San Diego State and MWC

[HuskyHawk]

You're posting on a faulty premise, basing game start times on the Eastern time zone. A Western division is perfect for start times later in the day: Football 7 P.M., 10 P.M. Basketball 9 P.M. 11 P.M. Eastern. Fox Sports & NBC Sports need live programming for those time slots. That's prime time on the left coast.

There is no way you're going to have a league with enough "western" schools that they can simply play themselves. They will need to play on the east coast at 7:00, and the ratings for those games will suck out west. Then UConn and others will need to play in the west, at 10:00 eastern, and the rating for those games will suck on the east coast. There's a reason Monday Night football moved to 8:30. You cannot get decent ratings nationally for any game that ends after about 11:30 eastern.

Yes, there may be some value with a local west coast focused sports network, but the value of western sports on a national level is inherently lower than it would be in the east or central.

 

[huskymedic]

From Andy Katz:

3. The remaining Big East athletic directors will meet in Dallas on Jan. 11 to discuss their latest moves, including the update on the television negotiations. Tulsa and UMass have been discussed as possible additions if the Big East decides to expand, according to multiple sources. Rice and Southern Miss were also tossed around. Meanwhile, the Mountain West expects to move on San Diego State by the end of this week, according to a league source. The MWC has to decide if it will go to 12 or 14. The MWC has interest in SMU and Houston, but SMU has let it be known to the MWC it has no interest as the Mustangs and Cougars are set to go to the Big East. UTEP desperately wants to be in the MWC, according to a source, and is on the MWC list. BYU is the first choice for the MWC but at this juncture the Cougars want to remain independent in football, WCC in other sports.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebask...1927/3-point-shot-florida-without-erik-murphy

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Western division in all sports is a terrible idea. It will not work. That's why it isn't being pursued.

When the expected payout for the C7 for basketball is more than the MWC gets for hoops and football, what does that tell you? Those schools are entirely dilutive. And those markets will not tune in for Saturday morning football or weekday basketball at 3:00 pm. We need to stick to two time zones. Add ECU for all sports and we are at 10. Then decide whether schools like Tulsa, Rice or Southern Miss fit.

The MWC is locked into a contract they signed almost 10 years ago, so that is a completely ignorant comparison. The existence of that terrible deal is the only reason the Big East has the upper hand right now.

Obviously, a western division is not ideal, but the western schools want to join the Big East. If they don't, their conference will be better than ours in both basketball and football. Why would the Big East pursue a strategy where that is the obvious outcome?

East: UConn, ECU, Cincinnati, USF, UCF, Temple, Memphis
West: SMU, Houston, SDSU, Tulane (I would not be against simply dropping them), Fresno, UNLV, New Mexico

All sports. I don't think anyone expects Navy to actually play a game in this league, so let's leave them out for now. If Navy shows up, we offer Air Force a football only, which they would probably accept and try to park their other sports in the MVC.

Football schedule: Every division team plus 2 from the opposite league every year. The SEC made it work. If you end up at 16, break into pods.

Basketball: Home and home within the division, play 6 from the opposite division. There would be a total of THREE cross country trips per school, and some of those would only be as far as Texas for UConn.

Sample UConn basketball schedule:

Home: ECU, Cincinnati, USF, UCF, Temple, Memphis, SDSU, Fresno, Tulane
Away: ECU, Cincinnati, USF, UCF, Temple, Memphis, Houston, UNLV, New Mexico

Sample UConn Football schedule:

Home: ECU, Cincinnati, USF, Fresno
Away: Temple, Memphis, UCF, SMU

Obviously not the old Big East, but that ship has already sailed. This is a lot better choice than dropping the western schools and having the MWC be better than our league in both football and basketball.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Simply put, I don't think hybrid leagues work well either. I'd rather dump ECU and Tulane altogether. But they have an invite already. If SDSU wants to come for just football...alone, then of course we keep ECU as football only as well.

Its not the hybrid model that failed. I can't can't stress that enough. The Big East just didn't have enough programs with national cache and other conferences were always able to offer a more lucrative deal.

In all actuality the football schools screwed themselves by not sticking together and bolting at the first chance.

I mean, say the C7 joined the B1G or SEC, would the hybrid model all of a sudden fail?

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Its not the hybrid model that failed. I can't can't stress that enough. The Big East just didn't have enough programs with national cache and other conferences were always able to offer a more lucrative deal.

In all actuality the football schools screwed themselves by not sticking together and bolting at the first chance.

I mean, say the C7 joined the B1G or SEC, would the hybrid model all of a sudden fail?

I have done the math elsewhere, so I won't revisit it here. TV networks have committed to over $300MM PER YEAR in incremental revenues to various conferences resulting from those conferences adding Big East teams. That is the value of the 6 departing football schools and the C7 to television. The only reason the Big East didn't get that money is the terrible exclusive deal that the Big East signed with ESPN. If you want to boil UConn's demise down to one fact, THAT is the fact.

 

[RS9999X]

The Mountain West is waiting on San Diego State to make a decision, but UNLV athletic director Jim Livengood doesn't expect a long wait.

"I think we'll know something in the next three or four days," Livengood said Monday. "I would be shocked if it was not this week, but you never know."

"My sense is they are" returning, he said. "The thing is you don't know what the Big East is doing, what concessions are being made. The Big East is in a tough spot."

 

[DW4UCONN]

I believe SDSU is the one in the tough spot. They have a tough decision to make. I am not so sure the Big East has it's heart all in here.

 

[DW4UCONN]

This sums it up pretty well ...

Talks on going

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Reports from SDSU fan boards that the Aztecs are returning to the MWC.

