Some interesting observations about opportunity and FSU and Miami. I believe that is one of the motivating factors in the BCS. They don't want anyone else to be able to move up and challenge them.

<<There average attendance isn’t much different than most of the teams that people here talk about as future BE members. Lets look:

1998: 15,127
1999: 20,771
2000: 18,612
2001: 18,440
2002: 19,077
2003: 24, 137>>

You need to go further back to understand Temple's attendance problem:
1997 9,129
1996 6,416
1995 4,406
In 3 years combined, they didn't equal ONE Penn St. game attendance. With only 4 home games in 1995 they had only 17,624 fans for the entire year. I believe it was a WVU game where the number of fans was in the hundreds. That was when the serious talk about kicking Temple out started.

<<Lousiville is very much the equal to Kentucky and will probably exceed in football in that state.>>

Louisville just barely topped 40,000 in attendance last year. Kentucky has topped 60,000 the last 5 years running, despite some bad years. Louisville has traditionally not done much in fb. They have been as good or better recently than UK, but they just are not as strong a program.

<<But at least Tulane is a hell of a lot better academic school and the NOLA market is better than Memphis. The Memphis market is not growing, and its not that much better than Marshall.>>

New Orleans is not much bigger than Memphis and Memphis IS growing and growing much faster than New Orleans (13% in the 90s vs. 4% for NO). Also Tulane has the disadvantage of being a relatively small (10k) private school that is only 80 miles down the road from LSU and is in a town with pro football. Tulane has a recently revived bb program vs. Memphis with a national reputation. Tulane doesn't compare to Memphis except in academics.


<<Tennessee is not big enough to have 3 BCS teams. The smallest state with more than 3 BCS teams is Indiana with 6 million, and thats a fluke with having a Norte Dame. Memphis is no Norte Dame, Purdue or even Indiana.>>

North Carolina has 4 with 8 million people, Kansas has 2 with 2.6 million, Mississippi 2 with 2.8 million and Nebraska has 1 very strong program with only 1.7 million. I will agree ND is kind of a fluke, but I don't think Vanderbilt really counts either. Having TN, Memphis and Vanderbilt would not be the same as having 3 state schools, especially considering Vanderbilt's nature. Its kind of aloof and draws students from throughout the south. While I agree there wouldn't be much sense in the SEC adding a 3rd team from Tennessee, the state's population alone doesn't preclude a 3rd BCS team in a different conference.

<<Ohio is way to big to only have one BCS team when much less football interested Indiana has three.

Same as above, only worse. UCincy IS NOT an equivalent to an “University of Ohio”. Lets look at their attendance:

1998: 24,135
1999: 19,784
2000: 20,952
2001: 21,836
2002: 28,071
2003: 21,961>>

Ohio could certainly support another BCS team. But I also don't see Cincinnati moving to the level of an Oklahoma St. or NC St. It is too much of a commuter school. That is where schools like UCLA and Pittsburgh have an advantage. It is also in a town with pro football and baseball. The best fb attendance in Ohio after Ohio St. is Toledo. They are in a decent size metro area (unlike Ohio U.) without pro sports (see Kent St., Akron, Miami U., Cincinnati). Only Michigan #1 and Washington #19 compete with pro football of the top 20 schools in attendance. 8 of the bottom 14 compete with pros.

Its because we are now in the age of almost total conference alignment and conference bowl-tie-ins. When there were 20+ Independent teams, teams that had good records, could go to major bowls with at-large bids (Orange, Sugar, Cotton, Fiesta). That doesn't exist anymore, anywhere. FSU wasn't anything until they has a 1-loss season and played in the Orange Bowl twice against Oklahoma 1979, 1980, and beat them once. Miami didn't get there until the 1984 game against Nebraska. You know the rest.

So there isn't this free-form nature to college football anymore. But the fairness now isn't the open access to a bowl and close proximity. Its with the 85 scholarship rule.




I don't have access to those numbers. Yes, that is bad. But look at their improvement. They are now, last season, 6 times what they were in 1995. I still think its unfair, and the contempt that people have is far-fetched.




