Just to add to the CR pot

[upstater]

You make a good point. On the one hand the university's primary objective is supposed to be education. On the other hand we've seen what success in basketball has done for the University of Connecticut. We have raised our academic profile in large part because of that success. However, UConn appears to be the exception rather than the rule in this regard.

That being said, I think it's a mistake for the student athlete in general and for the fans. Let's use WVU as an example. They're already having issues with the travel in the Big 12 and that's with basketball. What are those travel issues doing to the Olympic sport athletes? How are fans affected because it's a flight insead of a drive to an occasional event? Let's assume that WVU is getting 20M more than they would have if they had stayed. Are all those issues worth 20M when contrasted against the entire WVU operating budget? Would WVU have been better served had they stayed in the BE (I know, a hypothetical) and maybe taking a little less money for a more comprehensive benefit for it's students and supporters?

I'm not going to pretend I have the answers to these questions because I don't and I guess if I was going to access this I would ask why bother with any thought of tradition and let us choose the top 64 or 80 or 96 teamsn and assemble them in such a way to leverage maximum $ for the entire collection. That way $ are maximized and there is some regional consistency so costs on the back end are reduced and fan participation for road games is still a realistic endeavor.

Good post. I wrote earlier today about universities moving to more revenue generating models by lowering standards. The pressures on student athletes are also being placed on regular students. So this is nothing more than a trend across higher education. A reduction of quality.

 

[UConnNick]

Don't know. This is speculation on my part but I bet a lot of UMD alums prefer to go to late Fall games in NC, SC, FL, GA, even KY, with maybe one visit a year to PA, NY or MA. In the B1G they get a steady diet of cold in in late Fall.

I don't know either, but I do know that the turtles always have been, are, and always will be a BB school first and foremost. I really don't think their decision-making process has much of anything to do with where their hardcore FB fans might be willing to travel to a late season away game. My guess is that concern was so low on the priority list as to not even merit the slightest bit of consideration.

To fully understand where Maryland FB rates among the school's fanbase in the hierarchy of Terp sports programs, one only has to look as far as their decision to hire Randy Edsall, when there were many more attractive candidates available at the time they chose to hire him.