DePaul and the Big East

[gtcam]

The Big East will not want to get out of the Chicago market.
DePaul has some talent - Etienne, Carter and Fischer to start so Stubblefield can get players. Stubblefield knows basketball but his teams dont have any structure - it's throw up the ball and lets see what will happen - very strange for a coach.
I don't want to see them out of the NBE because there will always be at least one team that is a level below the next inferior league team so if it's not DePaul it's someone else.

 

[Rich]

that's what OOC cupcakes are for.

Eh. You're just concerned with NET ratings; a weak DePaul downgrades the overall quality of UCONN wins and theoretically tournament seeding.

I say who the heck cares. Beat the teams in front of you and stop trying to cherry pick.

 

[Kenny11]

I was lucky enough to have a very close seat last night at the game. DePaul's assistant coach (just looked his name up: Tony Harvey) was constantly screaming out our plays and for his guys to jump our cuts, telling them who was going to get the ball etc and he was right every time yet almost every time his team just did not react on time...especially on our baseline out of bounds plays.

 

[HHusky]

How would you Yarders feel if DePaul hired away Kimani Young at the end of this season?

 

[FfldCntyFan]

How would you Yarders feel if DePaul hired away Kimani Young at the end of this season?

The selfish me wants to keep this staff together for another couple decades. The pragmatic me (considerably larger portion) knows we cannot keep Kimani (and Luke) forever and would love to see a head coaching position open for each at some point. The only caveat is that I don't want a position where either is setup for failure (which may be a possibility in DePaul's case).

 

[Sole]

The big east should allow the schools to keep the ncaa credits they earn instead of dividing them up among all the schools

 

[DFW HOYA]

DePaul needs a smaller arena on the north side near the campus. Their version of Carnesecca Arena. A place they can fill up. That would add immediate excitement to their games and program and start to make them relevant again. Their downward trend began when they moved to the Rosemont Horizon Arena near O'Hare and has continued to Wintrust on the southside near McCormick Place. This building was a huge mistake and awful for the program.

The move to the Rosemont Horizon elevated the program, not diminished it. DePaul was coming off a Final Four in 1979 and was #1 in the AP poll in 1979-80, 1980-81, and was an AP top five program through 1987. Its old gym (Alumni Hall, 5,308) was the size of Carnesecca Arena and when the good times waned, tearing it down proved a bad move.

In 1991 and 1992 DePaul finished 24th in the poll, the last year it ended a season ranked. Its last ranking during a season was in late 2000, they've not been back since.

 

[Hoophound]

DePaul isnt a hard job by our standards. Jim Calhoun or Rick Pitino would win big there. They’ve just never gotten the right guy. Kimani would probably bring them back, but I hope that never happens. .

 

[McLovin]

I know exactly what cutting the cord means. I also know that about 70-80% are replacing it with youtube or Hulu, but many people are just going DTC. And the carriage fees on the aggregators are not close to what they were on cable.

This is why Iger at Disney is trying to dump ESPN. But if you know better, you should call him up and offer to buy ESPN. I am sure Iger would be very reasonable on the price. It may be hard to get financing though.

ESPN is dying for a many reasons, none of them have to do with major college sports not being profitable (in fact, without college sports ESPN would probably already be dead).

Major college sports will continue to be a very profitable business because of the amount of eyeballs they draw. There is a reason why the B1G just signed a media deal that will pay their schools $100 million per year very soon.

Maybe it won’t be Disney / ESPN in a decade, but someone will continue to air major college sports and profit immensely. Unless there is a major culture shift away from wanting to watch (and bet on) college sports in the US, which is doubtful.

 

[Fishy]

DePaul is absolute garbage and they’re not even remotely on the path to getting their act together. No one in their right mind would take that job. You don’t hire Stubblefield or Leitao 2.0 because you want to, you do it because you have to. It’s an absolute graveyard going back 30 years.

The problem really is that they never moved forward from the 80s - you look how Marquette came out of the McGuire era and compare that to how DePaul came out of the Meyer era and you just see a school that has been in one place for 30-35 years….tough to gain any kind of traction in an area where kids are going to opt for the Big Ten or Marquette, Butler or somewhere in Ohio or anywhere else.