But Memphis is an absolute misfit in the BE as an institution. Tulane is actually 13K which is the same size as Duke, U Miami, Syracuse, Boston College and is bigger Wake Forest. Memphis would be the oddest member of any major conference if it joined and would be confusing as a BE member.

My cousin who is a very traditional fan (allum) of U of Michigan, the Big 10 and the Rose Bowl. We had a conversation about 2 years ago about what we thought was major college football. He said it was the Big 10, Big 12, Pac 10, SEC, and ACC. He said that the Big East, which he could barely identify as a conference, was not a major conference, even with Miami. He said it was an anomoly. He then said BYU, Colorado State, Utah and all those teams in the WAC weren't major. He couldn't even identify that there was a breakaway league with those teams called the Mountain West Conference. To him its still the WAC.

When I said CUSA, he looked confused as to what that conference is all about. He knows of the MAC but not CUSA and UAB. He is into a 1975 to 1985 definition of college football, hates the BCS, but if it had to exist, the WAC and the Big East (or whatever that name of that conference Miami is in) should not be a part of it. If I told him that Memphis was playing Rutgers in a conference game. He would go, what conference is that in? The Big East has a household name and identity. But you say Memphis vs. Rutgers and I bet a number of people will not make the connection or will be confused at their household tables. My cousin wouldn't know Memphis existed and would think you are talking about Memphis State or some school like that.





So. That is an historical alliance. Duke and Wake Forest are in the ACC because they have always been and because of Bball and their academics. They are a part of the ACC character. They are not normal teams in that league. There's technically 4 teams, but Duke and WF are really in the shadows of UNC and NCSU. Its not a normal comparable. This historical alliance captured these teams and they have not nor will not depart from major football.




Again a very historical alliance. The Big 8/Big 12 would never kick these teams out. I've talked about this before. When the Big 8 (MVIAA) originally formed, Kansas had about 3 times the population of Florida and it was the 21st ranked state in populaton. They have been captured in major football ever since.




A yet again a very historical alliance. About the 18th largest state in pop when the Southern/SEC formed their alliances. They have been capture in major college football ever since.




Nebraska was the 27th largest state in pop, and Omaha was the 3rd largest city west of the Mississippi River at the time they began playing football. Nebraska academic rep in the early years of college football was on the level of being in the top 5 state universities in the nation, behind U of Michigan, U of Illinois, U of California, and U of Wisconsin. It was the 18th member of the AAU, joing in 1909, 9 years after the association formed. It was captured in the early years of the Big 8, and in the 1960's, it began the long run of being a national competitive team with a strong strong statewide following, with an NCAA record 260+ consecutive sellouts and soon will have an 80,000 seat stadium. Its a different dynamic.

Memphis market is 1.5 million and not growing. It doesn't go statewide. You can tell from the coverage of having a special section on other major Newspaper in TN on their websites (like the Nashville Tennessean). There is no Memphis Tigers:

http://tennessean.com/sports/

Or Knoxville:

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/sports/0,1406,KNS_287,00.html

Or Chattanooga:

Can't get this paper

Or Clarksville:

http://www.theleafchronicle.com/news/stories/20040814/localsports/index.html

Or Kingsport:

http://www.timesnews.net/sports.dna

The only place is Memphis:

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/sports/

It is not a statewide team and does not have the ability to be a statewide team. The TV stations in Memphis will cover UM Tigers. But I can't see them 200 miles away in Nashville, 350 in Chattanooga, 400 in Knoxville, 500 in Kingsport-Johnson City-Bristol. It is a very regional team for Memphis and the western 1/3 of the state. Only Memphis is growing in that region.




I do -- meaning I believe the pop of Tennessee and the geographical distribution of the pop does preclude them, because its market again is the same size as Idaho, and it is a 1st or 2nd Team behind U Tennessee in the western 1/3. Idaho doesn't have any BCS teams. Boise State is good, but still no BCS. Nebraska has 1.7 million but see above as to why. Memphis is not going to become a Nebraska.




