Is UConn dying?

[uconnfan68]

And the next contract is likely to be tighter. People saying the BE is some revenue windfall are silly. We'd still be bleeding money.

In my opinion, it's P5 or death. A long slow death, but a death nonetheless.

You hang out for your only real potential life raft. When that's gone, jump ship.

Don’t worry, the P5 will go belly up too. It will just take a little longer.

 

[frankthetank]

To this day, I don’t understand the arguments that the Big East would be a league that’s going downward. They already make more TV money than any of the Group of 5 conferences and they don’t even play football (meaning they’re getting a MUCH MUCH MUCH higher ROI without those football expenses). The on-the-court product has also ended up being signicantly better than expected - there isn’t any “Requiem for the Big East” talk anymore.

At the same time, anyone in the TV industry knows that trying to compare FS1 ratings to ESPN ratings is ridiculous - there’s an artificial depression on ratings for the exact same event on FS1 compared to ESPN. You can see this clearly in Pac-12 ratings where the same matchup will have 3 or 4 times the viewers on ESPN compared to FS1. (Note that the Big East consistently beats the Pac-12 on FS1 in the ratings, so that’s a much better indicator of the Big East’s leverage.) If the Big East were going to market for a new contract today, it would most certainly get a significant increase with multiple bidders. To be sure, TV rights fees are in flux for the future because of so many unpredictable changes in the industry overall, but that’s a macro issue as opposed to a conference-specific issue.

The point is that the “football is all that matters” mantra is true... for the P5 conferences. The problem is that the G5 conferences are lemmings in trying to chase the P5 in a game that they will never be even in the vicinity of being competitive (much less win). Meanwhile, the Big East found a way to make more TV money with fewer expenses with an identifiable brand and schools that actually want to be there by going in a totally different direction (if only because they were forced to do so). Frankly, considering the circumstances of the split of the Old Big East, the New Big East has actually been the best managed conference that has maximized its assets better on a pound for pound basis than any other conference (including the P5) since conference realignment quieted down. The Big East shouldn’t be criticized for being a league without football - they should be *commended* for figuring out a way to be successful and resurrecting a brand without football while the G5 members swim in debt in the name of football.

If the P5 conferences are Amazon, then the G5 conferences are Sears - a dying retailer that tried to figure out online retail when it was too little and too late while much better competitors swamped them. Meanwhile, the Big East is like Nordstrom - a targeted high value brand retailer whose success is doing what Amazon *doesn’t* do well in terms of a different focus and experience. The irony of all of this is that the P5 actually sees the Big East as a legitimate equal in basketball with this approach to the point where 2 leagues (the Big Ten and Big 12) have challenges with them. Anyone who thinks that the Big East is more in danger of a hypothetical P5 split from the rest of the NCAA than, say, the AAC is kidding themselves.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean UConn should just drop football (or even go independent) and join the Big East. As long as UConn sincerely believes that it has a chance at the P5, it’s essentially forced to stay in the AAC (or whatever successor league in the event that it gets poached). Holding onto that P5 lottery ticket is probably still to important for an athletic department of UConn’s stature to ever unilaterally give it up. It’s just a strange situation since UConn might be the only school in the country where *having* an FBS football program actually *takes away* a potentially higher revenue/more profitable option (basketball in the Big East).

 

[bmayuc]

I think a more interesting question is will UConn Athletics bleed to death before the NCAA cartel system is broken up by some combination of lawsuits and legislation forcing massive changes in the economics of college sports, fair wages for players and those types of issues.

I think its much more likely some massive shakeup like that will happen in the next 3-5 years than some absurd conference realignment dream.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

No, just pointing out how stupid the drop football comments are.

People like you put UConn in its current situation.

 

[AdamaNation]

Go

The fan base is clueless. They're worried about what things will look like in 20 years and think we're just fine sitting here until the next expansion when we'll get selected for a P5. We didn't get selected for a P5 back when we were winning basketball championships and going to the Fiesta bowl. They're sure to take us now that we have the worst football team in America and our basketball team sucks.

Good points. Just realized AD Dave has ALL his eggs on Hurley to fix this, but the thought of geno leaving before that happens could be a very loud death blow to end everything here and fall back to the old yankee conference days. AD is on thin ice as is right now.

 

[bennyskid]

Hey, at least UConn has company . . . UMass allocates $37 million, just to give their students and alumni the chance to watch A-10 conference action up close. And 81% of James Madison's $48 million dollar budget comes from outside allocations - what does the CAA conference TV deal look like?

Here's the reality of life in the AAC: every member in the USA Today database is running a 40+% deficit. I'm sure that every fan base has the same idea: it'll all pay off when we get into the Power Five. But none will ever make it there for a simple reason: for a P5 conference to expand, they have to find schools that will bring in enough extra revenue to cover the extra split. Say, for example, that the B10 had a $280m TV contract. They would need assurance that the contract would grow to $300m before they would take on one more school. Essentially, the new school doesn't have to just be better than all the other schools available - they have to have to be better than the average of the schools already in the conference.

You can see that dynamic in action with the B12, which most observers assumed would want to expand to get a championship game (and show the world that they know how counting works.) But they have passed on BYU, with its good TV market, excellent attendance in all sports, and fantastic traveling fan base. And they passed on Air Force, Colorado State, and the entire AAC. If the B12 - the poorest of the P5 - isn't expanding, it's ridiculous to think that the much wealthier ACC would give it any consideration at all.

