I am not sure what happened to my brilliantly written post to which Mr. Schmack is trying in vain to challenge above, but let me give you the lowdown TXSTBobcat ---"I'm right...He's wrong"

LOL! Just kidding Schmack-talker! It is always fun to discuss this with you. We beleive certain things to be true and probably go to the point of almost advocating them. I think the truth is somewhere in between our views (probably closer to my view though...).

I'll do this bit by bit as I wrote the last post twice (timed out first time).

I am guessing whatever happened to my post happened to JP's, so I will quote. Maybe future responses should not use the quote button...



Again, I think it is a no brainer for the academic part of Tulane and they probably make the call. Tulsa, SMU, Rice are top academic schools and Houston may be the frontrunner to become Texas's #3 tier 1 university with it's high research funds.

Every school wants to be part of a Big 10 like conference --- good academics and athletics in a reasonable footprint with good TV revenue. The Western schools may have that kind of future (10-20 years down the road ---although where they'd be at 5 years from now isn't bad). The eastern schools are simply striving to follow Louisville in being a bad academic school that moves up on athletic reasons.



As I illustrated in the previous post, the DMAs that each resulting conference could put together would not be dwarfed by the existing CUSA.

BCS payouts would probably be a wash. With no conference championship game, the schools do not have a means to potentially jump them ove the WAC or MWC candidate, but it does increase the odds of an undefeated school coming up.

In basketball, Vs. a split where memphis (at your percieved level of excellence) goes 17-1 in conference and UAB gets in off their win over memphis while Tulsa takes the SWC autobid = 3 teams in.

My point is the difference in many potentially negative areas seems quite marginal.



I was probably inartful in my "mouths to feed" arguement, but it is really an important one. Simply put lets say CUSA has about 20M people in their native DMAs. Some areas they have good market saturation and in other areas no one gives a crap about their schools. The end result is that ESPN and the lot will give them X dollars for their broadcasts. For ease of math we will say ESPN gives CUSA 12 Quinnbucks for football and another 8 Quinnbucks for basketball = 20 Quinnbucks. Now with 12 Mouths to feed, that means each school's share of broadcast revenue is 1.67 Quinnbucks.

Now the proposed SWC might only have say 15.5M in their native DMAs, but with UNT's large DFW alumni base backing SMU's small but rich Dallas alumni base, the conference would have better relevance in the important DFW market making their Quinnbuck per DMA resident slightly richer that what CUSA garners for the Texas markets. 3/4 of the TV households in CUSA DMAs are in teh Western areas. Lets say instead of getting a little less than 9 Quinnbucks for football, their CUSA share is more like 7 due to poor market saturation in DFW. In the SWC, with UNT good penetration in DFW and Houston, it might very well be a full 9 Quinnbucks.

Now in BB CUSA might be more of a 50/50 split with baskketball being an afterthought in the west outside of small markets Tulsa and El Paso, while Memphis is a national power akin to UNLV in the tarkanian era. Now with the remergance of Tulsa as the dominant school in their league and UNT helping the DFW market, in time, I could see the BB share hitting say 5 or so.

That means say 16 Quinnbucks split between 8 school = 2 Quinnbucks per school.

Now lets look at the east. With Army, Navy, and Temple as football only added and Charlotte as all sports, their native DMAs rise from 5M to 17.5M. Additionally, Temple is the biggest college football program in Philly, NYC has only 2 ---eternally depressed Rutgers and Army. Army and Navy are national names. It is entirely possible that they will get strong penetration into the football starved NE DMAs. 10 or even 12 quinnbucks is not out of the question.

In basketball, all of the schools would have quite strong penetration and support that goes beyond native DMAs even though their markets would be lesser. Again, I think 5 Quinnbucks is a conservative guess.

If you divide the 12 football quinnbucks between 10 schools you get 1.2. Add in the 5 Quinnbucks divided by 9 BB schools and you get another .55 for a total of 1.75 quinnbucks or so. Now certainly that would have to be partitioned out a bit to lure in St. Louis, but my point is that the loss of revenue you discuss in a split is not a given and even if it occured would be modest, not likely be the kind of major disaster scenario you are painting. Would the cut in travel revenue make it a financial positive? Probably for schools like UCF, Marshall, and ECU.