Right, and here unlies the problem with urban grants. They are NOT statewide teams. Ohio's problem is that it has 7 non-BCS teams that are all very regional, with Ohio U and Miami U only being able to go somewhat statewide with the allumni and some fans. Their attendnance doesn't necessarily reflect, but their allumni does and so does their academic rep compared to the other 4 MAC schools and UCincy. Only UCincy's Law and Medical schools and Architecture college, and research base give it some noteriety. But nonetheless, UCincy doesn't mean much of anything to people in Youngstown, Astubula, Cleveland. They have many regional U's with sports programs there. The state is too fragmented with followings below Ohio State. All of these schools are in the shadow of the Big 10 and OSU. Just compare Toledo's attendance to Ohio State's, it should be easy to see that.

Urban Grants are not statewide teams because other people in the state in other metro areas and other farther out rural areas don't have an identity with an Urban Grant school. The name doesn't connect with them, not like a Land Grant Flagship that OSU, the behemouth is, does. Pitt, UCLA, and maybe Louisville are the exceptions. Memphis, UCF, UAB, Houston, are all not statewide schools.

Memphis is not going to the BE,they were turned by the BE last year.They belong in a deep south conference.Their bb program is run a very questionable individual.The academics of the school are far from those of current BE football schools.Tenn belongs to the SEC conference.The market for Memphis is to the south not the north.

Again, I agree with TS2 on Memphis.

^I wanted to point out when I was having that discussion with my cousin, and even to this day, I strongly argued that the Big East is indeed major college football. He still disagrees with that. I also argue for the MWC, which he still doesn't believe is major either.

Panther, your last sentence reflects my opinion precisely. Your analysis of their football performance in the Big East is exactly why I have thought that they have no chance to be reconsidered. Temple football has been the laughing stock of Big east Football - a real joke. IMO, they have been worse than Rutgers.

However, other factors may come into play. If there is one thing that the Big East has been about since its inception, it is marketing. IF - & that is a big "if" - the Big East splits, everything will be reevaluated. There is no way that the Big East will write off the Philly market for basketball. It was one thing to write it off in football - because they never had it in the first place. (For college football, Philly is a Penn State town.) But the same factors that brought the Big East to knock on Cincy's door could bring them back to Temple. There is no indication that Villanova is interested in I-A football. In fact, there have been numerous indications to just the opposite. Without Villanova, a new Big East would likely turn to Temple, which has tremendous basketball tradition & success right up to recent years. Penn State is a non-entity in college basketball & has been for more than 40 years. This leaves the Philly basketball market wide open.

A split Big East would mean a commitment to an all-sports league by the fb schools. And that means a look at all sports - not just football. While it's true that the Big East would not reconsider Temple when it replaced BC, VPI, & Miami, that decision was made at a chaotic time when recouping some prestige was paramount. Temple could not help in this regard. There was also the Villanova issue & the Big East honored its commitment to its members not to undermine their position in their market. If Big East Football survives the next 5 years as a BCS league - another big "if" - prestige will not be an issue. If there is a split, Villanova will be gone as a factor in the Philly market.

Temple would offer big time basketball that is part of an all-sports program in a major market with no competition. Hopefully, football will have continued the improvement that is has shown in the past couple of years. With such improvement, it would be tough to find a better match for a new all-sports Big East.

No the BE does not want to become CUSA or the MAC.taking UCF is an interesting thought.However,UCF gave up on the idea BE football only membership last year and chose CUSA.

Wow good conversations and debate.

Lets ask some additional questions as this debate appears to pit NE footprint versis multiple regions similar to ACC and Big 12.

If a split is to occur the decision of expansion will come from the 8 football schools and those schools only.

Does Syracuse favor a NE footprint? Well Syracuse was all but off to the southern based ACC. Yes BC was included however the only NE team. answer no

Does Pitt favor a NE footprint? Pitt would have moved to the Big 10 by now if the offer had occured. answer no

Does WVU favor a NE footprint? As long as WVU plays old rivals Pitt, Syracuse, and Rutgers probably does not matter. The school does have a large eastern alum association. answer no

Does Cincinnati favor a NE footprint? in a split why would they. answer no

Does Louisville favor a NE footprint? see Cincy answer no

Does South Florida favor a NE footprint? no

That leaves UConn. The bb coach was in favor of a split a forming of a 10 member all sports conference. I am in agreement with him. Smart man and great coach. UConn probally has the most difficult decision as the school remained loyal and opposite of BC. my guess is the answer would be no because football is needing security at UConn.

