ACC agrees to grant of rights deal

[earl the pearl]

Isn't UConn in line for a big pay day when the AAC distributes the money it has from the exiting Big East teams. I read there is over $100 million to be split among the remaining teams, with UConn, Cinn and USF getting the lion's share. This would help in funding expansion of facilities and getting the new league off to a good start. Don't see why the AAC can't develop into a good league.

 

[UcMiami]

Well said; with one exception that I would quibble with. AAC football is not below the level of the old Be or the current ACC level. It is about equal to them. Its collective members have too many Heisman winners, nc and bcs game appearances as well as AAs, between them, to be be considered anything but a major conference. It's not the SEC in football, but, for that matter, neither is any other conference in terms if winning. And, as to attendance and fan base, only the Big1G has a majority with either 100,000+ or close to it stadium capacities.

Thanks for the quibble - I really do not follow CFB that closely so the quality of the new AAC is a bit of an unknown and I was going more by the 'panic' expressed by the FB fans. I do think the revenue from football may suffer anyway.
As for revenue from BCS, not sure exactly how that gets split so not sure how much Uconn earned, but as I remember the reporting, playing in an actual BCS bowl game was a financial disaster for Uconn.
KnightsBridge - part of what I was suggesting is that in conference and out of conference games in the BE and now in the AAC for Uconn have been and will continue to be blow outs. Uconn has probably averaged under 8 'competitive' games a year since 2000 and you could exclude the 2008-10 years and still come in below 8. (Competitive being within a 10 point margin.) And I am including the NCAA tournament games in my guess. So you are looking at 30 games a year that are not truly competitive for Uconn. Maybe the average scoring margin goes from 30+ points to 35+ points, but does that really matter. And maybe last year there were 8 competitive games and this year they are only 7 or 6, but does that really matter either?
Dobbs - agree that the temptation to 'sell your soul' as a University in pursuit of football glory is a constant fear. I think Uconn has an advantage of not having a strong history nor ever getting really close. I think most of the schools that have gone down that path are trying to recapture past glory, take the final step, or where football has become so entrenched that the coaches and AD become arrogant, entitled, and 'bigger than the school'.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Isn't UConn in line for a big pay day when the AAC distributes the money it has from the exiting Big East teams. I read there is over $100 million to be split among the remaining teams, with UConn, Cinn and USF getting the lion's share. This would help in funding expansion of facilities and getting the new league off to a good start. Don't see why the AAC can't develop into a good league.

Yeah, though I'm not sure that many will see the big "freebie" payout as necessarily solidifying the AAC over the long run. Unlike the annual payouts in a conference that largely get eaten up by the cost of doing business at say a B10 level, the exit revenue chunk of dough for principally UConn, Cinci and USF of $100M pot will be a nice pile to work with down the road as a rainy day fund. Would be a double-dipping hoot if UConn got its payout chunk and then was later asked to join a conference that included some members who footed the bill for the payout.

 

[doggydaddy]

Precisely- ZLS's point is WBB is in such great shape, at least in the short and intermediate term, thaton this board, there isn't a ton of hand-wringing. But he's also right that UConn as a whole is not going to fare well if its permanent fate is the AAC. WBB isn't driving the bus here.

Never said WBB is driving the bus. You said no one was saying UConn was doomed. You didn't say women's basketball. You said UConn.

That is precisely what Z was saying. And he was including women's basketball with his Tulane comment.

 

[DobbsRover2]

Never said WBB is driving the bus. You said no one was saying UConn was doomed. You didn't say women's basketball. You said UConn.

That is precisely what Z was saying. And he was including women's basketball with his Tulane comment.

DD, as we all know, before you can begin criticizing anything on the BY, there is a one-day grace period for a poster to explain what they really meant after they have read through all the remarks of supporters who have reworked the statement to something more lucid. We would all get writer's block and be forced to tax precious cranial energy if we believed people would really be commenting on our first drafts.

 

[bschwartz]

I beg to differ Chicken Little. For wcbb, our success will rub off onto the other women's programs in the AAC just like it did in the Big East as the other teams try to compete. Exposure to a top program works wonders. SJU, GU, SU, DeP, UL and even ND all benefited from exposure to our program - Jeff Walz used our program as his example for building a nationally competitive program.

I am not saying the sky is falling at all. I am saying the regular season is going to be cupcake city except for the OOC games once Louisville leaves. Even if what you say is true, those new Big East schools are gone. The new AAC members like Memphis, Houston, SMU etc. will just be starting to get the "exposure" you speak of. May take them 5 years to be good enough to lose by 30 like Louisville just did. So yea, I think UConn will be fine on the national scene while Geno is here. Though I am lamenting the conference issue more than I thought I would as it takes shape. I love like all of us to see the UConn women excel, but it a little sad to have to pretend to add 50 points to the opponents' tally to make the game more interesting. That will be life in the AAC for some time.