It’s a dumpster fire. What they really need is a Pitino-like situation where a very good coach who can’t get employed any a program with standards or pride and has to settle for DePaul. Maybe Bruce Pearl or someone gets caught running a brothel in the dorm or drilling an assistant coach’s wife and needs a paycheck.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

You should never beat conference opponent by 30. They’re a quad4 game in the NET. In a sports obsessed city of 2.5 million they can’t draw anyone to their arena. An absolute laughingstock.

Should we kick them out? No

 

[Kitaman]

DePaul is a sleeping giant, that won't wake up. The Chicago school is awaiting the perfect coach/players to wake them up.

I say wait on them, even if it means we die waiting.

 

[CL82]

UConn had a 18-16 Big East conference record the first 3 years in the Big East with two 20 win seasons and three NITs. Then, they let Perno stay for 4 losing seasons before they hired Calhoun in 1986, In college basketball, the head coach determines how good a program can be.

Perno was the coach when I was in college. For those four years the record was 21-8, Big East 20-9, 20-9 and 17-11. They were at least breakeven in the big east and were eight and six in the 80-81 season. Of course that was with Corny Thompson and Mike McKay. After they left, the losing seasons started.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

ESPN is dying for a many reasons, none of them have to do with major college sports not being profitable (in fact, without college sports ESPN would probably already be dead).

Major college sports will continue to be a very profitable business because of the amount of eyeballs they draw. There is a reason why the B1G just signed a media deal that will pay their schools $100 million per year very soon.

Maybe it won’t be Disney / ESPN in a decade, but someone will continue to air major college sports and profit immensely. Unless there is a major culture shift away from wanting to watch (and bet on) college sports in the US, which is doubtful.

If you are interested in this topic, you should dig in on what cutting the cord means for ESPN and a lot of the companies that were dependent on carriage fees. It is transforming every aspect of entertainment, including sports. ESPN got massive carriage fees from ever cable subscriber whether they watched ESPN or not, which gave it enormous power in the market and let it essentially pick winners. The DTC model is completely different, and ESPN has no competitive advantage in that model because cable channel real estate won't matter.

This is one of the more interesting, real-time industry transformations we may see in our lifetime. Massive media companies are scrambling to adjust to a revenue model that is completely different than the one they have built their businesses around. There are going to be some huge winners, like Netflix, which is practically printing money, and others are going to faceplant trying to make the transition. Disney/Hulu/ESPN is near the top of the "at risk" companies on that list.

There is a thread on streaming on the Realignment Board.

 

[Tyler2Rings]

2 "getright" games a year within the conference to get guys in a groove, get their confidence up, and collect a win during a brutal conference season, they can be terrible forever for all I care. somebody has to suck, every team in the conference can't be good. hell, I think UConn playing them in the BET opener in 2011 got them back on track after they closed out the regular season with back to back Ls.

I agree. But a team ranked in the 100-150 range would still suck in the BE. DePaul is ~250 right now and it drags the league down

 

[auror]

I agree. But a team ranked in the 100-150 range would still suck in the BE. DePaul is ~250 right now and it drags the league down

As long as you beat them by the right amount, it doesn't really drag us down at all. Naked SoS isn't a big thing for the committee.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Look at Baylor before hiring Scott Drew. From 1951 until 2007, Baylor had been to 1 NCAA tournament and 3 NITs with no conference championships. And, they had a player murder scandal under Dave Bliss, the coach before they hired Drew. Some people would argue that Drew has done as good a job of program building at Baylor as Calhoun did at UConn.

Some people are stupid.

 

[husky429]

This reminds me of the “Don’t sleep on Richie Springs” post that ran for like 3 years. Every year Richie was going to have a breakout season. Every year he barely got off the bench. He is now playing at QU. I don’t know how much he plays there. He came off the bench for a few minutes in the 1 game I saw. Nice kid. Dedicated. Just not that good. One might say something similar about DePaul.

I hadn't checked in on him since the season started... Averaging 5/4/1 at Quinnipiac in 13mpg.

It's remarkable just how poorly he translated his game from HS to college. He was a 3* but had offers from the good guys, Creighton, Minnesota, and Illinois. Not a light list by any means. Always had a tweener game but there was plenty of potential.

Good to see him get some run and get his degree on a strong note though. Well-deserved for the champ.