I think Tulane isn't totally in love with La Tech, but the western schools long ago concluded La Tech is PERCIEVED by the BCS to be the #3 Lousiana school.

From Tulane's perpsective (a practicality one), they would be a needed close game to help football attendance if they leave their tradional CUSA rivals.



IMO, Memphis just lost a ton more luster than you see them losing. I think the Grizz will eat away at their local support and the team will drop down to Tourney bubble status on the court, costing them their national following within 5 years. Memphis is a BB school with BE dreams. Joining a football first western stretching team like the SWC would likely be only underscores how far west they are. They want to seem eastern.

UNT over UCF is just travel. UCF is the better school and program, but UNT is what the CUSA west NEEDS. Plus it takes two. I don't know why UCF would want into the SWC.

So. Miss as I stated above might very well take Tulane's bid to the SWC if Tulane hemms and haws. They are a football first school that might be able to replicate (on a lower level) the success in football that Arkansas had playing in the old SWC. Mississippi talent plus massive Texas exposure could be a real boon for them. Tulane won't hesitate if it comes to that.

I think that if the west breaks away, they won't want to kill the eastern schools by taking the NCAA bid which they would need to rebuild, so they will only take 1 school.



LOL! I disagree that market SHARE is more imporant than market SIZE. I'd much rather have say Temple (moderate sliver of Philly DMA) than ULM (owns most of Monroe DMA). I think Media figures out what is reasonable based on prior broadcasts and the like and determines how many actual viewers that potentially equates to.



Still not getting the point in this. NBA teams kill college BB programs' fan support ---live and on TV. It just isn't a positive. UT-Austin and even U Buffalo have good basketball situations --- good markets too small for NBA competition. Memphis used to have that.



This is all based off the faulty premise that market share is is more important that market size. It isn't.

There is a reason that the BE brought in USF. USF was an afterthought in Florida, but the potential (enrollment, stadium, DMA) was there for USF to grow beyond what it had been.

In otherwords it HAD poor market share, but good market size. It has since grown to have good market share.

If the BE had instead tabbed a school with a small market, it would not have had the growth potential.



I think the thing you aren't looking at is the nature of this conference. It is two conferences using each other to mask their weaknesses. And both think they contribute more. The Eastern schools have the much stronger public support for their programs that Bowls like to see. The Western schools have the top academics, endowments, and reputations that BCS schools would not mind having an affiliation with. Members of each half think the other is dragging them down.

Now concerning who comes out better, again it boils down to what you want. The Western schools would have a nice sensible conference with 4 top academic privates and a public school that is the front runner to be the states 3rd tier 1 academic institution. UNT also wants and is pursuing tier 1 status. Could this conference follow UT's lead and insist all member schools push for higher academic standards? Sure. Long term that could be a reasonable goal. There is a lot there to suggest long term stability. Texas State and UTSA would likely want in and might tailor their universities to fit those conference goals. They'd make good members down the road. These schools want stability and have been pursueing it for 20 years. It seems within reach with this setup.

Now the Eastern schools want Big East membership. Pure and Simple. Their conference would have the goal of presenting them as being as BCS-like AS INSTITUTIONS as possible.

I think the two seperate goals of CUSA membership is really the wedge here.



I am merely looking for instability. I think CUSA appears one of the most unstable conferences at the FBS level. If it happens or doesn't, we can't say until it does or doesn't.



Lets be clear. I am anticipating stress brought on by dealing with future high oil prices leading to the eastern schools (ECU, lol!) pissing off the Texas schools. I think it MARGINALLY makes sense to stay together, but that is a very tiny margin based on costs today. I think high travel costs and frustrated angry admins could easily tip that scale.

Please do not use the quote post button as it may wipe this post.

I'd like to throw in another potential benefit of a CUSA split. Right now there are 11 FBS conferences. so 5/11 are BCS =45%. If CUSA split, there would be 12. That alone might be enough to get another conference (likely the MWC) into the BCS with an autobid.

If you think of the FBC conferences in terms of team standings and BCS schools as playoff teams, you'll likely get what I am talking about here. 5/12 (or 5/13 if Texas State starts their own FBS conference) is pretty undefensible to the general public. 50% in with the possibility of teams from the lower 50 getting in too is a lot more "sellable". I think if there was a split, the odds are you'd see a MWC BCS autobid come about. (Maybe in execution, the MWC and BE would get smaller BCS money --- as they have fewer members --- to make it work out. Maybe they split the BE's current BCS share of 18M, getting 9M per year to share.)