So based on this, the NE football is not important.

As for Philly bb market. Syracuse was not concerned in leaving this market for the ACC. Cincinnati and Louisville are primary reasons to replace any of the old BE basketball markets and bb strenght.

The 8 Big East football schools are standalone one of the top bb conference in the nation and possibly the best with Syracuse and UConn last two champions.

Again football will drive any decisions if a split occurs as this sport needs to be shored up to compete with the other BCS confernces.

Bullet, every conference has a Cincinnati basketball school including Kentucky. Lousiville will catch up as the stadium will grow as interest grows. Attendance does not reflect success as Miami Oh proved this year. Kansas will never compete with Ok State either so what the point you were making.

Back to 10 team BE format. If the BE splits which is very lively in 5 years, a 10 team conference is the best for revenue.

Which two teams would make the cut. Maybe Memphis and maybe not.

Central Fla does have a lot of potential due to home of Disney and ABC.

Sportgeog, the 16 team member bb league does have the potential or is already there to becoming the best basketball league.

The issue with this debate, the football schools could accomplish the same thing with 5 less mouths to feed.

Scheduling is going to become more challeged. If a WVU type school comes close to its hype in football, the school will not be happy as a second class basketball school as its up start basketball program is starting to come back. Same true for Rutgers.

The current method of BE scheduling glamor caused issue with 14 teams and will get worse with 16.

I have doughts a 16 team confernce will work. The old WAC in a different situation is some examples of how scheudling created divisions with members.

I think if you really get an answer from the BE football schools that will make future decisions on a split, there reaction would be lets wait and see in the next five years. So the 16 team alignment is not a given to work.

[quote author=Lash link=board=acc&thread=1092359036&start=36#2 date=1092590013]So based on this, the NE football is not important./quote]

Lash, any of the Big East Football members would have left for an established, more secure, & more profitable conference. So, I agree on this point that the NE footprint was not important to them in & of itself.

Now that they are in the Big East to stay (at least for the foreseeable future), the question is what additions (if any) make the most sense to solidify the conference & to improve it. From a business point of view, the Northeast footprint is valuable because there is no local competition. Heck, a survey reported last year showed that Rutgers is third in football viewership in New Jersey behind Penn State & Notre Dame.

Nature abhors a vacuum, so the Penn States & Notre Dames of the world have moved in to fill that void on Northeast TV screens in places like New Jersey. However, fans would switch their TV channels in a heartbeat if the local competition was of the same caliber & alums would turn out at the stadium for a top flite team.

Sportsgeog has made the point that this won't happen in places where a Big East member will never be better than second or third best in the state. I agree. Huskymania has swept into college football in CT, turning out 37000 fans per game in the first year in their new stadium without even Big East membership yet in effect. The same thing can happen elsewhere around the Northeast if those programs are upgraded. Few metro NY fans are going to drive to a game in Happy Valley even if they watch it on TV, but they would go to a Rutgers game if Rutgers games were worth attending. Same for Temple. Same potential for upgraded programs at UMass & others if they choose that route.

Most important of all are TV sets, of which there are an enormous number in the Northeast. The Memphises, East Carolinas, & Central Floridas of the world are going to have a tough time competing for viewership in their own locales, but put high caliber programs in the Northeast metro areas & there would be no competition from within the region.

Re your comment that football will drive the bus if a split occurs because football will need to upgrade to compete with the other BCS conferences, I agree that football will drive the bus. However, we have no idea (well, maybe some idea) whether fb will need to be upgraded in 5 years. If the current BE fb programs do their job over the next 5 years, they will be on a par with the other BCS conferences & will not be so concerned about getting programs for the purpose of an upgrade. If they don't, the Big East may no longer be a BCS conference. Yes football will be driving the bus, but their will be other passengers on board. If things are like they are today, the membership will insist on protecting their assets - & the primary asset today is basketball. Why water down your basketball value with the likes of East Carolina & Central Florida for a football mirage which may never come to fruition. They weren't willing to do that a year ago & I don't think they will do it in 5 years.

