While posted here on the WCBB site - the article if you read closely is referring to the money sports of football and men's basketball - hence the count of 4 championships (men's basketball) and comparing that total to the totals between those two sports at P5 universities. He is pointing out that as far as fielding competitive teams in those two men's sports, Uconn can hold its head high against a lot of really mediocre teams including many of the expansion schools that have joined P5 conferences.
Why expand it when they can't fill it? It has a max of 42,000 or so seats. In our "heyday", we averaged about 38,000 fans. this past season i think it was about 31,000.
At the time it was made, it was designed to be expanded to by 10-15k more seats, which would put it in the upper half of Big 12 stadiums.
Lol, are you sure that Men's BB doesn't have good ratings?
Our attendance was actually pretty good, pre Pasqualoni. Of course you're right, I'm, necessarily, speculating, but I suspect more people want to see Oklahoma than Tulane and Texas rather than Tulsa. I doubt many would disagree with that.
Regardless of what happened to Oklahoma and Michigan State after they got to the national semifinals, they're big-time programs and they GOT THERE. They won their respective P5 conference championships, and won all their OOC games. I hate to say it, but many UCONN fans are delusional - either in thinking any of the P5 would value our WBB success (delusional and generally unaware of one's surroundings), or in thinking the UCONN football program is on the brink of being successful enough to be attractive to a P5 conference (merely delusional).
You really are behind the curve on the analysis of this issue. Seriously, stop by the Conference Realignment board, if you are curious about it. There are a lot more moving pieces to it than you surmise.
I know Houston's quarterback was out when it happened but didn't the Huskies beat Houston (for their only loss) and didn't Houston kick the crap out of FSU who had won a national championship two years ago and last year was in the playoffs for a national championship???? To presume that UConn's attendance wouldn't increase appreciably if they were in a major conference with the likes of OSU and Michigan and Michigan State coming in along with Nebraska???? The potential to compete against these major schools alone would bring in better recruits as it did for the men's basketball team and probably the women's as well. Coaches will tell you that without talent, it's virtually impossible to compete seriously with quality opponents. No one would have ever assumed that we would be the "basketball center of the universe" as Jay Bilas noted just a few short years ago and though it's more difficult to transition to the top of the heap in football, who would have thought TCU and Texas Tech and Texas A&M would have had the success they've had over the last ten years or so along with a lot of other schools, in college football. It started somewhere, didn't it??? How many schools are there that have done virtually nothing in forever and yet are entrenched in major conferences. Kansas in football???? Indiana????? Up until a while back, how many people knew that Oregon even had a football program. They were totally unheard of and does Oregon State have a great reputation??? I have no doubt that we would have some success if both on the field and in the stands if we were to get accepted into a major conference that centered on college football because our administration has done itself proud in a various sports, winning national titles in basketball, field hockey, soccer! Not too shabby in my opinion.
I don't really have a dog in this discussion other than my affinity for the UConn WBB team, but this hire was simply stupifying. And at such an unfortunate time.At the time it was made, it was designed to be expanded to by 10-15k more seats, which would put it in the upper half of Big 12 stadiums.
Lol, are you sure that Men's BB doesn't have good ratings?
Regarding, Football TV ratings, two quick points. Connecticut is still recovering from a devastating HC hire of this guy...
The losing season's under his watch devastated the program, but things are on the way back under Bob Diaco.
Keep in mind that for a lot of schedule, our young, recovering football program is the "marquee" team. Put us in a P5 league and our TV ratings and attendance will jump dramatically.
Monte- it's not personal - it's business. The relationships meant nothing- it's about Money. Which means football and tv. Dave Gavitt saw the end result way way back when he had Penn State and someone else ready to come in to protect the football schools from eventually leaving. When they got voted down 5-4? By the Catholic basketball only schools- he saw the end 10-15 yr's prior to the end. It was the only vote he couldn't convince everyone was in all their best interests. Tragedy.
I didn't mean to say WBB is a joke. I said Jacobs calling it a major sport is a joke. I interpret "major" to mean enough people are watching it and caring about it to translate into it being economically viable, stand-alone. Sorry to be so harsh. WCBB is "major" to me, or I wouldn't be here.
Don't disagree at all. Unfortunately UCONN isn't already there, nor do we apparently have a Phil Knight, Red McCombs or T. Boone Pickens type of booster. So the issue is, how do we GET there?
Not sure what you're saying.... That enough people watch WBB to make it economically viable, stand-alone?
Great post - the whole thing, I actually don't care for Penn State Volleyball and don't tend to watch finals they are involved in. In fact, this year we were unable to watch the F4 at all, I would have enjoyed it. But volleyball can be incredibly exciting. Love softball as well, and were sitting at a recent Arizona WBB game with 2 friends (shockingly, transplanted UConn fans) that are huge fans of Arizona Women's Soccer and find it very exciting.