote:  One thing Chris and others need to look at -- and something schools should be advocating themselves is -- is WHY these AAC schools have larger budgets.

It ain't exactly them pouring many more dollars into their program.

1) A big chunk is straight up difference in media rights. AAC vs. CUSa is hundred dollar bills vs. pennies and slugs.

2) Student-fees. The AAC schools like USF are larger and their subsidies as a result are higher. This is counted as "budget." UCF's budget went from around $14 million when they were in the A-Sun/MAC to what it is today almost exclusively on their student enrollment going from 30K to 70K. AAC schools are among the most subsidized in the country. Houston, UCF and Cincinnati in particular.

3) Better scheduling opportunities. Obviously this impacts the bottom line.

4) NCAA units. Being a multi-bid conference has its advantages.

5) Expensive tuition. The private schools report what they want to report and don't report what looks bad for them, but when they talk about budget to beat their chests about it, they count their expensive tuition as "budget." As Andy Schwarz has shown repeatedly, including with UAB, this is a shell game and not real money.

Bottom line, budget and expenses are kinda one and the same. And a lot of that is a paper game.

Good points. On the student fees, I hope our admin will unfreeze the allocation to athletics as one way to boost the budget. Unless things have changed recently, the amount of money coming to athletics from student fees has been static even as our enrollment has increased (other than the special FBR fee students assessed to themselves).

(09-14-2021 10:12 AM)HiddenDragon Wrote:  There is no earthly reason for a SBC team to move to CUSA.

Zero

I agree with that. I don’t know about sports outside of football and hoops for sunbelt. It’d make sense for Sunbelt to add some perceived football only schools. USM, FIU, FAU would make sense to leave CUSA for Sunbelt. Other schools, have a bit more respect for their hoops programs. 2 of those schools are solid in Baseball, too.

When I say perceived football only, I don’t mean add the school as a football only member. This isn’t “fantasy book a conference on PlayStation”. You should add all sports for each school. I don’t get the infatuation of adding football only by AAC fans and Sunbelt fans. You get what you bargain for.

It’s like watching a child cherry pick certain colors of skittles and not eating the rest of them.