ACC agrees to grant of rights deal

[meyers7]

Looks like it's whiny pants season again right after UConn wins the NC. So now the sky has fallen because the future is written in depressing gray stone and can't be changed. No more title hunts in the years ahead.

Take a time travel trip back to the first NC crown in 1995. UConn has its first title but it is dooooooooooomed because of its conference situation, which it will be miserably shackled to for the next 18 years in the horrible Big East. Only Seton Hall among the other nine teams in the conference was selected to the tourney in March, and no other Big East team than UConn was in the final rankings. This state of affairs will continue on and on and on, because there is no chance that teams like Villanova, Georgetown and Syracuse could ever become good enough to be ranked, there's no chance that new teams like Rutgers and Notre Dame could ever join the conference and become good, and UConn just can't have a good team unless it has a brutal 1995 SEC type schedule to battle ever year in conference. And who really wants to play UConn anyway? Maybe Tennessee sure, but no one else.

Whatever. Huskies have been there and done that. They've been, they've seen, they've conquered. But still, the sky is made of stone.

Well to be fair, I don't think the depression/angst/whining is specifically for UCONN WBB, it is for UCONN. (period) Being locked in a mid-major conference (and that's basically where it is now) is not a good thing. Especially with what might be some major changes coming on the horizon.

In the USA Today yesterday there was an article about the talk of some of the majors splitting off from the NCAA and starting something new. Just talk at this point, but people see something major coming down the road. The talk was about the top 60 or so (football of course) creating their own little world - a world where all the money will be for presumably all the sports (although it's possible it will really be football only - not sure how that would work for the rest of the sports of the institutions though???). Anyway they talked about the top 60 or so schools doing this. Well that would include ACC, Big12, Big10, Pac12, and SEC (that would actually be 65 right there). No AAC need apply. Future does not look pretty for UCONN. At least right now.

 

[UcMiami]

Yeah - I think the issue here has nothing to do with WCBB really. Revenue for the Department is driven by Football with a smaller stake driven by MBB. Recruiting and exposure and revenue in the new AAC will take a hit at least initially for football and MBB. But with SNY on board as the Uconn 'network' I suspect the revenue and exposure (and maybe recruiting) will be better than the doom and gloom crowd expect. (The SNY contract for WCBB takes on even more meaning in light of the AAC and SNY become more firmly committed to Uconn.)
Specific to football - lets face it, Uconn has been pretty mediocre (not surprising for a recent arrival into the top tier.) And the BE has been the weakest BCS conference even with the departed schools. (The ACC hasn't been much better!) There have only ever really been four conferences for football Pac10, Big12, Big10, and SEC so I am not sure much has changed dramatically for Uconn football.
Specific to MBB - the Big East was the premier MBB conference for most of the last decade - competing with the ACC in a 'choose-em' situation every year. The downgrade in competition in the AAC will hurt, but if the recruiting (and academics) can keep up, I am not convinced that they will slip in national prominence as a team even in the new AAC.
WCBB - if you remove a single team from the conference over the last 20 years did Uconn really have a 'tough' conference schedule?! ND for the last three years, Rutgers for a few years before that were the only games that really mattered in conference play. Yes, every once in a while we would lose a game to a second team in conference but it was always that teams 'biggest upset of the last 10 years' kind of loss. And if the Big East of this past year still existed next year does anyone believe any conference foe would have played us within 10 points including ND? So next year we do not play ND, but we also are not playing Seton Hall thank goodness. Most of the SOS of the Big East conference over the last ten years was a direct result of Uconn and the same will be true in raising the profile for the new teams.
Bottom line - as a WCBB fanatic I am not worried about the AAC and Uconn's future. As a Uconn supporter I am a little concerned but I do not see it as a death watch. I certainly would prefer to be in the ACC or Big10 but we aren't, so deal with it.

 

[jplotinus]

Yeah - I think the issue here has nothing to do with WCBB really. Revenue for the Department is driven by Football with a smaller stake driven by MBB. Recruiting and exposure and revenue in the new AAC will take a hit at least initially for football and MBB. But with SNY on board as the Uconn 'network' I suspect the revenue and exposure (and maybe recruiting) will be better than the doom and gloom crowd expect. (The SNY contract for WCBB takes on even more meaning in light of the AAC and SNY become more firmly committed to Uconn.)
Specific to football - lets face it, Uconn has been pretty mediocre (not surprising for a recent arrival into the top tier.) And the BE has been the weakest BCS conference even with the departed schools. (The ACC hasn't been much better!) There have only ever really been four conferences for football Pac10, Big12, Big10, and SEC so I am not sure much has changed dramatically for Uconn football.
Specific to MBB - the Big East was the premier MBB conference for most of the last decade - competing with the ACC in a 'choose-em' situation every year. The downgrade in competition in the AAC will hurt, but if the recruiting (and academics) can keep up, I am not convinced that they will slip in national prominence as a team even in the new AAC.
WCBB - if you remove a single team from the conference over the last 20 years did Uconn really have a 'tough' conference schedule?! ND for the last three years, Rutgers for a few years before that were the only games that really mattered in conference play. Yes, every once in a while we would lose a game to a second team in conference but it was always that teams 'biggest upset of the last 10 years' kind of loss. And if the Big East of this past year still existed next year does anyone believe any conference foe would have played us within 10 points including ND? So next year we do not play ND, but we also are not playing Seton Hall thank goodness. Most of the SOS of the Big East conference over the last ten years was a direct result of Uconn and the same will be true in raising the profile for the new teams.
Bottom line - as a WCBB fanatic I am not worried about the AAC and Uconn's future. As a Uconn supporter I am a little concerned but I do not see it as a death watch. I certainly would prefer to be in the ACC or Big10 but we aren't, so deal with it.