The ACC saw the market potential of expanding into the Northeast & the Big East marketing gurus will tell the Ohio Valley & Florida members the same thing. Expanding into Ohio made sense because Ohio State is the only BCS game in town & with a pop of 11 mill, there is room to carve out another niche. Although a smaller state of 4 mill, Kentucky also had only only one BCS program - & a not very successful one at that. Florida made some sense because of its enormous population, bowl tie-in potential, & recruiting base. Florida also made sense because USF is far from Florida State & Miami, so they could potentially do in the Tampa area the other two have done in their parts of the state, knowing that a successful University of Florida program will always be #1 in the state. But where is the market potential for a fifth program in North Carolina - or even a fifth program in Florida right in Gainesville's back yard? Memphis is debatable, but even there the potential is more limited than it is in the Northeast.

(Note: I know that you didn't advocate for East Carolina. I bring it up it only because it is one of the most frequently mentioned programs outside of the Northeast footprint.)

^Very well articulated points there FriarFan. I agree.

Just a note on the U Memphis statewide vs. U Tennessee statewide market thing.

I went to the U Tennessee athletic site to see if they had a listing of their University of Tennessee Athletics Radio Network to see if they have numerous radio affiliates and they are statewide. They are indeed numerous and statewide, including West Tennessee, including an affiliate in Memphis, Jackson, Union City, Martin, and others in that West Tennessee 1/3. You can see from this link:

http://utsports.collegesports.com/ot/radio.html

But I did the same thing for U Memphis, to see if they have radio affiliates in the eastern and central parts of the state. When I went to their athletic site, all I could find was a link called "Audio/Video" and it revealed these mere 3 affiliates to their "partners":

http://gotigersgo.collegesports.com/multimedia/mem-multimedia.html

I can't believe they would only have a local Memphis radio station and a couple TV stations for their affiliates. I then wanted to be sure, so I conducted a Google search using the following search phrase:

University of Memphis Athletics Radio Network,

and it came up with nothing.

Then I did Memphis Tigers Radio Network. And it came up with nothing.

The newspapers outside of Memphis and West Tennessee don't cover Memphis. The TV stations in Nashville, Knoxville, Tri-Cities area, and Chattanooga are most likely not going to cover the University of Memphis. Reason Nashville is bigger metro, has Vandy plus Tenn State, and Tenn Tech, and MTSU and is 200 miles away. Knoxville, the states 3rd largest market with 700K (about 5/8th the size of Memphis) is 400 miles away and is home to U Tennessee. Chattanooga has 500,000 metro (about 3/8th the size of Memphis), is 350 miles away, it isn't too far from U Tennessee in Knoxville and has UT Chattanooga. The Tri-Cities area is 500 miles away from Memphis. They would be more interested in what's going on in Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte, Greensboro, and Richmond, before Memphis. They also have East Tenn State (non-football now, that is true, but they have bball), and UTennessee, because its just to the West of them.

If their papers don't cover much on them statewide.

If their TV stattions don't cover their athletic news much statewide.

If they can't even get a game locally to hear the U Memphis games.

Then they are not a Tennessee Statewide team. They are a Memphiscentric and somewhat West Tennessee Team and also are 1st in Memphis and possibly 2nd in Jackson and other West Tennessee locales. Their market is not more than 1.5 million, and nothing more.

<<So there isn't this free-form nature to college football anymore. But the fairness now isn't the open access to a bowl and close proximity. Its with the 85 scholarship rule.>>

Bowl access has changed completely in the last 15 years, not all for the bad, but definitely not all for the good. There were very few tie-ins 15 years ago. There were about a half dozen with conference champs and everything else was open. Now bowls tie up the #7 SEC school for fear of getting stuck with the #3 CUSA school. Of course, they aren't making the unofficial invitations in early October anymore. The result for the non-BCS is that a good non-BCS team has to play another non-BCS team or a #6 or #7 BCS team.

