Two options that are never talked about...actually three

[UC990411]

The first goes back to 2003, why didn't we part ways with the C7 at that point and go on the offensive? We've been playing defense for 10+ years and everyone knew this day would come. What if we poached the ACC, B12 or b1G? Was it because we had leadership that didn't see the future? Was it because we weren't getting rid of the C7's because they'd be giving up too much money?

The second is in regards to the MWC. It seems to me that they may be in a better position than we are. They have the option to reopen their contract with CBS sports. Why don't they look east and go national? Why aren't we in contact with them rather than starting from scratch?

The third is in regards to the B12, why haven't we ever been in discussions with them., once Cuse and Pitt left our leadership team should have gotten on the phone with Ville, Rutty, Cinci and WVa as a packaged deal. Instead we're left at the alter with our second cousins (Cinci) with these expensive suits on looking like idiots. The only reason that second cousin is still around is because he has no friends. We should constantly be on the phone with the B12 and Selling them on our athletics, academics and TV market.

We skipped option 1, are we passing on options 2 and 3 too?

 

[UConnDan97]

What a weird post.

Option 1 is not an option because it is almost 10 years in the past.
Option 2 assumes that UConn is not in active conversations dealing with all of our NBE/MW options, including but not limited to starting our own conference, which the Sporting News article already alluded to us perhaps doing (as well as the fact that option 2 gives no consideration to the tens of millions of dollars that are risk from the NCAA bball credits and the exit fees).
Option 3 also assumes that we did not contact the Big12 to investigate what kinds of options we had. It's very safe to say that the Big12 was in contact with any and all parties that it felt it might like to acquire, so either we are one of them or we are not.

Not sure what you're getting at here, but.....weird post....

 

[whaler11]

Here are three things that are never talked about. And by never talked about I mean they are talked about constantly.

 

[06029]

The first goes back to 2003, why didn't we part ways with the C7 at that point and go on the offensive? We've been playing defense for 10+ years and everyone knew this day would come. What if we poached the ACC, B12 or b1G? Was it because we had leadership that didn't see the future? Was it because we weren't getting rid of the C7's because they'd be giving up too much money?

The second is in regards to the MWC. It seems to me that they may be in a better position than we are. They have the option to reopen their contract with CBS sports. Why don't they look east and go national? Why aren't we in contact with them rather than starting from scratch?

The third is in regards to the B12, why haven't we ever been in discussions with them., once Cuse and Pitt left our leadership team should have gotten on the phone with Ville, Rutty, Cinci and WVa as a packaged deal. Instead we're left at the alter with our second cousins (Cinci) with these expensive suits on looking like idiots. The only reason that second cousin is still around is because he has no friends. We should constantly be on the phone with the B12 and Selling them on our athletics, academics and TV market.

We skipped option 1, are we passing on options 2 and 3 too?

1. It was actually agreed upon by the FB schools (the minutes are somewhere on line) but never happened. Some speculate that it was because of Cuse and Uconn BB and the credits they would have given up. Some speculate that it had to do with teams playing together x years to qualify as an auto bid league for the NCAA's, Some speculate the Tranghese figured out a way to squash it. Probably a combination of events but there was an agreement in principal at one point in 2003 to do it but it never happened. I think if you work hard enough, you can blame Warde for that too.

2. No proof that a national league will work or that it generates more TV $$$. The MWC has been Boise and the occasional other top 25 team. It was not a BCS league and only Boise has played in a BCS game. Even the remnants of the BE have two BCS teams. While a merger may sound good for football, I think you have to question how it would work for BB and all other sports just from a travel/logistics angle.

3. No one knows if they have or have not called. And calling means nothing. Uconn has less in common with B12 schools than the B1G or ACC.I would believe that Uconn's athletic conference affiliation is the full time job of multiple people at this point. Making an assumption that they are doing nothing in Storrs just because you don't know about it is not the best way to think about this.

Finally, I think everyone that makes these decisions is well versed on TV markets and they have shown what they think of the Uconn TV market with all of the decisions. This board can talk it up and proclaim its greatness, but I see the moves being made all around Uconn as showing what the reality of the market is.

 

[upstater]

1. It was actually agreed upon by the FB schools (the minutes are somewhere on line) but never happened. Some speculate that it was because of Cuse and Uconn BB and the credits they would have given up. Some speculate that it had to do with teams playing together x years to qualify as an auto bid league for the NCAA's, Some speculate the Tranghese figured out a way to squash it. Probably a combination of events but there was an agreement in principal at one point in 2003 to do it but it never happened. I think if you work hard enough, you can blame Warde for that too.

2. No proof that a national league will work or that it generates more TV $$$. The MWC has been Boise and the occasional other top 25 team. It was not a BCS league and only Boise has played in a BCS game. Even the remnants of the BE have two BCS teams. While a merger may sound good for football, I think you have to question how it would work for BB and all other sports just from a travel/logistics angle.

3. No one knows if they have or have not called. And calling means nothing. Uconn has less in common with B12 schools than the B1G or ACC.I would believe that Uconn's athletic conference affiliation is the full time job of multiple people at this point. Making an assumption that they are doing nothing in Storrs just because you don't know about it is not the best way to think about this.

