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Message: [QUOTE="Billy Jack, post: 4653638, member: 4173"] In the article in “The Hour” that was linked earlier, Benedict explained why this is so complicated. “I don’t think money guarantees success. . . In some cases members if P5 conferences are still losing a lot of money on an annual basis even though they’re getting 5 times more than we are. . . I have no interest in going into a situation where you’re going to make more money but you’re not going to be competitive in anything. . . And that was certainly a factor in making the move back to the Big East. . . Would you give that up? And if so, why would you give that up?” We know that fans will turn out in good times. We also know that fans did not turn out in the same numbers during the down years in the AAC. But fans did seem to be there through thick and thin over the years in the Big East. Those AAC years make many of us hesitant to repeat the same mistake. We are an an elite basketball program. I think that’s what Benedict is getting at when he talks about not getting into a situation where you’re making more money but are not competitive at anything. He wants to be careful about jeopardizing what we have - an elite basketball program. We did that once already. From an institutional perspective, college sports are not really a big part of the institution’s core mission. In many ways, they fall into the category of public relations and student recruiting. For UConn to develop a higher academic profile, it’s necessary to bring in more students from out of state and increase selectivity. That’s what Public Ivies do. Basketball has put the university in front of more people and has greatly helped to increase the out of state enrollment. So, a big consideration is where the university wants to promote itself out of state. Games agains Big East opponents create headlines in New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and DC/MD/VA - which is most of our out of state academic recruiting territory - as well as in the Midwest. The university has to decide whether it wants to trade that off for headlines in the Midwest/Southwest. Tough decisions. [/QUOTE]

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