<<I still think its unfair, and the contempt that people have is far-fetched.>>

Temple is unfairly abused on the competitiveness end. Pitt was pretty bad for a while and Temple beat them 3 years running. Temple did win at Blacksburg recently. But on the attendance end, dead last in I-A with their schedule, and dead last among BCS schools for at least 7 years running (probably since the BE was formed) through 2002 (they finally beat out Duke in 2003) deserves some contempt. They just have not made the committment.

<<But Memphis is an absolute misfit in the BE as an institution.>>

As your relative says, the BE is an anomoly. Memphis, Louisville and Cincinnati are triplets.
As for your comments about historical associations in KS, MS, NE and NC, that also applies to Vanderbilt in TN. And even more so with Vanderbilt. Its hard to think of a university and city more out of sync in image than Vandy and Nashville. So Tennessee is almost like Ohio or Louisiana who only have one BCS team (excluding future BE member Cincinnati).

I agree Memphis has limits as far as being a statewide team. The same applies to their siblings, Louisville and Cincinnati. As we beat to death previously, I believe they have significantly less competition than Cincinnati and less than Louisville due to their distance from the 800 lb gorilla in the state. Louisville will always be #2 in Louisville. Memphis can be #1 in Memphis.

Half of Oregon, half of Mississippi, half of Kansas, all of Nebraska is not that much difference from the Memphis market (admittedly which will always have significant UTK influence-but UM and MSU deal with USM).

<<Bullet, every conference has a Cincinnati basketball school including Kentucky. Lousiville will catch up as the stadium will grow as interest grows. Attendance does not reflect success as Miami Oh proved this year. Kansas will never compete with Ok State either so what the point you were making.>>

That was a response to the UL is equal to UK comment. They may be equal on the fb field and equivalent on the bb court (UK is one of top 3 programs in the country, UL one of top 10). But competitiveness does not equal fan support and attractiveness to a conference. Any conference would not even have to think about a choice between Kentucky and Louisville. Kentucky is Kentucky's school. Louisville is Louisville. And as SG points out, they are an "urban grant." They are a commuter school with the looser ties to the alumni that entails. Louisville will always be #2 in fan support, TV draw and in fans going to bowl games. Given a 6-5 UK team and a 8-3 UL team, bowls will pick UK.

Lash-Interesting point about who would actually have the votes in a BE fb conference. It will be about who they think can best help them at the time of a split. That doesn't mean they will make a good decisions <g>, but it won't be based solely on NE geography, especially with 4 of the 8 outside the NE.

IMO East Carolina will be seriously considered. They will be #5 in NC in bb and will not contribute much in bb. Neither did Miami or Virginia Tech or Rutgers. All were added to the BE. ECU is not an academic powerhouse. Neither was FSU. The ACC added them. The BE schools schedule ECU in fb. Their attendance is 3rd behind Louisville and Army of non-BCS schools in the Central and Eastern time zones. They are attractive to bowls because of their following. While their name is "East" Carolina, they draw students from throughout the state. UNC is relatively small and restrictive for an "enormous state university." That means more students go to the other schools. Academics and bb are negatives, but fb is a big positive that could outweigh those negatives. How important bb vs. fb is depends on how well the BE fb schools do in those areas over the next few years. If SU, WVU, Pitt and Louisville are regulars in the fb top 25, that will make ECU (and UCF and Marshall) less attractive and a school like Temple more attractive.

They had 3 bad years in the mid-1990's. I don't think it deserves any contempt. They have made improvements, they are a NE team, and their competition to become a possible new BE member is not that much better.




Right, and if they become more of an anomoly, by taking Memphis, ECU, or UCF, then I would reverse my position and agree with him. They would become, indeed, a defacto CUSA. What FriarFan points out, I agree with. I say why bother, if that is what you become.




Vandy isn't anything too different than Northwestern, and Wake Forest and Duke. Yes, historically captured.