Finally, I think everyone that makes these decisions is well versed on TV markets and they have shown what they think of the Uconn TV market with all of the decisions. This board can talk it up and proclaim its greatness, but I see the moves being made all around Uconn as showing what the reality of the market is.

There was general agreement to split up--until Notre Dame voted with the Catholic schools. And this somehow surprised the football schools because they had the advantage and the votes until that point.

They would have had to leave the conference, all the basketball NCAA credits, the conference name, the MSG tournament, AND they would have likely lost the BCS autobid which was tied to the contract with the other BCS conferences in the BE name only.

 

[XOVERX]

It appears that talks between UConn and the B12 have, or are, occurring. The dominant rumor is that the B12 floated the idea of 2 home games in NYC. Perhaps UConn told the B12 to take a hike, who knows? UConn sure didn't like ND trying leverage NYC games.

 

[Alum86]

Is it Christmas, or April Fool's? I call Bull$h*t.

Merry Christmas Warde. I'll give you today. Tomorrow get to work

 

[Dann]

Is it Christmas, or April Fool's? I call Bull$h*t.

Merry Christmas Warde. I'll give you today. Tomorrow get to work

your a nice guy, im not...

 

[Stinger92860]

It appears that talks between UConn and the B12 have, or are, occurring. The dominant rumor is that the B12 floated the idea of 2 home games in NYC. Perhaps UConn told the B12 to take a hike, who knows? UConn sure didn't like ND trying leverage NYC games.

Times have changed. Let's play at Yankee stadium or Citi field. Throw in Fenway or Gillette.

 

[HuskyHawk]

What a weird post.

Option 1 is not an option because it is almost 10 years in the past.
Option 2 assumes that UConn is not in active conversations dealing with all of our NBE/MW options, including but not limited to starting our own conference, which the Sporting News article already alluded to us perhaps doing (as well as the fact that option 2 gives no consideration to the tens of millions of dollars that are risk from the NCAA bball credits and the exit fees).
Option 3 also assumes that we did not contact the Big12 to investigate what kinds of options we had. It's very safe to say that the Big12 was in contact with any and all parties that it felt it might like to acquire, so either we are one of them or we are not.

Not sure what you're getting at here, but.....weird post....

Agreed. There is a critical point with the MWC. Why the hell would they want to take a nice, geographically sensible conference and turn it into a bastard son-of-Frankenstein by taking the misfit toys from the east like UConn? It would be stupid. Cross-continental conferences do not work. They will never work. The sooner we accept that the better off we will be.

So let's suck up the reality that SDSU and Boise are probably not coming to this party. Let's hope like hell that SMU and Houston do stick around. Create the best 10 team league we can.

UConn, Cinci, USF, CFU, SMU, Houston, Memphis, Tulane, Temple and one more. Maybe ECU, but I'd prefer Tulsa. That's our conference folks.

 

[UConnDan97]

Agreed. There is a critical point with the MWC. Why the hell would they want to take a nice, geographically sensible conference and turn it into a bastard son-of-Frankenstein by taking the misfit toys from the east like UConn? It would be stupid. Cross-continental conferences do not work. They will never work. The sooner we accept that the better off we will be.

So let's suck up the reality that SDSU and Boise are probably not coming to this party. Let's hope like hell that SMU and Houston do stick around. Create the best 10 team league we can.

UConn, Cinci, USF, CFU, SMU, Houston, Memphis, Tulane, Temple and one more. Maybe ECU, but I'd prefer Tulsa. That's our conference folks.

The only way that the MW/BE joint conference works....is if it is two separate conferences! By that, I mean that you have 8 (or 9) schools in each "division" playing all sports. You can have crossover games in football, but you keep crossover games to a bare minimum in the olympic sports except for when it makes tv sense (i.e., SDSU vs. UConn in men's bball). Then, you can leverage the most out of the tv contract and minimize travel. However, we aren't at that point. We are literally a Fresno/UNLV/BYU multi-addition away from that.

Having said that, if I had to put odds on whether Boise and SDSU come to the Big East, I would still say that I am 75% confident that they will still join our conference. The reason is the same reason as anybody else joining a conference; money. The CBS contract re-structure is not likely to add more than, let's say, 500k to each school. That would bring them up to 1.5 mil per year. The Big East contract is still likely to be in the 3.5 to 4 million dollar range (take the low end if you believe Dodd, or bump the high end up to 7 million if you believe Blaudschun). A couple of million is enough to make the difference for those two schools. And if Fresno joins, then my 75% odds goes to 100%...

 

[ctchamps]

Is it Christmas, or April Fool's? I call Bull$h*t.

Merry Christmas Warde. I'll give you today. Tomorrow get to work

If you're ready to give the University another 6 million, this post means something.

 

[whaler11]

I mostly agree Dan - but I think if you wanted you could bang out a 3 game road trip for everyone in men's hoops in January and then you've got 6 cross sectional games each. For football it's 7 in division and 1 home and away with the other. Play 9 conference games and make your OOC scheduling that much easier.

Hell just make them football and men's basketball leagues - rotate the tourneys between East and West. For everything else they are distinct leagues.