If this were to occur, the WAC, CUSA, and SWC would likely have a narrow lead over the sunbelt in pursuit of a BCS at large bid earmarked for Non-BCS conferences.

In this scenario, the cream of non-BCS would be UH and Boise, not UH, Boise, BYU, Utah, & TCU. WIth those 5 schools, there is very little chance you might see a CUSA or sunbelt school in a BCS game. With just UH and Boise, you know one of the two schools will probably win the conference, but they could lose one game opening up the possibility of another non-BCS conference getting in. You might see more BCS money trickling down to the current CUSA schools by creating a scenario that helps the MWC into the BCS.

More conferences push the money down and proably cut travel costs. For this reason you might see non-BCS admins pushing for scenarios that create more conferences, rather than less.

There are 6 BCS conferences (ACC, BE, Big Ten, Big XII, SEC, PAC) + Notre Dame. 66 schools

5 are not BCS Auto-bid conferences (MWC, WAC, C-USA, Sun-Belt, MAC)+ Indies Army / Navy. 54 schools

So 55% of the total 120 D-I FBS football schools are in a situation to earn an automatic bid.

I'm 0-2 on posting a reply. Probably too long or something. Here's my cliff notes (this is hard for me)

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I'm 0-2 on posting a reply. Probably too long or something. Here's my cliff notes (this is hard for me)

#1 - East/West philosophy schism: Every school wants to be part of a Big 10 like conference.
As it stands right now, the 12 C-USA teams are the best non-BCS schools eastern of the Rockies. The schism isn't so large that each side would trade half for lesser schools.

#2 - "mouths to feed" / Size vs Share.
Yeah, I get the split of revenue by team. The question is, for these two groups, will the teams added bring in the additional dollars to make each side retain the same revenue stream. I don't think so. I don't think UNT and LA Tech can replace Memphis, UAB, UCF, So Miss and ECU.

By market SHARE, I didn't mean 100% of Ruston is better than, say, 20% of Philly because 100 > 20. 20% of Philly is 1 million people, and 100% of Ruston is 20,000 people. The total intrest and viewers and fans is what's important.

Your example of USF is perfect to tie points 1 and 2 together. USF got the nod because the Big East wanted the best Florida school for recruiting and a presence in the state. That is the same principle the 6 new C-USA teams were brought in for. UTEP got the nod over La Tech for C-USA because they bring more to the table. Four of the East schools bring more to the table than La Tech or North Texas.

#3 - La Tech.
Perceived to be the #3 school in Louisiana means nothing. It's still LSU and everyone else.

Tulane's played La Tech ONCE since the 1930s. The attendance for that game WAS great (37,000), but not because it was La Tech, but because Tulane was 10-0 and #11 in the country and it was the regular season finale of a perfect season. They could have played Alaska Anchorage and drawn 37,000. No one is clamoring to play La Tech. If the fans wanted to see La Tech, one of the dozen or so ADs since the 1930s would have scheduled them more than once.

#4 - UNT over UCF is just travel.
Yeah, but it's not UCF vs UNT, UNT vs Memphis. UNT vs ECU, etc. You can make a case for UNT over each of those schools and what they do for a conference. I wouldn't mind having Texas State and North Texas... but at the expense of Marshall. Not at the expense of UAB, Southern Miss, Memphis, UCF AND ECU.

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#5 - NBA thing

The point was that your NBA markets are big league cities appealing for TV revenue. You're replacing a large market like Memphis for Denton Texas and Ruston La. Regardless of the fact that those areas have NBA teams taking interest and fans, the PRICE of advertising in Memphis is greater than the price of advertising in Denton. That's where the TV money comes from.

#6 - I think the two seperate goals of CUSA membership is really the wedge here. I think CUSA appears one of the most unstable conferences at the FBS level.

The goals are not all that separate. The East want Big East membership, the West want athletics and academics in the best possible conference alignment.

The problem with splitting is that the best possible conference alignment available to them NOW is the one they have. (Well, I'd say dumping Marshall for North Texas would make the most sense. You move Tulane to the East).