 

[McLovin]

If you are interested in this topic, you should dig in on what cutting the cord means for ESPN and a lot of the companies that were dependent on carriage fees. It is transforming every aspect of entertainment, including sports. ESPN got massive carriage fees from ever cable subscriber whether they watched ESPN or not, which gave it enormous power in the market and let it essentially pick winners. The DTC model is completely different, and ESPN has no competitive advantage in that model because cable channel real estate won't matter.

This is one of the more interesting, real-time industry transformations we may see in our lifetime. Massive media companies are scrambling to adjust to a revenue model that is completely different than the one they have built their businesses around. There are going to be some huge winners, like Netflix, which is practically printing money, and others are going to faceplant trying to make the transition. Disney/Hulu/ESPN is near the top of the "at risk" companies on that list.

There is a thread on streaming on the Realignment Board.

Right. ESPN has a business model built for cable. That’s their problem. They have ESPN, 2, U and News and get paid handsomely by cable to carry all of them.

Streaming platforms want nothing to do with the latter (and even ESPN / 2 daytime programming) so they are probably getting way less from the streaming services while also having to still invest in content for those dead channels to satisfy cable.

Then they doubled down by making poor business decisions on the streaming front. Despite being the first sports DTC streaming option with ESPN+, they have been lapped by other services in content quality.

They get 1 International NFL game per year, and weren’t strong enough to negotiate for all 5. Then they picked the NHL, which probably has more Canadian viewers than US viewers as their “hook” sport, while Apple TV gobbled up the MLS (which will pass NHL in viewership by end of decade), Amazon got TNF, YouTube got Sunday Ticket and Peacock got the Premiere League.

Bad business model with a poor product.

Just because Boston Market filed bankruptcy, it’s not accurate to say Americans don’t like fried chicken. It means Americans don’t like their fried chicken.

That’s basically the conclusion you’re trying to reach with ESPN and the value of sports by saying “only another 2 or 3 years…” because of cutting the cord.

Sports are in their golden age and probably have another few decades of getting a premium for their content from providers built for the future. ESPN dug their own grave if they won’t be around for it...

 

[huskyinfl]

Maybe... hear me out.. the big east helps depaul get better. The better they are the more money we all get.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

That’s basically the conclusion you’re trying to reach with ESPN and the value of sports by saying “only another 2 or 3 years…” because of cutting the cord.

Sports are in their golden age and probably have another few decades of getting a premium for their content from providers built for the future. ESPN dug their own grave if they won’t be around for it...

That's not what I am saying. I am saying that a business model based on carriage fees does not have much time left in it. As Netflix proved, switching over to a subscription, streaming model can be insanely profitable. Netflix is basically a money machine now. All the others that fought it and tried to stretch out the bundled cable model or worse, depended on people going into theatres, are in big trouble.

Rutgers was added to the Big 10 because of carriage fees. That rationale is dying. I don't know if it will be dead in 2 to 3 years, but that is what Iger and Disney have been signaling as the point at which they will try to switch over to a streaming, subscription model. We will see.

 

[NowInStorrs]

Maybe... hear me out.. the big east helps depaul get better. The better they are the more money we all get.

Just imagine how bad they'd be if they weren't in the Big East

 

[How Sway?!]

Right. ESPN has a business model built for cable. That’s their problem. They have ESPN, 2, U and News and get paid handsomely by cable to carry all of them.

Streaming platforms want nothing to do with the latter (and even ESPN / 2 daytime programming) so they are probably getting way less from the streaming services while also having to still invest in content for those dead channels to satisfy cable.

Then they doubled down by making poor business decisions on the streaming front. Despite being the first sports DTC streaming option with ESPN+, they have been lapped by other services in content quality.

They get 1 International NFL game per year, and weren’t strong enough to negotiate for all 5. Then they picked the NHL, which probably has more Canadian viewers than US viewers as their “hook” sport, while Apple TV gobbled up the MLS (which will pass NHL in viewership by end of decade), Amazon got TNF, YouTube got Sunday Ticket and Peacock got the Premiere League.

Bad business model with a poor product.

Just because Boston Market filed bankruptcy, it’s not accurate to say Americans don’t like fried chicken. It means Americans don’t like their fried chicken.

That’s basically the conclusion you’re trying to reach with ESPN and the value of sports by saying “only another 2 or 3 years…” because of cutting the cord.

