Jim Delaney pops the expansion balloon

[Carl Spackler]

When the biggest diehards, like us, finally decide to accept what we are, promote it with a smile and help sell tickets to games, then we will have done our part.

If we are in the AAC for the next 3 years and this board continues on the path it's on we will have done more harm than good. New fans stop by all the time. We can be excited and draw them in or whine and push them away.

I think it's time to accept where we are and do what we can to support the program.

I'm all in. How about you?

We need more like you sportsart. Lots more. Keep it up.

 

[Carl Spackler]

FWIW:

Jim Delaney sat in the same room with John Toner in the summer of 1984 in front of a bunch of United States congressmen, and discussed the future of college football, as it related to television because of a supreme court ruling a few weeks earlier. Tone, former football coach at UCONN, at the time time was the AD at UCONN, and president of the NCAA. Toner laid out clearly what he thought about college football, and how important the sport was, and how the revenue sharing and television influence would be in the future because of what the supreme court had done - and it all happened exactly the way he said it would.

Delaney, among many others in college football, and intercollegiate athletics and television executives, in the same rooms, clearly were paying attention and had some foresight to make sure they were on top of the situation. Delaney at the time was the commissioner of the ohio valley conference, and my personal opinion is that the concept of a conference having it's own television network, was hatched in those meetings in front of congress in 1984.

Lew Perkins came from Maryland to UCONN to become AD and officially take the reigns (toner gave up the AD position in 88 if I remember correctly, but stayed on to make sure that Gampel construction didn't get screwed up.) Perkins looked at Gampel Pavilion, and the state of intercollegiate athletics, and made upgrading the football program priority from the first few weeks he stepped on campus.

There's a reason why Jeff Hathaway is now the AD at a school that no longer plays football, adn there's a reason why Lew Perkins packed up and jumped ship in the early 2000s........there was a lot of discussion about the the way that Mark Emmert was running the university finances recently.......$100 million dollars worth.....of misguided money....there's also a reason why basketball centric big east basketball leadership never really grasped anything about what they actually were doing with the formation of the Big East football conference. Because they didn't understand football. All they knew in Providence, in 1990-1991, was that if they didn't form a football conference, that Syracuse, Boston College, PIttsburgh, were going to leave the basketball conference. I have often wondered if the Providence based leadership of the Big East in the 1980s even paid attention at all, or knew anything about what was happening in intercollegiate athletics as a whole, because of television and college football.

Through the work of Lew Perkins, et. al., and some state officials, UCONN, basically had a silver spoon stuck in our mouth regarding intercollegiate athletics by being extended the offer to join a BCS conference in 1997, while other football programs (like Louisville, led by Tom Jurich) stood by and continued to be left out, and Jeff Hathaway took over an athletic program, and led it such that we basically spit that spoon back out.

Know your history and learn from it, or you're destined to repeat it. Learn from where TCU and Louisville were, and what they had to do to get back to where they were.

I'm confident in our current leadership. I'm excited for the future in this conference. Because I'm excited about the things we have control over. We have exposure coming, we have everything in our hands. I'm excited for a developing hockey program, in a hockey rich region of the country. Boston COllege concerned about football turf wars? Wait til UCONN builds the hockey program up. I'm excited for the football program to get back to reaching, the levels of expectations that the rest of the athletic programs at UCONN are expected to reach. I'm excited for basketball to continue the traditions of winning championships that has been established.

Conference champoinships, and national competition relevance. We've got one more shot a Big EAst title this year. Next year, its' AAC titles that we're going to be after.

 

[CL82]

Nice post Carl.

 

[huskymedic]

When the biggest diehards, like us, finally decide to accept what we are, promote it with a smile and help sell tickets to games, then we will have done our part.

If we are in the AAC for the next 3 years and this board continues on the path it's on we will have done more harm than good. New fans stop by all the time. We can be excited and draw them in or whine and push them away.

I think it's time to accept where we are and do what we can to support the program.

I'm all in. How about you?

Giddyup!!

 

[upstater]

We're new to the D1-A level. We have to pay our dues. If Yale never dominated college football and UConn was founded as long ago as Rutgers and played top level football for all these years, we'd be in another conference.