But how is a hybrid conference going to prove to the Big East that ECU and UCF are worthy? Memphis needs only football success to prove worthiness to the Big East. UCF has the location, structure and facilities... they just need to beat the teams in C-USA and prove they've outgrown it.

How is beating North Texas and La Tech going to prove anything to others looking to join Houston, SMU, Rice and Tulsa?

The instability stems not from a horrible relationship, but from the fact that they are 8th out of 10 FBS conferences. If you ranked the conferences by stability, you'd have the SEC, Pac 10, Big XII and Big Ten in the top four, the ACC 5, the Big East 6 (their issue is if they retain the 7 hoops members, but the 8 football schools are united), then the Mountain West 8th. The WAC, C-USA and Sun Belt are the bottom three. The WAC is stuck with each other due to geography. The Sun Belt is "stable" as the lowest on the pecking order. C-USA is the conference that's affect the most by any shift the others make.

They are "thrown together" as teams trying to upgrade their affiliations. This isn't 1990, where a pre-emptive move would set a trend that shakes things up nationally (like half these schools tried with the Metro Conference). It's not like the SWC, with Arkansas, Texas, Texas A&M national teams and SMU cheating to keep up.

This is the bottom feeders of FBS. The only thing splitting is going to do is make four groups of bottom feeders in FBS instead of three.

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Na, it's a server issue. I contacted the hosts to open up more connections since I have the same problem.

But when it happens, I just hit the Bck button on FireFox and submit again. It works 100% of the time for me.

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I copied tute's post and replied in a new entry to avoid accidental deletion.



It is a good point and likely what the BCS would argue, but within 10 years it is not at all unrealistic that you might see 10 more FCS schools, bringing the total school count to a 50-50 split. (Most likely possibilities are Charlotte, Texas St, UTSA, SHSU, Lamar, Jacksonville St., Georgia Southern. Other potential movers may include Citadel, App St., JMU, Georgia St., Delaware, and a few others.)

66 schools out of 130 is 51%.

The counter arguement would be that 6 BCS conferences automatically get a bid for one of their schools and up to 7 would not even share a guaranteed bid.

To me that seems a tough sell to the general public.

I copied again.



Again, the western schools are great academic programs overall, but have stunted athletic programs largely due to NBA and NFL killzones. If the eastern programs want to make the arguement for BCS inclusion in football, including Army and Navy (who draw over 30K each to games and play historic programs like ND), may outweigh the loss of the western schools in the east teams' eyes. Both academies are well respected academic institutions. If the eastern schools do beleive the strength of their athleic support is the driving force that will get them to BCS status---like Louisville --- army and Navy would not be seen as "lesser schools".

On the western side, UNT and LA Tech may be considered better candidates than current member S. Miss or Marshall, and potentially as strong as some of the other schools. I think I have shown how financially UNT makes a lot of financial sense. Regarding the one school that they would feel a pronounced loss for losing --- memphis --- I have also laid out why mephis might not look nearly as strong of a candidate in 5 years.




Maybe, maybe not. Clearly when CUSA last realigned that was the case. Is it still the case today? Will it be the case 1-5 years from now? That is what we don't know.




This is an excellent point and one I will concede. Everything I had seen on La Tech joining CUSA mentioned how much they'd help Tulane, but Tulane isn't playing them. It makes no sense to me, but I can acknowledge that maybe I am wrong on this. It does raise the question why was La Tech considered a runner up for CUSA inclusion? I pose it to you. Who are thier advocates if not Tulane? Clearly they have some in CUSA? Memphis? S. Miss? The Texas schools? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

I do still think that percieved to be the #3 school in Louisiana DOES mean something. I think there is a reason that CUSA seriously considered La Tech and not another school in LA.




Again, at no point have I suggested that any of the Texas schools will suddently wake up one morning and say "lets run off UCF or Memphis" or even Marshall. I think what could happen is that eastern members could make the inner-conference deallings toxic and the western schools could bail like the MWC schools bailed on the WAC.

The Gang of 5 pulled 3 good markets out of the WAC and left longtime member UTEP behind. They did this to leave a functional WAC in place. Even with this, there was huge bad blood. Imagine if the MWC had formed with 10 members or 12 ---wiping out the WAC's tourney bid.