 

[DW4UCONN]

There is nothing new here really. SDSU apparently, and hurtfully so, slammed the MWC door shut on their way out and now find themselves begging and scratching at that very door while the MWC listens and ponders things. Could take until the end of the month and the only question remains concerning the terms of replacing that door. All the while Aresco stands by with nothing more to say about SDSU. The Big East is merely a safety net at this point.

 

[Pudge]

I'm amazed.

The MWC contract pays small money & they have small Exit fees. What happens when Aresco actually does have a set league & Schools are getting $5-7m instead of $1m?

It'll be like my mortgage market when everyone has A 5% mortgage & rates go to 4%? With no prepayment penalty. Only Boise has a sweetheart deal. You can have a 4-6 School Western Division in a nano.

 

[UConnJim]

Economically, SD St knows they need to go to the Big East, as they are getting a raw deal with the MWC. Plus, I'm sure that SD St got the cold shoulder from the BE conference at last Friday's meeting as without Boise St and a western division, most schools probably do not want them. That's a tougher position than even UConn is in.

 

[DW4UCONN]

I gather Pudge that were dealing here with a variable rate. SDSU must see that although the rate could be appealing up front, if Cincy and UConn leave then the back load will be a killer. The revenue potential the NBE had promised is no longer there and neither is the BCS AQ. So I am not all that amazed. A western division would have been interesting if not impractical.

 

[Pudge]

Why would you think the BE ADs & Presidents would give San Diego State the cold shoulder?


Look ... We need solid up & coming Programs. We can make transcontinental TV work. We don't need UMass with their 6500 attendance.

 

[UConnJim]

Why would the BE give SD St the cold shoulder? Without a western division, it appears that the BE is going to an all sports conference, with the exception of Navy. I hope that UMass is not coming to the BE as their football strategy is a disaster and I question their commitment to football and they don't have any fan support. Old Dominion, Charlotte, Georgia St., UT San Antonio, ULM, ULL, Southern Miss, FAU, Rice, Buffalo,...are better options then UMass.

 

[zls44]

SDSU sees the terms of the TV deal and realizes it discusses benefits for home teams, not "Boise State".

Now, you, me, and everyone else knows who will be getting a lions share of those appearances in the immediate future. But maybe SDSU thinks it can be them?

Maybe when Boise falls off the map after Petersen leaves- something everyone on here is in such a rush to declare an absolute certainty- and those spots become up for grabs, maybe SDSU thinks they can rise up and get that windfall?

 

[UConnJim]

Goodbye San Diego St. We hardly knew you.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/eye-on-college-football/21563498/report-big-east-and-san-diego-state-preparing-to-announce-separation

 

[CL82]

Goodbye San Diego St. We hardly knew you.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/blog/eye-on-college-football/21563498/report-big-east-and-san-diego-state-preparing-to-announce-separation

That link did not work for me - here is one to the Courant

 

[ScottBonz]

@frankthetank111: From @blauds: San Diego State and Big East working on exit statement, meaning SDSU will return to MWC. http://post original url/4mf1BgXJ


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[freescooter]

Once Boise left I think this move was pretty much inevitable. Now can we just get on with putting together a league?

 

[RS9999X]

Once Boise left I think this move was pretty much inevitable. Now can we just get on with putting together a league?

That's my take. Now they can move on with Tulsa and UMass and claim the Big East to be better than the MAC and C-USA most years.

 

[hexlub]

Now they can move on with Tulsa and UMass and claim the Big East to be better than the MAC and C-USA most years.

Scary that it's come to that. But totally agree. According to my Franchise game in NCAA '13, UMass will finish in the top 5 in 2019. Consider it an investment in the future.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

That's my take. Now they can move on with Tulsa and UMass and claim the Big East to be better than the MAC and C-USA most years.

How does adding the worst program in the mac do anything to increase the Big Easts perceived.value?

 

[RS9999X]

How does adding the worst program in the mac do anything to increase the Big Easts perceived.value?

You missed the dark cynicism and black humor

 

[Carl Spackler]

San Diego State decides not to join the Big East conference. This is not surprising, on any level.

Somewhere along here in this discussion, was a statement to say that the Big East television rights contract deal is turning out poorly. I'd love to see somebody produce numbers to back it up, because there are none......yet. Jim Delany saw to that stopping in November before the numbers started coming.

What has happened in the meantime, is that schools like Boise, and like the basketball catholics, who essentially all have only one product to sell on the market, rather than a multifaceted athletic product........realized the value of their own product, and decided that they would rather keep the profits to themselves, than be part of something larger.

Boise squeezed a deal out of the MWC, that is going to come back and haunt that conference, but true to the environment and landscape, where the only purpose, to anything, is for an individual university leadership to make sure they have secured the best media rights deal that they can get for their own product.....Boise accomplished their task.

The basketball catholics? Falling right in line. They realized that they can make some nice coin on their own, with only men's basketball, and simply cut loose the football world - which they never really wanted anyway. The market made it possible for them to do that.

The conference I'd like to be affiliated with is the Big10, not the ACC. Never been the ACC - for me personally. But unless we get the invitiation to the prom, we're not going.

The good news for UConn, is that we are free agents, with the rag tag group of the Big East we have left. We sit in the middle of a battleground of huge corporate entities in the landscape. Comcast/NBC and ESPN/Disney - both co-owners of SNY. AT&T, Verizon........battling for network supremacy in the northeast corridor......

Our media rights - UConn - are indeed very valueable, and we are free agents, and we have plenty of immediate content to put on the air. It's sure going to get interesting soon. The lineup that the Big East is going to go to the tables with is settling down again.

All that remains to be seen is if we actually make it to the tables this time, or if another torpedo hits the conference broadside before a contract is set.