What does the MWC gain by letting two of the more known Football programs leave for football, but find a way to keep the other sports, where they are a drain on the league, in the MWC. Seems like a losing proposition for the MWC. All benefit to Boise (who is in the first year in the MWC) and AFA.

Face it, if they want to leave, they're going to leave.

My theory is they want to stay in teh MWC for other sports, instead of going to WCC or whatever.

MWC may figure, they are stronger than their replacement schools, so we may as well help them make this work.

The merger means there is a nice FB league with plenty of critical mass, even if 3 CUSA schools leave for all sports and 2 MWC pull their FB programs out.
22 -5 = 17. Maybe MWC expands with USU, SJSU, Idaho, or CUSA adds North Texas to make the numbers work out.
BE can offer BYU FB only, and MWC could take them back for all other sports... it would get BYU nto an AQ conf. which they covet.

yeah, all this is speculation....

I watched the press conference on MTN, Thompson said they would not allow any school to remain in the MWC for other sports if they didn't play in the alliance.

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Indeed, he took that public stance about 3 weeks ago. This time, I think it's a good thing...think he made a huge mistake with BYU on that as he still thought the MWC was in a position of power and could force BYU's hand: stay or join the WAC, didn't see WCC as option.

But this time, I mean, come on: Boise St. or AF offer little for other sports, so it's not a benefit to keep them. Already bad enough being a hybrid with a football-only member, no need to make it worse with 1-2 non-football members.

Losing BSU would hurt the MWC pretty bad though. Still an enjoyable conference, just hurt if they lose Utah, BYU, TCU and Boise St all within a 3 year period.

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These deterents just don't seem to work very well.

We'll see if this one does. Sounds like the CUSA schools are getting full invitations to the BE, and Boise and Air Force are forced to deal with their sports split
between 2 conferences. I wouldn't find USAFA's arrangement too objectionable, if they were put in a conference where all 3 service academies would play a round-robin.
Boise St. in the BE just looks kind of silly to me. If WVU and Louisville leave, the 4 left in the BE look no better than CUSA.... But they still have that AQ for a few more years.

So if the MWC "kicks out" Boise St. and Air Force, do they re-stock with some WAC schools ?
If that a net gain for the MWC ?

CUSA and MWC must have first started talking merger in FB, when they realized they would each lose a few schools during the next realignment.
And suddenly it is happening. The merger sort of depends on both conferences keeping numbers down to where each FB division can play a round-robin.
Maybe this is why MWC held off on adding USU and SJSU after the WAC's failed "project".

The more I think about this, it just makes sense that the point to this merger (which supposedly was driven by Boie St. and Air Force, WHO THREATEN TO LEAVE for BE FB !)
is about having the merged league sponsored by CUSA, so the MWC can retain non-FB members.. Otherwise why jump to mollify schools that plan on ditching you altogether ?

I'm not sure that was the intent, when it was originally conceived a year ago... back then, MWC and CUSA figured they were losing UCF, Houston and TCU to the BE....
but those would all be for all sports.

Tute, this we know: there will in no way be a scenario where all 3 service academies are together. Army has gone above in beyond, saying that under no circumstance, no matter the money, would they consider joining the Big East. They've given reasons, stance, everything. So for that one school, these is no room left to speculate because they have given an official stance...and the Big East has responded (which is why there are 6 candidates, Navy being #6, and if Navy passes only then would a replacement be added (temple for football only).

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Good to see Thompson take this stance. In non-Football sports, Boise and AFA are drains, so no benefits to keeping them around if they aren't playing football.



The BCS is to blame for all of this. If there wasn't this monopoly, there wouldn't be the pressure to bolt for other conferences - especially ones across the country.

Personally, I find that stance, a popular one, to be very "5 years ago".

My reasons are simple: $$$

The BCS is worth diddlypoo regarding money these days. "Access" means what, $24 million for the AQ (starting this year, was $17 mil previously) and $8-9 million for at-large?

(Last year, conferences with 2 bids made $27 million, 1 bid BCS AQ made $24).

That money doesn't go to the school, it goes to the conference. So in the average year, a school in one of the 5-6 BCS conferences would make an extra $2 million from the AQ. If it's a year when 2 get in from a conference, it means $2 mi and change per school.

The reality is though that the regular season NON-BCS revenue is huge in comparison. Within 5 years, there will be 4 conferences where each school is making over $20 million per season. Sure, 2 million is nice to add to that. But it's the regular season that pays the bills.

Take it a step further, and look at the Big Ten championship game. That's a $25 million payday for a single game on Fox...meanwhile, the BCS bowl games pay a tad less. LESS.

So the argument about chasing the "BCS money" is a fallacy.

What we are seeing is more about schools chasing the opportunity for more TV money. And Boise St. being in the Big East makes the Big east amore valuable product, meaning they can do better at the negotiation table to increase their revenue...per school.


The problem ends up being in some of the bad deals agreed to...like the MWC and their chump change. $2 million is huge for a MWC school because they have such a bad deal, especially compared to a lesser conference like CUSA. But with the partnership comes renegotiations. And the value of the MWC will go up being in tandem with CUSA.


So in the end, if the MWC can provide more money via the CUSA tandem per school than the Big East can at 12, you can rest assure BSU will stay in the MWC. Because in the end, if $$$ is equal, logic will win out.

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Now the BE is involved...

Will this super-conference idea work? I don't think so. 20+ schools is way too much.

Actually, I kind of like it. It works well for everyone involved as long as they are allowed to have semifinals. It works well for the Big East which may find itself down to 4 or 5 members. The Big East could add UMass, Temple, Charlotte, Richmond, and any other school with programs at the top of FCS or moving into FBS as NON football members. It would give those programs a few years to develop into stronger football programs (and for the most part they bring enough to the table in other sports) while the current FBS schools participate in this Global conference (which means they keep the AQ). So those 4, plus Nova and the remaining 4 or 5 members would give the Big East 9-10 football schools in the event of a split off (and they could then add UCF, Houston, Memphis or whoever they decide on).

It is certainly better than the Big East from Idaho to the East Coast. They would have to do well in this conference though in order to get the AQ when they split off in like 5-10 years.

Richmond? FBS? They just built a new tiny stadium, a nice once, since they will never fill a large one. Richmond isn't FBS caliber.

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Richmond attendance in 2010 was 8,567.

Remind me what the attendance is for schools like E. Michigan in the MAC.

The point is that it gives these programs to build up facilities (or like UMass, play in an NFL stadium, though DC is a good two hours away from Richmond). I like the idea of the Big East staying in the East and apart from a couple C-USA schools, there aren't any great options. Richmond won the championship a couple years back and they have a good basketball program so I know they'd fit in nicely with the Big East mentality.

Anyway, just a thought. Probably won't happen that way but if Temple and UMass could meet in MAC championship games for the next few years (this would mean the divisions would need to become N/S), and the East division in this "global" conference did well then maybe it would be worthy of splitting off and taking the AQ.

Richmond has no desire to upgrade. They are a smaller school and they'd have even more problems than Villanova would upgrading. They have been public about not wanting to upgrade due to costs. They just built a new football stadium that MAX out at 8700 capacity. Not an old stadium they can build onto. But a 1 year old stadium. Just because a school does well on the field in FCS doesn't mean they are even remotely a candidate for FBS. FBS requires much more off the field items.

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Thank you for picking out one small detail in a list of POTENTIAL schools I listed. The overall idea however is a good one. Or perhaps that is too radical for this board like A&M to the SEC?