Sports are in their golden age and probably have another few decades of getting a premium for their content from providers built for the future. ESPN dug their own grave if they won’t be around for it...

Not to derail, but ESPN passed on MLS because they secured La Liga fan bundesliga, who have a bigger audience.

 

[ecasadoSBU]

Some may recall that years ago Temple was kicked out of the Big East as an affiliate football member due to not meeting requirements/support the league has set.

I don't think it's such a crazy question to evaluate DePaul - even as a full member - under a similar lense.

This is Depaul's 19th season in the Big East and their membership has been nothing short of an abomination.

18 completed seasons have yielded:

-1 NIT bid
-1 season with a winning conference record
-7 last place finishes
-Have 3 conference wins or less in 11 of 17 seasons
-Total win loss of 66 and 255 (21%)
-0 fan support or buzz

This program will have the same media distribution from the Big East as UConn?

I've been against expansion because I enjoy the round robin.. but it's about time we boot these losers and get Gonzaga, Dayton, or St. Louis...anyone with a pulse.

All leagues need one or two teams to beat up on. DePaul does the job. It's the way it is. Ideally it would be nice if the team at the bottom is different every year and not locked into a "caste-like" structure. But it is what it is. No one is getting kicked out.

We are in the days of expansion, not contraction. It makes no sense to do this.


With all that said - I firmly believe that Chicago is an important market to have presence on for the Big East. Why would we give it up? Even if DePaul currently doesn't draw much.

I also firmly believe that with the right effort, fine tuning, and a bit of luck - DePaul can be a winner some day. It won't be easy, but it's definitely possible.

Dayton? Another team in the same Ohio area? Why?


St. Louis? Not exciting either. But at least its a bigger city and opens up a new state

 

[shizzle787]

10 million customers a year are cutting the cord.

That trend is slowing. There will be a bottom baseline. People watch sports. The people that watch sports generally have cable.

 

[05Alum]

I have friend who is well connected with Creighton and the Creighton program. We had a discussion about Depaul, and he mentioned that the reason why Depaul has failed to compete is that they 100% refuse to cheat, pay players etc.
He then went out to talk about the compensation of Creighton players, which was another wild conversation.
I tend to believe him, as Depaul has a lot going for them their in terms of market, endowment, etc to not have any success the last 20 years.

 

[John]

I have friend who is well connected with Creighton and the Creighton program. We had a discussion about Depaul, and he mentioned that the reason why Depaul has failed to compete is that they 100% refuse to cheat, pay players etc.
He then went out to talk about the compensation of Creighton players, which was another wild conversation.
I tend to believe him, as Depaul has a lot going for them their in terms of market, endowment, etc to not have any success the last 20 years.

In the current environment you have to pay the players to be successful, wonder how their NIL is?

 

[QDOG5]

Personally, I don't want DePaul to leave because I get to see UConn in Chicago every year. It is true that DePaul is a sleeping giant and a dumpster fire simultaneously. There is no on/near campus in the foreseeable future. They are currently having trouble getting zoning for a new practice facility. There are 125,000 DePaul alums in the Chicago area. They need to organize an NIL collective and start prodding the administration and AD to get their act together. Dayton is consistently competitive and has a strong fan base but I still wouldn't take them over DePaul. Same goes for St. Louis.

 

[McLovin]

Not to derail, but ESPN passed on MLS because they secured La Liga fan bundesliga, who have a bigger audience.

Globally, yes, but in the US (where I assume ESPN purchased the exclusive rights for) Liga MX, Premier League and MLS are all more widely watched (according to every source I can find online) than either the Spanish or German leagues.

 

[superjohn]

Personally, I don't want DePaul to leave because I get to see UConn in Chicago every year. It is true that DePaul is a sleeping giant and a dumpster fire simultaneously. There is no on/near campus in the foreseeable future. They are currently having trouble getting zoning for a new practice facility. There are 125,000 DePaul alums in the Chicago area. They need to organize an NIL collective and start prodding the administration and AD to get their act together. Dayton is consistently competitive and has a strong fan base but I still wouldn't take them over DePaul. Same goes for St. Louis.

I wish they would've built the new arena where the Finkle Steel plant was between Bucktown and Lincoln Park. There's plenty of room there but traffic/getting to the highway peobably would've been a problem. That whole $6-7 billion Lincoln Yards project has turned into a disaster with all the environmental cleanup.