But at least Louisville has links in the two state newspapers. Louisville is the largest market with the largest statewide newspaper. There is only Lexington, and that is only half the size. Its like what I described in Nebraska, Omaha projects over Lincoln. Creighton gets known out in North Platte, because the Omaha World Herald goes out there. U of Nebraska is still the #1 team, but if UNO was the University of Omaha and had a similar situation as U of Louisville, it could be very similar in having following outside.

The Louisville-Courier-Journal is one of the nation's top 100 newspaper and is Kentucky's largest and most likely statewide. It can "project" like this because it exceeds all other markets in the state, which is not what Memphis and Tennessee is. It loses out to Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Tri-Cities. Memphis has not much meaning there. Those markets are not much smaller than Memphis, and Memphis can't get there newspaper significance there. That is the problem there, and why Louisville is more advantageous than Memphis in a bigger geographic coverage and market sense. But yes it plays 2nd fiddle to UK. But its more significant statewide than what Memphis is statewide in Tennessee.

Louisville Courier Journal:
http://www.courier-journal.com/cjsports/index.shtml

Lexington Herald-Leader:
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/sports/
see the U of Louisville Cardinals Link.

I can't seem to look at Ole Miss, U of Arkansas and Miss State radio networks to see if they have affiliates in the City of Memphis. I wouldn't doubt that they do.

Again, it is impossible for some fan following to not occur in Memphis, TN and Memphis, TN suburbs for Ole Miss and Miss State. That metro area is only 85 miles from Oxford, it is the nearest big city to that U of Miss and will get people living there that follow Ole Miss.

Memphis is not much more than being number 1 in Memphis as Louisville is not much more being number 1 in Louisville. Why would there be a UTK affiliate in Memphis? Its not some diamond in the ruff. Its a secondary team, in a secondary market situation --> ala, its a CUSA team.




Right, it will always have UTK, but also Ole Miss, Miss State, and U Ark, and Ark State, nipping in there too. Its just not a major market for major college football. Louisville, again, is the only Urban Grant, along with Pitt and UCLA (which are urban grants, but more like prestigousness of major major state U's) is the only one that can do this.

Nebraska is by itself in that 1.7 million market. Because of its success, it seeps into western Iowa, because Ames and Iowa City are farther away. Kansas is close to Kansas City and numerous grads are grads of KU and some KSU that live on the Missouri side of KC Metro. KU is the local Kansas City, Missouri team. Mizzou is too, but KU is 35 miles away and Mizzou is 120 miles away. So KU and KSU pick up the 1.2 million of the 1.8 million metro market into Missouri added onto the state's pop of 2.7 million. But nonetheless you can't divide the two flagship state U's as 1/2 of the states pop. They both can claim that 2.7 million as their market, because they go statewide.

Oregon, same thing, only they have 3.5 million. DogsNC@cks already explained Ole Miss and Miss State. USM is a regional school there.

Memphis is not the Tennessee State of Tennessee. Its not even that in West Tennessee and West Tennessee, period.

If it becomes more of an anomoly, then I would agree with my cousin. Memphis isn't a diamond in the ruff. It may be sandstone or limestone.

FSU is a 2nd Tier National University according to USNWR. There are no 3rd Tier National U's in the ACC. Its also the most historical school in the State of Florida and 1 of 2 original flagships. U of Florida the other one. Its a Doctoral/Research University -- Extensive. It is not an inferior school for the ACC standards.

ECU is an academic mismatch for the BE. Its an historic normal. When I get time I will calculate that "East of I-95" market to see what their market is.

Regarding the value of the northeastern footprint to the BE (should the split occur, yadda, yadda, yadda...). I think the value of the regional footprint will not be overlooked too easily.

1) That SU and BC considered, no matter how briefly in SU's case, membership with the ACC, the idea was a long term view towards stability, not an abandonment of the northeast. The perspective is different now that this discussion is considering the future welfare of the remaining members and not individual schools considering other options.

2) The BE built it's success on the regionalism of the basketball network. The schools were known commodities among the locals and despite institutional differences they all shared cultural similarities.

