I rated EKU, Kennesaw State, ETSU, Stephen F. Austin, Tarleton State, and McNeese State in baseball, basketball, and football. It surprised me that ETSU ranked 3rd, 2nd, and 2nd in those sports of these 6 teams. Obviously they'd need a much larger stadium for football, but do you think there is any chance a few years down the line that ETSU would ever join Conference USA? You'd have 4 schools within 5 hours, with Liberty being the closest with about 3 hrs, 40 min. If Kennesaw State was ever added, or Eastern Kentucky, that would be two more schools within 5 hours.

I think that possibility exists IF we continue to consistently win at the FCS level and we get MBB and WBB back on track. I don’t think 2 or 3 successful fb seasons gets us there. Not only would it require money for a stadium expansion, it would require alumni and fans to be willing to move on from the rivalries we have in the SoCon. I know the circumstances would be different, but the last time we moved new rivalries never really came about.

I would like to see us make the move eventually, but I feel like I am in the minority right now.

Waste of money, Build something at this level and win. Support basketball.
Take a page from the FCS champions and be happy.

We have a chance to win championships, compete, Move and suck? Nah

(02-12-2022 03:20 PM)RodShaw2 Wrote:  Waste of money, Build something at this level and win. Support basketball.
Take a page from the FCS champions and be happy.

We have a chance to win championships, compete, Move and suck? Nah

There is a lot to be said about consistently getting into the playoffs and playing for a national championship instead of occasionally being invited to the Bobs Pool Hall Bowl…..

(02-12-2022 05:48 PM)ncrrt08 Wrote:  

(02-12-2022 03:20 PM)RodShaw2 Wrote:  Waste of money, Build something at this level and win. Support basketball.
Take a page from the FCS champions and be happy.

We have a chance to win championships, compete, Move and suck? Nah

There is a lot to be said about consistently getting into the playoffs and playing for a national championship instead of occasionally being invited to the Bobs Pool Hall Bowl…..

yep, and the $$$$

Maybe? I think it largely depends on how much money we get out of moving up. Between CFP revenue, bowl game payouts, and the CUSA TV deal, it has to total out to a significant number. I honestly don't think there's a major difference between CUSA 2023 and the SoCon in MBB, so if we could improve revenues and get better standing for football while not kneecapping MBB or ballooning travel costs for our other sports, I think we could do it. But I don't think it's unwise to wait until all the constitutional stuff is resolved. We have a new NCAA constitution, now we're waiting on a Division I constitution, and if that creates an environment where a move makes sense, we would be fools not to explore it.

But the #1 rule is don't **** with happy, and ETSU is happy right now.

Yeah, ETSU shouldn't want to have 15-20k paying football fans, get a million dollar payday for OOC games, share bowl money, have a chance to participate in 4-5 bowl games and have a moneymaking tv deal, etc.They much rather rather sell tickets for $5 or $10, pay the NCAA a minimum of 30k for a home playoff game, make no money on the playoff game regardless of the attendance and beg their big donors for money to fly the team to the Northwest where the Bucs have little to no chance of winning. Of course Buc players love being sequestered in a hotel because of freezing weather rather that going sightseeing. So many perks for being a FCS playoff team.

Wonder why nearly all our peers left FCS for FBS. I guess they didn't understand all the good things that FCS provided.

(02-13-2022 10:48 PM)Buc76 Wrote:  Yeah, ETSU shouldn't want to have 15-20k paying football fans, get a million dollar payday for OOC games, share bowl money, have a chance to participate in 4-5 bowl games and have a moneymaking tv deal, etc.They much rather rather sell tickets for $5 or $10, pay the NCAA a minimum of 30k for a home playoff game, make no money on the playoff game regardless of the attendance and beg their big donors for money to fly the team to the Northwest where the Bucs have little to no chance of winning. Of course Buc players love being sequestered in a hotel because of freezing weather rather that going sightseeing. So many perks for being a FCS playoff team.

Wonder why nearly all our peers left FCS for FBS. I guess they didn't understand all the good things that FCS provided.

If we got our fan base behind the Athletic Department, yes we could. There is a lot of untapped alumni within a 150 radius. If we got most of those people interested we could but it hasn't happened in the past. For example, there are a number of fans in the little town of Marion, NC where I live but none of them are interested in going to any of the sporting events at ETSU.

There are tons of ETSU Alumni in the Greenville, SC, Spartanburg, SC Asheville, NC area that could easily drive the distance to ETSU and support the sports programs but they don't. And I'm not even counting the East Tennessee area but with both of those regions we could make it happen.

The key obviously is getting those people interested - if that happened we could do wonders with our athletic programs.

(02-13-2022 10:48 PM)Buc76 Wrote:  Yeah, ETSU shouldn't want to have 15-20k paying football fans, get a million dollar payday for OOC games, share bowl money, have a chance to participate in 4-5 bowl games and have a moneymaking tv deal, etc.They much rather rather sell tickets for $5 or $10, pay the NCAA a minimum of 30k for a home playoff game, make no money on the playoff game regardless of the attendance and beg their big donors for money to fly the team to the Northwest where the Bucs have little to no chance of winning. Of course Buc players love being sequestered in a hotel because of freezing weather rather that going sightseeing. So many perks for being a FCS playoff team.