 

[whaler11]

Channeling HFD.

East: UConn, USF, Cinci, Temple, ECU, UMass, UCF, Memphis

West: Boise, SDSU, Houston, SMU, Fresno, UNLV, Tulsa, Nevada.

Obviously if you can get BYU swap out whoever you like in the west. If you are stuck with Tulane put them in the west and dump a Nevada school.

 

[UConnDan97]

I mostly agree Dan - but I think if you wanted you could bang out a 3 game road trip for everyone in men's hoops in January and then you've got 6 cross sectional games each. For football it's 7 in division and 1 home and away with the other. Play 9 conference games and make your OOC scheduling that much easier.

Hell just make them football and men's basketball leagues - rotate the tourneys between East and West. For everything else they are distinct leagues.

Yeah, I agree for the most part. I'm sure that it is no issue at all for football, since we are only talking about 6 away games per year, and as you mentioned, only one or maybe two would be "across country" (i.e., Boise at Cincy). As for the basketball thing; I don't know about banging out 3 away games in a row in order to accommodate a western road trip. Typically, colleges get 3 rest days in between games, unless it's a tourney of some sort. That would mean that a 3 game road trip would wipe out an entire week of school, unless it was planned to happen for everyone during the Christmas break (i.e., first week of January). Not ideal, but I guess still doable.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; I'm not opposed to a fully functional western division that contains all sports. But we are at least 3 teams away from making that happen, and it shouldn't happen until we get the three teams...

 

[UConnDan97]

Channeling HFD.

East: UConn, USF, Cinci, Temple, ECU, UMass, UCF, Memphis

West: Boise, SDSU, Houston, SMU, Fresno, UNLV, Tulsa, Nevada.

Obviously if you can get BYU swap out whoever you like in the west. If you are stuck with Tulane put them in the west and dump a Nevada school.

But....but....you forgot about Tulane....

(I know you didn't forget about them, I was just trying to be funny about a sad sad addition...)

 

[whaler11]

But....but....you forgot about Tulane....

(I know you didn't forget about them, I was just trying to be funny about a sad sad addition...)

Is the league stuck with them though? I guess they are in a sense if the C7 dissolves the league. Since Aresco seems to have unilaterally signed them up it's odd.

 

[UConnDan97]

Is the league stuck with them though? I guess they are in a sense if the C7 dissolves the league. Since Aresco seems to have unilaterally signed them up it's odd.

See, this is the thing that I've been wondering about as well. I think we are stuck with them unless we are willing to dissolve the conference. The problems with dissolving the conference are:

1) What happens to the auto bids and the bowl tie-ins for next season, as well as auto bids in bball?
2) What happens to the NCAA credit money?
3) Do we lose the ability to collect all of the exit money from the other football departures?
4) If we dissolve, what assurances do UConn, Cincy, and USF have that SMU, Houston, UCF, ECU, Boise, SDSU, Memphis, and Navy will stick with them? I believe the signed documents become null and void at that point, without monetary penalty.

That's a lot of questions with a lot of money tied to it. Unfortunately, I think that Tulane will be a big f#$king albatross tied to our necks for a while...

 

[UC990411]

I honestly think UMass is a worse add than Tulane. Stop with the UMass posts, please.

 

[UConnDan97]

I honestly think UMass is a worse add than Tulane. Stop with the UMass posts, please.

It's funny; I was thinking that they were equally bad.

I guess in a case where two teams are equally bad, do you go for the one that is in your back yard and might rise up against you one day (unlikely) but that saves you a flight on a plane, or do you go with the one that allows you to see Mardi Gras but puts a dent in the wallet? Who knows...

 

[kingdobbs]

I honestly think UMass is a worse add than Tulane. Stop with the UMass posts, please.

We being UConn, and we being the Big East as well, are long since past the point where UMass has to be an absolute "no"; we're already in a league that's basically a prom dress made out of duct tape and carpet remnants.

 

[UC990411]

We being UConn, and we being the Big East as well, are long since past the point where UMass has to be an absolute "no"; we're already in a league that's basically a prom dress made out of duct tape and carpet remnants.

Please, there are a ton better options out there than a team who has the fan base equal to that of Iona. Just because you feel entitled to a backyard rivalry does not mean we should add a team that is a joke in football and the equivalent of DePaul in hoops.

http://umasshoops.com/games/history_sb.htm

 

[whaler11]

Please, there are a ton better options out there than a team who has the fan base equal to that of Iona. Just because you feel entitled to a backyard rivalry does not mean we should add a team that is a joke in football and the equivalent of DePaul in hoops.

http://umasshoops.com/games/history_sb.htm

Not that I think UMass is some sleeping giant - UConn was just as bad during their transition. You must have missed 2000-2001 and the first half of 2002.

 

[uconNYC]

Having UMass in the same conference would be very humbling to say the least. But we are so far ahead of them in terms of facilities, fan base, culture of winning that at this point I really could careless if they were in the same conference.

 

[The Funster]

Having UMass in the same conference is part of our BC revenge fantasy. We help raise up UMass in a viable conference as a way to further stick it to BC.