3) In lieu of tremendous built in fan support, football's demand for higher attendance figures almost requires viable commuting options for away games. Such traveling support can and will help certain teams with gameday revenues. Duke can sell out when NCSU or decent UNC teams come to town, and GT always does better when Clemson comes to town compared to, say, Maryland. VT expects to bring a lot of fans to their road games, and that's one reason many ACC fans wanted them.

4) As the conference makes headlines, the members can more easily compete for attention vs. PSU and ND. Not that every Temple contest would command the most of Page 1, but highlight match-ups from the region's premier conference would certainly deserve more attention. Locally, ACC and SEC games recieve more press and air time than most national games, with regular reports on each team every week. The BE probably recieves similar coverage now, but I think that coverage would only grow deeper as the conference retained more of it's own regional profile. IMO.

5) Even Miami wanted to maintain a presence in the northeast, no matter how superficial, because it understood the potential resources there.

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Adding a Memphis won't kill the conference, nor would adding a Temple cure all the ills. But there's a reason and an appeal to the conference based upon it's original structure that warrants respect. It wasn't the northeast location that damaged the conference but rather administrative planning, per se. Thus, I would hate to see the conference simply draft the best program available (BYU?) but rather the best program that fits the mold.


(And we're underway with the 04-05 season: Arsenal 4, Everton 1. )

Friarfan, I see your point as BE moves foreward and what needs are necessary for future stability. However, if Syracuse was looking for stablity in the ACC that will not change with the new configured BE including football concerns.

Couple of things that could become issues in the new Big East and are probable reasons that a lot of folks think a splits is inevitable.

16 teams for basketball. This is both good and bad. The 14 team conference always left 2 teams out of the tournament and 16 may leave 4 teams out of the tournament. The ability to play in a conference post season is critical for requiting, morale, sportmanship, etc.

The other issue is spliting into divisions. If 12 teams need to split into divisions for management (Big 12 is sceduled like divisions) then the BE at 16 really needs some managed method. The only fair or good approach is to align by fb and non fb schools. This just has controversy written all over it. Notre Dame will not want to play in a bb division etc. No coach is going to want to be ranked 16th in the final BE regular season if he wants to keep his job. The BE almost has to break into divisions with 16 members.

The above basketball issues can probably be resolved. Football is the other big concern. Agreed if one of the 8 members step up and become dominant, the BE will not have to worry about BCS membership. There are other concerns that just BCS.

There is a reason that most conferences have 10 or more members. Part of the reason the ACC expanded from 9 was to take the heat of FSU needing to always perform at the top level.

Basketball and expecially football conferences are judged from top to bottom. The stable conferences are not just judged from have one or two super teams and more about having many good teams.

This is something the BE lacked in the past. With only 8 members, Rutgers ability to gain ground and Temple dismissal performances really hurt the BE image more than anything else. Only 6 members were considered valuable during the first years of BE football.

With 10 members, there is room to have a bottom dweller or even a couple non performing teams and remain competative from top to bottom. If Vanderbilt and Kentucky were in an 8 team SEC, would the SEC have the same perception?

The Big East may have looked at it self as a basketball first conference for the first 10 years of existance, however, this is a new era and the conference needs to ensure football is taken care of or there will be a split. The old alliance that keep Syracuse in the BE basketball conference along with taking Pitt and prevented Penn State from joining is gone with the wind. Major reason is that football makes much more money than basketball and to be considered a major conference in todays college sports scene, you must play major football. Like or not BCS defines the majors from the others.

UConn is not going back to 1AA and will go with the football schools if a split occurs.

The question is then how does BE build football with having 7 members that dont really care about div 1A football and one member that only cares about its own football program.

I think 8 football schools are just too small of a number for the long term. You have to ask the question. If there were no basketball schools would the BE remain with 8 members.

As for defining footprints. A lot of conferences are fortuate to have built many years ago and have concurrent or joining states as part of the footprint.

A footprint is basically your group of TV markets. Having a connected region may be nice, however, markets are markets. If Memphis gets the same percentage of the Memphis market as Miami gets with south Florida, it has the same value with TV.

This is the primary reason the ACC has Boston and the Big East has Tampa. Neither markets are close to the core of the perceived footprints of those two respected conferences.