Wonder why nearly all our peers left FCS for FBS. I guess they didn't understand all the good things that FCS provided.

So much, just wrong in this statement. Wow. Not sure where to start, No **** ETSU would like all that stuff, but how many teams move up and accomplish all that? Very few. But keep dreaming dude keep dreaming.
More like ETSU should go deep in debt chasing a pipe dream, screw up our other programs chasing the dream, with very low odds of making it.

(02-13-2022 11:44 PM)RodShaw2 Wrote:  

(02-13-2022 10:48 PM)Buc76 Wrote:  Yeah, ETSU shouldn't want to have 15-20k paying football fans, get a million dollar payday for OOC games, share bowl money, have a chance to participate in 4-5 bowl games and have a moneymaking tv deal, etc.They much rather rather sell tickets for $5 or $10, pay the NCAA a minimum of 30k for a home playoff game, make no money on the playoff game regardless of the attendance and beg their big donors for money to fly the team to the Northwest where the Bucs have little to no chance of winning. Of course Buc players love being sequestered in a hotel because of freezing weather rather that going sightseeing. So many perks for being a FCS playoff team.

Wonder why nearly all our peers left FCS for FBS. I guess they didn't understand all the good things that FCS provided.

So much, just wrong in this statement. Wow. Not sure where to start, No **** ETSU would like all that stuff, but how many teams move up and accomplish all that? Very few. But keep dreaming dude keep dreaming.
More like ETSU should go deep in debt chasing a pipe dream, screw up our other programs chasing the dream, with very low odds of making it.

With the new NCAA, the big boys are going to eventually make their move to consolidate essentially ALL the revenue - unless the current trajectory in college athletics is reversed. Bottom line — all these “peers” that have “moved up” in recent years are going to be left holding the proverbial bag - and that bag is going to become empty of $$$. Then, they’ll have to start trying to come up with a survival plan. Then will be the time when ETSU and other current FCS brethren could be looking at getting involved in some serious regional conferences reorganization efforts reuniting us with our former regional universities. As for CUSA - currently on life support - will it even survive in this current and vulnerable FBS environment?

Didn't advocate joining CUSA.

If you can tell me what statements I made was wrong with proof, not just disagreeing, be glad to discuss it. I go with info from many of our peer Institutions, not opinions.

ETSU is behind in several athlectic areas, especially in football. Football is and always will be the driving force, with basketball second, to allow an institution to move to a better conference.

The SoCon is not the SoCon of old. It is a watered down version with no growth. Yes, the Socon could add a D2 or possibly a low level D1 Institution, but that will bring very little tangible assets.

I read on this board the constant complaint concerning schedules. I totally agree. Who wants to pay the highest ticket prices ( correct me if I'm wrong) in the SoCon to see D2, NAIA and low level D1 schools. . As another poster said, except for the 3-4k people that are hard core fans, literally 1000s ( 95,000 alumni in the metro area ) are just not intrested in contribiting monies to supporting the Bucs. The slogan, 'Best Fans in the SoCon', totally agree. If you look at the attendance figures of other SoCon teams, its poor at best.

Again, I ask the question, why has many of our former SoCon members and other Peer Institutions moved to FBS?

(02-15-2022 02:29 PM)Buc76 Wrote:  Didn't advocate joining CUSA.

If you can tell me what statements I made was wrong with proof, not just disagreeing, be glad to discuss it. I go with info from many of our peer Institutions, not opinions.

ETSU is behind in several athlectic areas, especially in football. Football is and always will be the driving force, with basketball second, to allow an institution to move to a better conference.

The SoCon is not the SoCon of old. It is a watered down version with no growth. Yes, the Socon could add a D2 or possibly a low level D1 Institution, but that will bring very little tangible assets.

I read on this board the constant complaint concerning schedules. I totally agree. Who wants to pay the highest ticket prices ( correct me if I'm wrong) in the SoCon to see D2, NAIA and low level D1 schools. . As another poster said, except for the 3-4k people that are hard core fans, literally 1000s ( 95,000 alumni in the metro area ) are just not intrested in contribiting monies to supporting the Bucs. The slogan, 'Best Fans in the SoCon', totally agree. If you look at the attendance figures of other SoCon teams, its poor at best.

Again, I ask the question, why has many of our former SoCon members and other Peer Institutions moved to FBS?

Since our in, out, and back in SoCon association — Marshall (1997), App State & GA Southern (2014) moved up. None of these schools, to date, have increased their football attendance that much over their hey days in the SoCon. According to the “moving up” hype at the times of their departures — all should have at least doubled their attendance. Question - if ETSU had of left the SoCon in 1997 and joined the MAC with Marshall, where would we be today? Of, if we had of reinstated football and followed App State and GA Southern to the Sun Belt in 2014, where would we be today?