Schools don't want to screw over old conference mates any more than they have to. Every time I see these conferences shift, the remnants are generally left a clear path to survival. They may not like that path, but there is one. Conferences do not appear to want to risk the permanent bad blood of taking apart another conference.

To me it seems like you are asking the wrong either/or. I think if they split most of the calm members will strive for an amicable split, meaning 6/6 with each having the needed traction to retain NCAA tourney access, so the only either or question I can see is why Tulane over any other CUSA East school (Memphis or UCF) and to me the answer is both schools would rather be in the eastern half of the conference.

copied



UNT has an enrollment of 34K. Denton only has a city population of 115K. I live in Denton and can assure you that most UNT alumni move away from campus after they graduate. They don't stay in Denton. Most UNT alumni live in the various communities in DFW. Additionally Denton is in the DFW DMA --- it is not big enough to have it's own TV --- beyond community access and whatnot. UNT is the DFW DMA --- much larger than the Memphis DMA. I'd also question the idea that more adverstising revenue could be raised in memphis and DFW (if I am reading the intent of your statement right.)

Regarding La Tech... I got nothing there beyond the fact that there is some reason CUSA liked them. I have to think they were not evaluated as merely the second school in their native DMA (monroe #136 ~180K TV households), but rather evalutating them in the best possible light --- as a school of intererst in MonroE AND NEIGHBORING MARKETS Shreveport and Little Rock.

copied



UNT has an enrollment of 34K. Denton only has a city population of 115K. I live in Denton and can assure you that most UNT alumni move away from campus after they graduate. They don't stay in Denton. Most UNT alumni live in the various communities in DFW. Additionally Denton is in the DFW DMA --- it is not big enough to have it's own TV --- beyond community access and whatnot. UNT is the DFW DMA --- much larger than the Memphis DMA. I'd also question the idea that more adverstising revenue could be raised in memphis and DFW (if I am reading the intent of your statement right.)

Regarding La Tech... I got nothing there beyond the fact that there is some reason CUSA liked them. I have to think they were not evaluated as merely the second school in their native DMA (monroe #136 ~180K TV households), but rather evalutating them in the best possible light --- as a school of intererst in MonroE AND NEIGHBORING MARKETS Shreveport and Little Rock.

I got up 2 posts and then they were wiped out as well as your last one.

Ok, my points in matchbook form:

C-USA is essentially the 12-best non-BCS schools east of the rockies.
The league's "instability" stems from the fact that they are among the lowest of the FBS conferences on the pecking order, similar to the WAC in the West. No matter what happens above them, they will feel the ripple effects.

Dividing basically makes two weaker groups of bottom feeders in the FBS level. It makes three Sun Belts instead of a C-USA and a Sun Belt. Unless a few of the Sun Belt teams rise up to a level where they are moving ahead of the C-USA teams on the list of candidates for the Big East, there's no reason to split.

It's also foolhardy to act before the Big East splits along football lines, because if they do, the two C-USA groups are in a situation where one group may dip below the six continuous members, and they'd just have to re-merge.

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1> no disagreeing with this assessment, but I'd like to add that there is little in common between the privates in the west and the publics in the east and that both sides think they contribute the value in the conference.

2> disagree. The potential is there to have two conferences that are better than sunbelt level and IMO potentially better than CUSA today.

3> Agree to a point. I don't think we will see any changes happen in CUSA until the BE makes their plans for 2010 and beyond known. If they don't split, I think CUSA will not continue on as constructed beyond that, waiting for the BE to change their mind. CUSA will do what they will do based on their own conference at that point. I think you could see gas prices rise, the BE stay together, ECU (and maybe marshall) get very vocal about "less developed programs in the west" and travel costs to play them, The western ADs might want to walk just tired of the headache, Tulane won't let S. Miss or Memphis go with the large market west instead of them, The west won't hurt memphis, UAB, and So Miss by taking 7 so you get 2 conferences.

Understand I am not guaranteeing a split, only pointing out that it is a likely conference that could have movement.

You repeatedly talk about how good CUSA is for it's members. It isn't a grandslam. The numbers aren't much different on a split, in fact in the west the numbers are likely better with fewer mouths to feed.