School: Missouri State University
Location: Springfield, MO
Designated Media Market: Springfield (#74/210) 410K TV Households
Undergrad Enrollment: ~23k
US News and World Report Rank: ---
Endowment: ~#446 nationally with 55.8M
Current Designation: FCS (Gateway Football Conference/MVC)
Proposed Destination: Division I-FBS (CUSA/CUSA West/Sunbelt/Gateway/MVC/Southland/MAC)
Football Stadium: Plaster Sports Complex
Stadium capacity: 16,600
Football Attendance: 10,023 (ave. 2004-2006)
NFL competition: No. KC is a good distance.
Distance: N/A
BBall Stadium: on campus Hammons Student Center/ The JQH Arena
BBall Capacity: 8,846/ 11,000
BBall Attendance: 6647 (75%) over the last 5 years
NBA competition: No
Distance: N/A
Athletic Budget: $12.0M

Arguement: One of several MVC schools who are getting into a very good position to jump to FBS in the next 8-15 years. They are moving into a new 11K BB stadium that gives them the potential to be a very attractive conference mate to schools like St. Louis and Memphis in the near future. (Not saying this is LIKELY, things would have to break a certain way.)

The MVC is as good a basketball home as one could want, but only 3 or 4 schools in the conference have legit FBS dreams. Do you join the MAC and take the BB hit? Do you pull int the other 2 and try to lasso in schools in the region who may not be totally satisfied with their lot into a new conference? (UNT, Ark State, NM State, La Tech, N. ILL).

Could you create a football only conference ala the Gateway, but FBS level?

Do you approach the Southland 4 (Sam Houston, Lamar, Texas State, UTSA) and see if you can lasso in UNT and Ark State for a Football only conference? There are a lot of options --- all with their own problems --- if you make the jump.

The football stadium needs to be enlarged to 30K.

Their women's basketball team fills half their arena. Not bad, and certainly helps lessen the load for other programs.

Still, jack up the football attendance, then we'll talk.

Those actually are pretty healthy attendance numbers for an FCS school with a 16K stadium. Percentage of capacity is a key. Remember they may sell out two great FCS matchups and have mediocre attendance at the rest. With the enrollment at the university, it is entirely likely that a big FBS game might sell out a far larger stadium.