UConn MUST join the C7 and take the football program independent.
The posts in the UMass thread indicate just how much in denial people are about our situation. If UConn heads down the A12 path, it needs nearby regional schools like UMass in the league. Being in a southern mid-major league would be financially catastrophic for all sports. Ironically, football would feel the least pain in a league like that because there are only 4 conference road games. Field hockey, lacrosse, volleyball, basketball, soccer, and the rest will not just feel tremendous financial pain, but academically it will put enormous strain on the athletes because their will be so much travel. And for just about all of them, they are students first and athletes second. Not a lot of professional field hockey players out there.
Basketball will be really hurt in a terrible league like the A12. 3 decent opponents in the conference is not nearly enough. UConn will have to schedule 7-8 major conference opponents a year if it is in the A12. The problem is that we will lose a bunch of home games if we do that. Playing 8 or 9 conference road games, most of which will be against teams UConn would never go on the road against, means those games have to come out of paycheck Tier 3 games at home. That will be a lot of local TV revenue and ticket sales that will be lost, for BOTH basketball programs.
Football independence is viable for a while. BYU and Notre Dame would schedule a long-term series. ND would require us to play our "home" games in NY or Foxwoods, but if we could get a majority or even half the gate, who cares? Throw Idaho and NMSU on the schedule because we can probably get 2 for 1's with them. Those would be our November games every year. Hawaii will schedule anyone who will come out to the islands. Could Warde get off his butt and find 7-8 more games, at least for a few years? Probably. Syndicate the home TV rights regionally, which would probably generate more than this crappy A12 TV deal anyway. If we decide to pull the plug on the football program at any point, the basketball program is still on its feet.
The C7 benefits a lot from UConn. Providence, Seton Hall and St. Johns love playing UConn because it is a guaranteed sellout. Even Villanova and Georgetown draw a lot better for the Huskies than they do for almost any other school. Are they interested in dealing with a likely future departure? Probably not their first choice, but if they handicap it like I handicap it, they will realize it is no better than 50/50 that UConn leaves for another conference someday. They benefit from another high profile basketball program that actually has banners instead of just near misses, and everyone wins.
The A12 strategy is about as stupid a plan as UConn could have come up with. The school needs to reverse this disastrous decision as soon as possible.