 

[intlzncster]

Go

Good points. Just realized AD Dave has ALL his eggs on Hurley to fix this, but the thought of geno leaving before that happens could be a very loud death blow to end everything here and fall back to the old yankee conference days. AD is on thin ice as is right now.

Nobody cares about WCBB in realignment talks. Nor basketball for that matter.

 

[Waquoit]

"When did this place turn into loserville? Pathetic.

That's a gimme. August 7, 2014.

 

[Stainmaster]

That's a gimme. August 7, 2014.

You're trying too hard.

 

[BlueDogs]

That’s an accounting trick though. That’s revenue they could have used elsewhere, instead of more capital investment they can’t afford the upkeep on.

Exactly. Money is fungible. Those funds are revenue and could be used for other purposes. I don’t begrudge funding any sport, but the reflexive dump football crowd is clueless and of all things you don’t cut the one sport that matters in college athletics.

 

[BlueDogs]

High schools have better facilities. I have no idea how we managed to be as successful in baseball as we've been.

You need grass, dirt, chalk and a fence. South American soccer and baseball produces great players with facilities that you would find in prison yard. Dumping money into these secondary sports is isane at this moment. Zero return on investment and irrelevant to CR. They are nice to haves That I would love to see for the kids but not st the expense of sinking our future.

 

[Adios]

You need grass, dirt, chalk and a fence. South American soccer and baseball produces great players with facilities that you would find in prison yard. Dumping money into these secondary sports is isane at this moment. Zero return on investment and irrelevant to CR. They are nice to haves That I would love to see for the kids but not st the expense of sinking our future.

I know that, I mean be able to recruit solid talent.

Whether we like it or not, not only are coaches to be wooed, so are athletes. Thus, "expenditures". ADs used to be much simpler 100 years ago.

 

[zls44]

They are nice to haves That I would love to see for the kids but not st the expense of sinking our future.

They're costing about $30m for everything, all in. The deficit's $40m a year. As in- every year, that's $40m out the door.

Not building the stadiums isn't gonna fix that.

Plus, soccer is the one sport that *has* deep pocketed donors who *do* contribute. Seems like the kind of sport whose donor base we should be looking at to model the rest of them after, not tossing it in the trash.

 

[zls44]

Lol. It doesn’t cost that much to travel.
Every major conference in America boards planes. The American is more travel friendly than most with locations in major cities. There aren’t many plane rides that get coupled with long bus rides to rural locales.

This is an incredibly stupid post that deserves to be highlighted for how incredibly stupid it is.

 

[olehead]

That's gonna continue unless we go P5. The Big East will die a long slow death eventually in and of itself I'm guessing.

Don't look at the now. Look at what will be.

Wow, that's some choice. But you are right, it is a question of lifespan. As it stands now and either way we go, there needs be success quickly.

 

[olehead]

Wow, that's some choice. But you are right, it is a question of lifespan. As it stands now and either way we go, there needs be success quickly.

The product is hard to watch in fball and bball.

 

[Jaker]

Uconn died, the question is can it be resurrected??

 

[olehead]

Uconn died, the question is can it be resurrected??

Say it ain't so?

 

[Mokum]

Just got back from Italy last week. I discussed college costs and differences in the university systems with my cousins. I have to admit, I think we should look at the costs of college sports across the board in this country. If, as a whole, college sports is a money loser, all schools should drop them and focus on academics. There are other ways to keep sports alive without college sports. Having said that, while college sports is still big and high visibility, you need to compete to stay relevant.

Good point. I have lived here in Europe for quite some time. Universities here don’t have sports teams. College sports does not exist. Sports are kept alive through amatuer and professional clubs. However in America we are so entrenched in the current system that changing it would be monumental.

 

[Mokum]

Why must minor sports be included in conferences? They should be in regional leagues that are a bus ride away. Sending the womens track& field team to Texas or Oklahoma to compete is absurd. There should be seperate conferences for football and basketball as well.

 

[David 76]

Nobody cares about WCBB in realignment talks. Nor basketball for that matter.

Pretty sure WCBB is basketball.

 

[huskyrob1]

Yeah, it's starting to look like the party could be over soon.

Can't run those kinds of deficits. You've got an obligation to students and tax payers. Sorry to ruin everyone's good time, but it's not gonna happen the longer they're in the conference.

My guess is they stick it out and hope they can cover the football deficit in the next round of negotiations. If they don't, football program gets shuttered within ten minutes of them knowing. That's assuming it gets that far.

Can't run $8.7 million and then have everyone else running $7.8 million in travel expenses, largely to keep the football dream alive. At it's peak - men's hoops was generating something like $16 million for the university. That right there would eat that alone. My guess is they beg, borrow and steal to try to get into the Big East, but that'll be that. Even if they can score a big payday of like $14 million in the Big East and cut both the football deficit and trim travel, they'll still have like $15-$16 million they're going to have to make up.

But $41 million is so far past inexcusable at this point, it's hard to know where to begin.

So I guess the guy that just donated 1 million to the football program is just peeing away his money.

 

[FartMan69]

With one of the worst FBS recruiting classes, the worst defense in the history of man and the possibility of having to start a true freshman QB from that horrible class I fully expect the football board to predict 5-7 than pikachushocked.jpeg when we go winless and continue this pointless endeavor straight into the toilet

 

[FartMan69]

So I guess the guy that just donated 1 million to the football program is just peeing away his money.

OUR HEAD COACH HAS TO PAY HIS OWN ASSISTANTS. Sustainable?

 

[fatlucy]

You can wait around for Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz to ask you for a threesome while you're at it.

Great combo!!!