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.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Yeah - I think the issue here has nothing to do with WCBB really. Revenue for the Department is driven by Football with a smaller stake driven by MBB. Recruiting and exposure and revenue in the new AAC will take a hit at least initially for football and MBB. But with SNY on board as the Uconn 'network' I suspect the revenue and exposure (and maybe recruiting) will be better than the doom and gloom crowd expect. (The SNY contract for WCBB takes on even more meaning in light of the AAC and SNY become more firmly committed to Uconn.)
Specific to football - lets face it, Uconn has been pretty mediocre (not surprising for a recent arrival into the top tier.) And the BE has been the weakest BCS conference even with the departed schools. (The ACC hasn't been much better!) There have only ever really been four conferences for football Pac10, Big12, Big10, and SEC so I am not sure much has changed dramatically for Uconn football.
Specific to MBB - the Big East was the premier MBB conference for most of the last decade - competing with the ACC in a 'choose-em' situation every year. The downgrade in competition in the AAC will hurt, but if the recruiting (and academics) can keep up, I am not convinced that they will slip in national prominence as a team even in the new AAC.
WCBB - if you remove a single team from the conference over the last 20 years did Uconn really have a 'tough' conference schedule?! ND for the last three years, Rutgers for a few years before that were the only games that really mattered in conference play. Yes, every once in a while we would lose a game to a second team in conference but it was always that teams 'biggest upset of the last 10 years' kind of loss. And if the Big East of this past year still existed next year does anyone believe any conference foe would have played us within 10 points including ND? So next year we do not play ND, but we also are not playing Seton Hall thank goodness. Most of the SOS of the Big East conference over the last ten years was a direct result of Uconn and the same will be true in raising the profile for the new teams.
Bottom line - as a WCBB fanatic I am not worried about the AAC and Uconn's future. As a Uconn supporter I am a little concerned but I do not see it as a death watch. I certainly would prefer to be in the ACC or Big10 but we aren't, so deal with it.

WBB for now is a non-issue, I think the biggest fear is expressed by the fans who don't like blowouts. I think folks are correct to be concerned about the future, but I don't think there are any worries on the women's side while Geno is here; the men's side is slightly more complex, but UConn should continue to be a national team there to.

It is always football. Exclusion from the National Championship series and the enormous revenues related to it is the biggest issue to my mind. When the (current for a few weeks) BE was slated to be reduced to a mid-major in the current BCS system (and it was), that was when my fervor for RU's departure started. Also, the travel is like to be very costly; I do think UConn is the best situated of the (for now) set AAC schools - I am just pretty sure that elsewhere would have been better for you.

 

[DobbsRover2]

The outlook can look nice or nasty based on your hopes and expectations.

As the newsok article says, UConn may need to invest far more heavily in the football program (are we talking going Rutgers-style here?) or "get out of the rat race." And the article also points out that the AAC could be helped out by a more stable atmosphere. But does everybody want to be in that rat race, and how many rats get eaten along the way?

If you're a diehard Husky football fan and want the team to be able to compete with the Auburns, USCs, Ohio States, and Penn States at the top of the college football world, things don't look so great. But the attempt for an NE school to somehow get up with an Auburn also requires continuously spending tons of money and resources and placing the school at the mercy of "winning is the only thing" FB forces at schools like Auburn, USC, OSU, and PSU. And you may well go to all that effort and see your school turn into pigskin whore but still have a mediocre football program like Miami and UNC or watch your team plunge out of sight like the BCeagles.

Working here in NJ, I run up constantly against the collateral damage of what happens when sports admin manias run amuck, as they did at RU. I'm sure the B10 proceeds will be nice when they start kicking in, but they're never enough in the scramble to keep up to get a better bowl game and get suckered for another revenue dump on Beef-O'-Car-Care-Idaho-Potato Bowl. Somehow, having a little stability outside the glare of big football sleaze doesn't sound so bad, and the chance for a little stability in a spot away from the cesspool may not be that bad.

 

[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.