Either we keep up the fight or we can roll over. That's what sports are about, right?

The money is exponentially higher than it used to be. Until just a few years ago (like, 3), ACC teams were making $8 million while UConn was making $3 million from TV packages. A gap of $5m. Now we're looking at $20m gaps at a time when college expenditures and subsidies are severely constricting.

I see this as incredibly dire.

I proposed that the State take ESPN's tax break and hand it over to UConn forthwith. That's how dire it is. You can't bleed this badly for a long time.

 

[Pudge]

If Delaney said their not expanding, their expanding.

There we go ... College Professors are cringing NOW.

 

[Pudge]

this is not the acc's fault or the big 10's fault, it's not bcu's fault. this was uconn's fault by not hiring the right leaders and coaches when they had the chance years ago. we're stuck, let's make the best of it.

Baloney.

We are only a decade into Football really. Nothing that all of you say about Herbst or Manual really moves me; they had a poor position from the start. We COULD be situated totally engulfing NYC geographically ... but that is not the case; therefore, we were screwed in the 1700s. And, We COULD have a 50 year old Tradition (like SU or Pitt) and that would have let us in the ACC. We don't HAVE what Louisville has today; I don't care what many here think. We just aren't near them in Overall Football Program. We could be better than SU or Pitt or BC; that is going to take time and good leadership. Project with Manual or Herbst? I give Herbst damn good grades; Manual ... not complete from my perspective (but he has done some good).

 

[Pudge]

The money is exponentially higher than it used to be. Until just a few years ago (like, 3), ACC teams were making $8 million while UConn was making $3 million from TV packages. A gap of $5m. Now we're looking at $20m gaps at a time when college expenditures and subsidies are severely constricting.

I see this as incredibly dire.

I proposed that the State take ESPN's tax break and hand it over to UConn forthwith. That's how dire it is. You can't bleed this badly for a long time.

I agree.

Arbitrage opportunity though. There will be openings for us. For other darn Good Athletic Brands. (see a new Conference moniker)

 

[upstater]

There we go ... College Professors are cringing NOW.

We are used to it. If our time was spent on this stuff, we'd have no time for the Boneyard.

 

[weyuo]

Well, I guess whats left now to do is make the AAC the 5th damned best conference and then work on making it the 4th best. These other schools better be in it like UConn is, facilities improvements, coaching upgrades, a strategy for increased fan base. If the AAC is going to be the "Island of Unwanted Toys" lets make it the most competitive frickin island in the land loaded with the next TCU's, Boise St's and Oregon's.

 

[weyuo]

Michigan @ UConn 9/21, Miami vs USF 9/28, Cincy winning 2 out of the 3 B1G matchups they have this year, Temple @ Notre Dame 8/31, BYU @ Houston 10/19, Duke @ Memphis 9/7, SMU @ Texas A&M 9/21 and then @TCU the following week, UCF @ Penn St 9/14... this is just a sample of ways this new league can prove itself, THIS YEAR!!

 

[B1GEast]

Baloney.

We are only a decade into Football really. Nothing that all of you say about Herbst or Manual really moves me; they had a poor position from the start. We COULD be situated totally engulfing NYC geographically ... but that is not the case; therefore, we were screwed in the 1700s. And, We COULD have a 50 year old Tradition (like SU or Pitt) and that would have let us in the ACC. We don't HAVE what Louisville has today; I don't care what many here think. We just aren't near them in Overall Football Program. We could be better than SU or Pitt or BC; that is going to take time and good leadership. Project with Manual or Herbst? I give Herbst damn good grades; Manual ... not complete from my perspective (but he has done some good).

why do you think this is just about susan and warde? what about hathaway as well? they all share in some way or another, why did warde take so long to hire ko? this has been an epic failure for a university to have achieved so much success in athletics and be in this position. and your part about cuse and pitt is just silly, we owned the cuse in football for several years before they finally beat us last year, where was pitt's tradition when we spanked them? tradition means , just ask bcu, who's flutie? who cares. there's an elephant in the room alright, even if you refuse to look at it.

 

[husky91]

On the micro front I blame Blumenthal, Hathaway and Manuel. Blumenthal is an ah*le, how did this guy win a senate seat?

