Conference USA will see vastly reduced TV revenue next season

[B1GOSU]

UAB took two years off, but that was a unique circumstance. The program was originally eliminated and alumni nearly rioted. It was then decided the program would be brought back after a one year hiatus. However, that didn't leave enough time to pick up all the pieces that were broke from eliminating the program, so they extended it to two years.

I don't think anything good can happen for a program simply taking a year or two off on purpose. UAB's time off is the aftermath of a not very well thought out decision to eliminate the program entirely.

 

[UConnJim]

This is unraveling faster than I thought it would. What does a Board of Trustees meeting look like when they discuss the athletic budget? They have a recent data point that makes their football program worthless. Why would they continue to fund it? Why not make it non-scholarship? I expect more schools to go the UAB route.

Hold on there. CUSA was ravaged by the creation of the AAC and they lost all of their name programs: Memphis, Houston, ECU, UCF,... The decline in the value of the TV contract was expected. As for ratings, CUSA ratings are dreadful. Few if any of their football games, or basketball games, have measurable TV ratings. The AAC football conference championship had ratings 5x the CUSA championship going head to head. Heck, the AAC football championship had a similar rating as the Pac 12 football championship of USC/Stanford.

Is a $500k revenue cut going to kill an athletic budget? The revenue loss equals 1.2% to 2.6% of CUSA athletic department budgets. Clearly not a positive, but certainly not a make or break moment for the CUSA schools.

Personally, I don't think the "revenue gap" is going to break college football programs. Why? There will still be the same pool of high school athletes and potential college coaches, so G5 schools will still be able to field teams similar to the teams they are fielding today. MAC teams will still beat Big 10 schools on occasion, AAC schools will still beat ACC schools on occasion,... Can a G5 school win the college football playoff? Probably not, but you can have a great season and still be ranked in the top 10 at the end of the season.

One last point. UConn has a large network of alumni, fans, and supporters who are a largely untapped source for donations for both academics and athletics. This will change over time which is one way to offset the revenue gap.

 

[Husky25]

Personally, I don't think the "revenue gap" is going to break college football programs. Why? There will still be the same pool of high school athletes and potential college coaches, so G5 schools will still be able to field teams similar to the teams they are fielding today. MAC teams will still beat Big 10 schools on occasion, AAC schools will still beat ACC schools on occasion,... Can a G5 school win the college football playoff? Probably not, but you can have a great season and still be ranked in the top 10 at the end of the season.

This is the issue that will drive a lot of college football fans associated with the G-5 schools away. Little by little, fans will stop investing valuable resources (time moreso than money) in a product they believe is a lost cause no matter how well their team does during the season.

 

[UConnJim]

This is the issue that will drive a lot of college football fans associated with the G-5 schools away. Little by little, fans will stop investing valuable resources (time moreso than money) in a product they believe is a lost cause no matter how well their team does during the season.

Disagree. It has never been that way in college football or college basketball. Winning seasons, good bowls, deep tournament runs, exciting games,... will keep fans engaged. Beating local teams like BC and Syracuse will excite the fans. Look at how UConn fans reacted after beating Houston this year.

 

[dayooper]

This is the issue that will drive a lot of college football fans associated with the G-5 schools away. Little by little, fans will stop investing valuable resources (time moreso than money) in a product they believe is a lost cause no matter how well their team does during the season.

Absolutely disagree. For many, the national championship just isn't in the cards and their fans/alumni know it. There is no MAC fan that thinks they are winning the national championship or even get invited to the playoff. They want their teams to win their conference, play the big boys tough (maybe knock off one every so often) and go to a bowl game. Being from Michigan, we have three G5 teams and I have seen each three play at home. They don't spend what the big boys do, their facilities aren't as nice and expansive and the privileges as athletes the receive aren't the same. Yet those games are a blast to go to.

Yet they play on. Why? They will get their name on ESPN during MACtion Tuesdays and, during the month of September, Saturdays on the BTN/Midwestern ABC/ESPN channels. The logos, colors and ads that normally wouldn't be out there are now being shown about their university. They can tell teenagers and their tuition paying parents all about their schools. One of the most fun games I've ever been to was the Western Michigan/Central Michigan rivalry game played at Waldo Stadium in Kalamazoo MI. What a blast! Walking around the tailgates, you can hear the conversations. The alumni presence there is huge. Guess what else was huge there: donations. Tax write off donations. Lots of them. Many of those donations wouldn't take place if the alumni hadn't gotten together around the game. These donations weren't just for athletics either.

The revenue gap for football will only hurt those schools that are truly going for a national championship. Schools in the Big10 and SEC are sitting very well while the ACC and, eventually Big12 will be lagging behind. The facilities race will push the wealthier schools away from those that are hurting.

 

[NYUConn]

This is misleading.

The current CUSA contract that is expiring was signed in 2011 when the membership was drastically different than it is today.

The current American contract was signed in 2013 after the most recent round of conference realignment when the networks knew precisely what the conference membership would look like.

As some people pointed out above, CUSA lost a lot of key members in major American cities (Dallas, Houston, Orlando) since the 2011 contract was signed so the cut in pay in the new deal now is the market correcting the league's value.

So to view this news in the lens of networks putting the screws to a G5 league isn't accurate, it's simply a market correction for a league that was really overvalued since the last round of realignment.

To me there is nothing here to suggest that The American's TV deal will get cut when it is up in 2019-2020, provided membership stays the same.

