Why isn't UConn in another conference? Questions like that are a marketing opportunity->
Why isn't UConn in another conference?
"Well that's certainly surprising, [insert name here.] UConn owns more MBB national championships than any other university that was affiliated with the Big East. No other program can match our 3 NCs since 1999. In football we won our conference twice and went to BCS game despite playing at the BCS level for less than 10 years. Even in down year for us we still had 5 players drafted to the NFL. A lot of programs who have been playing longer can't match that. The WBB team has an incredible 8 NCs and counting. We own two NC in soccer and two more in Field Hockey. We just won the Big East Conference in track, and our baseball team had a deep run in the post season last year. Of course you know that we are joining Hockey East and have just hired an outstanding young coach who we think will lead us into being very competitive there. I could go on but let's just say that things have never looked brighter for the our teams and our athletes.
Academically the university is shining as well. We are well established as the number one university in New England, and of course we have an incredible presence in NYC. Our state legislature is committed to investing in the school to continue its meteoric rise academically.
So to sum up, I guess I can't really say why UConn wasn't chosen in the most recent round of conference realignment, but what I can say is the University of Connecticut has long stood for excellence on the field and in the classroom. That's who we are. I have every confidence that will continue regardless of how conference realignment plays out."
Excellent post, but all of that doesn't speak to the reasons we were passed over. It wasn't because folks were ignorant of our athletic success, or even our academic climb. It's nice to recount our achievments but any AD who did that in an interview would get a lot of rolled eyes and interuptions by the interviewer. He'd be seen as gilding the lilly (To adorn unnecessarily something already beautiful.) Making our case involves answering questions about cable rates, viewership, SNY ratings, the economics of standard cable versus a sports tier, bundling opportunities and the number of incremental households UConn brings to the equation compared to the others. Those are more of the elements (there are others) that appeared lacking compared to Rutgers and Louisville, who, by the way, also happened to display more of an all-in commitment to football and the moxie in tough economic times to spend money on stadium expansion before ticket sales would have suggested.
If Warde can logically and accurately make the case on the "numbers" that we are superior in those cable market metrics to Rutgers or Louisville he should be seeking out the media and reaching as big an audience as he can. If, however, we don't yet measure up on those aspects, he should do exactly what he's doing- smiling, saying he's happy with our home (for now), and staying focused on getting us to the promised land.