Manuel is a clown. I thought he had ties to BCU, had their support? When the sky was falling this stupid fool was partying in St Thomas watching a useless women's bball tourney.

On the macro front Tranghese especially. Awful. When teams went football he went basketball with a goofy, unsustainable model. Lost.

 

[HuskyBandDad]

I think Warde should get on the phone and set up a multi-year deal with Silve to play an annual matchup between a top 25 SEC team vs. UConn in NYC.

Citi Field is always available by October.

Hey hey watch it - your dissing my Mets. Sad but true.

 

[HuskyBandDad]

Giddyup!!

View attachment 2847

I am going to be sick

 

[TouchdownHusky]

I think Warde should get on the phone and set up a multi-year deal with Silve to play an annual matchup between a top 25 SEC team vs. UConn in NYC.

Citi Field is always available by October.

So now we won't even have BCS caliber football played in Connecticut. We've become a traveling carnival.

 

[Dooley]

Needless to say that 2013 is the biggest year in the history of UConn athletics. We really need to win 8 or 9 games this season while beating MD and/or Mich to show we can play at that level. MBB needs to get back to a Final Four. Let's get back on the dahg track!

 

[SubbaBub]

FWIW:

Jim Delaney sat in the same room with John Toner in the summer of 1984 in front of a bunch of United States congressmen, and discussed the future of college football, as it related to television because of a supreme court ruling a few weeks earlier. Tone, former football coach at UCONN, at the time time was the AD at UCONN, and president of the NCAA. Toner laid out clearly what he thought about college football, and how important the sport was, and how the revenue sharing and television influence would be in the future because of what the supreme court had done - and it all happened exactly the way he said it would.

Delaney, among many others in college football, and intercollegiate athletics and television executives, in the same rooms, clearly were paying attention and had some foresight to make sure they were on top of the situation. Delaney at the time was the commissioner of the ohio valley conference, and my personal opinion is that the concept of a conference having it's own television network, was hatched in those meetings in front of congress in 1984.

Lew Perkins came from Maryland to UCONN to become AD and officially take the reigns (toner gave up the AD position in 88 if I remember correctly, but stayed on to make sure that Gampel construction didn't get screwed up.) Perkins looked at Gampel Pavilion, and the state of intercollegiate athletics, and made upgrading the football program priority from the first few weeks he stepped on campus.

There's a reason why Jeff Hathaway is now the AD at a school that no longer plays football, adn there's a reason why Lew Perkins packed up and jumped ship in the early 2000s........there was a lot of discussion about the the way that Mark Emmert was running the university finances recently.......$100 million dollars worth.....of misguided money....there's also a reason why basketball centric big east basketball leadership never really grasped anything about what they actually were doing with the formation of the Big East football conference. Because they didn't understand football. All they knew in Providence, in 1990-1991, was that if they didn't form a football conference, that Syracuse, Boston College, PIttsburgh, were going to leave the basketball conference. I have often wondered if the Providence based leadership of the Big East in the 1980s even paid attention at all, or knew anything about what was happening in intercollegiate athletics as a whole, because of television and college football.

Through the work of Lew Perkins, et. al., and some state officials, UCONN, basically had a silver spoon stuck in our mouth regarding intercollegiate athletics by being extended the offer to join a BCS conference in 1997, while other football programs (like Louisville, led by Tom Jurich) stood by and continued to be left out, and Jeff Hathaway took over an athletic program, and led it such that we basically spit that spoon back out.

Know your history and learn from it, or you're destined to repeat it. Learn from where TCU and Louisville were, and what they had to do to get back to where they were.

I'm confident in our current leadership. I'm excited for the future in this conference. Because I'm excited about the things we have control over. We have exposure coming, we have everything in our hands. I'm excited for a developing hockey program, in a hockey rich region of the country. Boston COllege concerned about football turf wars? Wait til UCONN builds the hockey program up. I'm excited for the football program to get back to reaching, the levels of expectations that the rest of the athletic programs at UCONN are expected to reach. I'm excited for basketball to continue the traditions of winning championships that has been established.

Conference champoinships, and national competition relevance. We've got one more shot a Big EAst title this year. Next year, its' AAC titles that we're going to be after.