 

[Jarhead_1775]

Disagree. It has never been that way in college football or college basketball. Winning seasons, good bowls, deep tournament runs, exciting games,... will keep fans engaged. Beating local teams like BC and Syracuse will excite the fans. Look at how UConn fans reacted after beating Houston this year.

That novelty exists in a 68 team playoff structure. 4 teams that will be inhabited by a handful of programs for the foreseeable future? Not so much.

 

[UConnJim]

That novelty exists in a 68 team playoff structure. 4 teams that will be inhabited by a handful of programs for the foreseeable future? Not so much.

Nothing has really changed in college football for most schools even as we have gone P5 and G5. Most schools don't have a chance to play for a national championship, but the fans still love their schools and go to games. Like I said, beating BC and Syracuse next year would make a very satisfying season.

 

[Husky25]

Disagree. It has never been that way in college football or college basketball. Winning seasons, good bowls, deep tournament runs, exciting games,... will keep fans engaged. Beating local teams like BC and Syracuse will excite the fans. Look at how UConn fans reacted after beating Houston this year.

Basketball and football are totally different. There is no such thing as a deep run in college football and in basketball each conference's champion gets a seat at the table.

Good bowls? There are only six "good bowls" and only two of those really matter. Secondly, how can more than one G-5 team get to a good bowl when only 1 of the 12 spots are "reserved" for 65 G-5 teams to fight over?

I can get on board with the 'Cuse and BC games over the next few years, in terms of teams local to UConn. There is a history. They were one-time conference rivals with lingering bad blood, but at the end of the day, they are P-5 and UConn is not. If they are good enough, they can possibly be a second team from their conference to "earn" 1 of the remaining 7 spots. The second best G-5 teams gets to play the weekend before Christmas in Boca. Also, in what alternate universe is Houston local?

I love that UConn beat Houston and gained bowl eligibility. It is a huge step back to respectability, but a very small part of me wishes Houston won in order to expose the hypocrisy of the it all (as if it would have made a difference). At 10-0, Houston was ranked #13 in the AP, but #19 in the more important CFP poll, behind 5 2-loss teams and little chance to improve. At that time (week 12), each one of the teams in the CFP was #9 or better. Should Houston have been a single digit rank? I don't know, but #19 and behind 5 2 loss teams was an insult when their AP ranking was #13.

For many, the national championship just isn't in the cards and their fans/alumni know it. There is no MAC fan that thinks they are winning the national championship or even get invited to the playoff. They want their teams to win their conference, play the big boys tough (maybe knock off one every so often) and go to a bowl game. .

Using the MAC doesn't really make your point and sort of solidifies mine. Average attendance for the MAC was just north of 15k and they are not on national TV during typical prime college football time slots. Yes there will be donors and die hard football fans, but do you really think those are the fans to whom I am referring?

 

[dayooper]

Using the MAC doesn't really make your point and sort of solidifies mine. Average attendance for the MAC was just north of 15k and they are not on national TV during typical prime college football time slots. Yes there will be donors and die hard football fans, but do you really think those are the fans to whom I am referring?

The fans like you are referring to don't exist. There are no casual fans of teams in the MAC, Sun Belt or CUSA that have delusions of grandeur. If there are, they are gluttons for punishment. These mostly regional schools want to market to their region, and playing the big boys of their region puts them on TV where they want to market their brand. The MACtion on Tuesdays is just the icing on the cake.

I have never heard a WMU, CMU or EMU fan ever say they had a shot at the national championship. If they make a name for themselves during the season, they may be able to play in a NYD bowl. Very few people will make time to watch a MAC school play, unless they have a connection to the university. Many people will tune in to watch a Big10 school play, even if they are playing a MAC school. There's your marketing for the school.

On Sept 26, Western Michigan played Ohio State. It was a 3:30 game on ABC. It drew 3.72 million viewers. How many of those tuned in to watch WMU? Hardly any. They still put their brand in front of 3.72 million viewers. That's huge. Earlier in the year, they played MSU and drew almost 900,00 viewers. That's a bunch of eyeballs. Some of whom may be potential students and their parents. They couldn't do that if they weren't a FBS school.

 

[Husky25]

The fans like you are referring to don't exist. There are no casual fans of teams in the MAC, Sun Belt or CUSA that have delusions of grandeur. If there are, they are gluttons for punishment. These mostly regional schools want to market to their region, and playing the big boys of their region puts them on TV where they want to market their brand. The MACtion on Tuesdays is just the icing on the cake.

I have never heard a WMU, CMU or EMU fan ever say they had a shot at the national championship. If they make a name for themselves during the season, they may be able to play in a NYD bowl. Very few people will make time to watch a MAC school play, unless they have a connection to the university. Many people will tune in to watch a Big10 school play, even if they are playing a MAC school. There's your marketing for the school.

On Sept 26, Western Michigan played Ohio State. It was a 3:30 game on ABC. It drew 3.72 million viewers. How many of those tuned in to watch WMU? Hardly any. They still put their brand in front of 3.72 million viewers. That's huge. Earlier in the year, they played MSU and drew almost 900,00 viewers. That's a bunch of eyeballs. Some of whom may be potential students and their parents. They couldn't do that if they weren't a FBS school.

I don't have a rebuttal because you're make my arguments for me. The MAC has basically already...regressed is the wrong word, but for lack of a better one...regressed to the level I was referring to. Teams in other G-5 conferences can, as should be allowed to, compete with the upper levels of the P-5 if given half a chance, but are being base dealt from a stacked deck by the P-5 and the national media who cover them...and not in a good way.