School: Illinois State University
Location: Normal, IL
Designated Media Market: Peoria-Bloomington (#117/210) 243K TV Households
Undergrad Enrollment: ~21k
US News and World Report Rank: Tier 3
Endowment: #x nationally with xM as of 2005.
Current Designation: FCS (Gateway Football Conference/MVC)
Proposed Destination: Division I-FBS (CUSA/CUSA West/Sunbelt/Gateway/MVC/Southland/MAC)
Football Stadium: Hanthingy Stadium
Stadium capacity: 15,000 with plans to expand to 25,00 for future FBS consideration.
Football Attendance: 9708 (ave. 2004-2006)
NFL competition: none
Distance:N/A
BBall Stadium: on/near campus Doug Collins Court at Redbird Arena
BBall Capacity: 10,200
BBall Attendance: 5839 (57%) over the last 5 years
NBA competition: none
Distance:N/A
Athletic Budget: $10.5M

Argument: One of several MVC schools who are getting into a very good position to jump to FBS in the next 8-15 years. Their 10.2K 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).

NIU/SIU/ and ILL ST. in the same conference give real media weight in the entire state of Illinois (including the Chicago market) and as such might be VERY attractive to NIU.

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) for their media markets 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.

Has long-term plans of expanding to 25K seats.
http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/09/25/sports/doc46f9a5b61d8bd846885364.txt

What if Illinois State, MO State, S. Illinois, Wichita State, Indiana State and Northern Iowa all encouraged the MVC to add 2 private schools with no FBS plans, for example Denver and Butler. Then the MVC could have 6 publics and 6 privates, which would allow for a conference split somewhere down the road. During that time, the schools with legit FBS plans can be upgrading their facilities and talking to others in FBS land of who wants to join the 6 of them in a new FBS conference (Northern Illinois? North Texas? Arkansas State? Texas State? UTSA? Western Kentucky?) One problem is that Indiana State, Northern Iowa, and Wichita State are well behind the other 3 publics in terms of being FBS ready. Although maybe they could stay behind in FCS a la Western Kentucky did for a few years.

It's doubtful we'll ever see a FCS to FBS conference move. Even at the lower levels, it rarely happens.