You convinced me. Making a $30-40M investment in expanding the Rent is worth doing now if a suitable commitment to strong scheduling and performance is made at the University level.

In for a penny, in for a pound. We've passed the point of no return on FB, despite previous missteps. I just wish the AD would add resources to avoid the amateur hour screw ups.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

 

[geordi]

Yeah! You've convinced me too. Especially if we can go back to those people who might have been willing to pony up for an expansion after the BCS game with Oklahoma. Everyone on this board called out Rutgers for expanding their stadium. Were unmerciful to them. Look where it got them.

 

[noeynox]

Needless to say that 2013 is the biggest year in the history of UConn athletics. We really need to win 8 or 9 games this season while beating MD and/or Mich to show we can play at that level. MBB needs to get back to a Final Four. Let's get back on the dahg track!

No pressure.

 

[SubbaBub]

No pressure.

There wouldn't be as much pressure if we were coming off two 8 win bowl seasons.

Not that 8 win seasons make you a Top 25 program.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

 

[noeynox]

There wouldn't be as much pressure if we were coming off two 8 win bowl seasons.

Not that 8 win seasons make you a Top 25 program.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

I just think were deluding ourselves by thinking that winning this year will have a great impact on where we end up. I am guilty of this myself. We've won on the field/on the court. Were still here. Blame it on geography, the lawsuit, stadium size, lack of football tradition, whatever you want. Lack of success, Isn't one of them.

 

[tduconn]

This is a BIG year for the entire AAC! Many of the southern schools are "in the backyard" of the major BCS conferences.......they should not have a difficult time for sceduling OOC games whether its 1 for 2, 1 for 1.......they are in the hot bed regions of college football recruiting so what is left over for them after the prominant conferences take their pick is pretty dam good......and those kids would be chomping at the bit to play against those teams that didn't take them.

I think football wise USF, UCF, Houston, SMU, and maybe ECU are close enough to the major teams to consistently land some good OOC games whereby neither teams fans have to travel far to reach a game site. Hopefully they can pick the league up by boot straps and land the talent to be noticed in OOC games. In fact, although disappointed UConn isn't elsewhere right now, I think the AAC can develop into a pretty decent and recognizeable football conference and UConn will tag along by osmosis.

I'm feeling pretty good about the league being dominated (in geography) by southern based schools.......in fact so much that it wouldn't surprise me if the pundits say in a few years the the AAC as a conference is stronger than the old BE that had traditional northern teams of BC, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Temple. In fact, who did most of us in the old BE hope would be the banner program (and most times they were)......WVU and Louisville......two teams closer to southern football tradition and talent than the rest of the old BE.

I have a strong faith that the AAC will rise out of the dust and be a better FB league than what we left behind, and because of thatn UConn would climb up a few rungs in the talent it recruits and the recognition it receives. Would this happen as easy as I snap my fingures........nooooooo.......BUT It WILL happen!!!!!!!

My good WVU alumni friend called to wish UCONN and CINCINNATTI success.......he say's on their board both are in Big 12 discussions. And a lot of WVU fans firmly believe AAC can develop into a decent conference.

I'm excited!

 

[SubbaBub]

I just think were deluding ourselves by thinking that winning this year will have a great impact on where we end up. I am guilty of this myself. We've won on the field/on the court. Were still here. Blame it on geography, the lawsuit, stadium size, lack of football tradition, whatever you want. Lack of success, Isn't one of them.

I think you are underestimating perception. At this stage of CR, most of the money/markets have been had. Any further expansion will be based on the perception of increased inventory value and even numbers. Being the best geographic fitting pony in the auction is important. Positive attention is the best thing we can have short of 5M more TV's

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

 

[EdgewoodNHV]

I just think were deluding ourselves by thinking that winning this year will have a great impact on where we end up. I am guilty of this myself. We've won on the field/on the court. Were still here. Blame it on geography, the lawsuit, stadium size, lack of football tradition, whatever you want. Lack of success, Isn't one of them.

Lack of fans.

Even when we were winning 8 games a year and splitting BE Championships, we had trouble packing a 40,000 person stadium. Ask most local Connecticut residents about UConn Football and their eyes glaze over.

I don't know what we need to do to get more butts in the seat, but until we have that, nothing else is going to matter.