BerkeleyBuff
Well-Known Member
As a fan of Big Sky football, this is good. It was bloated and shedding SUU will be good.
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Official realignment thread - SEC formally invites OU and Texas to join the conference in 2025
DU has zero interest in ever fielding a football team again.
They understand the dynamics of the Denver market and know that it makes no sense financially.
Hockey is their flagship program. They are able to compete as one of the true blueblood programs in the sport, win championships, and generate the kind of revenues with it that make it practical for them.
They have a hard time justifying having a "D1" basketball program due to lack of interest from the fans. Football is magnitudes more expensive and they could in no way justify the expense involved in keeping it going even after the huge start up cost.
Keep in mind that the current WAC is what was left over after a bad experiment in trying to create a mid-major (now called G5) superconference in the western US.
The WAC which had eight schools went on an expansion binge and IIRC brought the league to close to 16 teams, it was a huge failure with the original schools complaining that they had lost their traditional rivalries and many of the new schools not being prepared to compete with questions each year about who was going to be the next school to drop football.
They ended up with the core of the league which were most of the original schools leaving to form the Mountain West leaving a bunch of remnants that couldn't make football work and dropped it a few years later to focus on basketball and other sports.
The result is that the real legacy of the old WAC is the MWC. It is significantly weaker than it was decades ago though because it used to include a good UTEP program, Utah and BYU (which was usually a if not the top program) and even further back Arizona and Arizona State.
The WAC in 1995 had 10 schools. They then took on another 3 of the SWC refugees: TCU, Rice, and SMU, and for I guess rounding out purposes took Tulsa, UNLV, and SJSU.
I always think of the 1996-1998 WAC when people talk about conferences that stretch over 3 or more time zones and/or 2,000+ miles. Travel becomes unreasonable, especially for non-revenue sports. I know that a big reason given by the main breakaway schools was that rivalries were being ignored, but another major complaint was the unwieldiness of travel.
WarBuff
Club Member
Don’t forget DU’s lacrosse team. They are making noise.
SJSU was right on the verge of dropping football at the time. I'm trying to remember who it was but they had another school that was set to join and then backed out at the last minute.
You are right about the travel and it was brutal for the non-revenue sports putting teams on airplanes instead of being able to travel by bus for much of their schedules.
Remember as well that the conference was already dealing with travel to member Hawaii.
And most of the teams that made up the league didn't draw well at home or travel well. They were playing games in front of crowds sometimes under 20k, not financially viable numbers.
This was the 1996 line-up. Interesting that Wyoming was ranked but didn't get to go to a bowl, only two slots for the entire league. Now anyone with a pulse and six wins gets a bowl invite.
Their lacrosse team has been a national contender and they have done well at women's soccer and gymnastics but those sports don't generate revenue and for the most part don't garner much attention for the school.
How long till Kizla says the Buffs should look to join?
What are the chances Kizla would suggest CSU in that case?
The WAC will split up into divisions even for the non-football sports. The Texas schools will be in their own division while the non-Texas schools would be in another division.
NMSU is not expected to drop down to FCS but the FCS schools are expected to move up to FBS at some point. The WAC will seek a football playing member. D2 West Texas A&M is mentioned by fans as a possibility.
NMSU is not expected to drop down to FCS but the FCS schools are expected to move up to FBS at some point. The WAC will seek a football playing member. D2 West Texas A&M is mentioned by fans as a possibility.
And if they wanted to potentially be FBS by the end of the decade. That explains why UNC is staying in the Big Sky Conference.
BerkeleyBuff
Well-Known Member
UT-RGV is starting football in a couple years. Not sure if already mentioned.
Yeah I didn't mention that.
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Update: EKU, Jax St to join Central Arkansas in new look ASUN
UPDATE: Eastern Kentucky University posted this map of the new look ASUN which will include Central Arkansas and Jacksonville State as the league is set to expand to 12 teams. This news is expected…
www.aseaofred.com
Central Arkansas is leaving the Southland to go to the Atlantic Sun (ASUN) conference. Liberty has all of their other sports parked in that conference and it sounds like the ASUN is planning to move up to FBS just like the WAC.
2nd highest grossing revenue sport at DU. Right behind hockey
Believe it or not they do! Tickets are sold out months in advance.
Cincinnati, Boise State, UCF, BYU and SDSU are the ones he discusses joining either the Big 12 or Pac 12. Strange that Houston and SMU aren't included. Would have liked to see him speculate on possible P5 program movement as well.
The Pac-12 has gone long stretches without adding new members and overall fit is more important than football fit. You can't overlook the importance of Utah becoming the 9th AAU member school of the conference since that means the Pac-12 can tell ASU, OSU, and WSU their services are no longer needed and they can take their athletic programs elsewhere. We have been in the Pac-12 long enough to see who truly belongs and who doesn't necessarily belong despite having the graduate programs to merit membership.
Boise State does not have the population to help add to a conference's TV contract. Big Ten is probably having buyer's remorse over Nebraska. BYU's Mormon supporters were once thought to be big but it turned out not to be quite as big as thought. SDSU at this point would be more likely to join the Pac-12 than those two at this time as their stature within SD will grow after the departure of the Chargers. CSU wasn't mentioned but they could be used as a travel partner for CU. It's going to be awhile before the Rams are considered for Pac-12 expansion if ever. Given their fanbase, it's never going to happen. UNLV is another school that could be said they are making the move but with Las Vegas adding a NFL team and possibly a NBA team in the future, the stature of UNLV will shrink within LV much like TCU, SMU, Houston, and Rice did once the Cowboys & Oilers (now Texans) joined the AFL/NFL.
The Big 12 or West Virginia needs to decide if they will be sticking around with the other. WV the state is facing serious long term economic challenges and WVU might have to eventually leave the Big 12 for the AAC if not independence. The decision to add WVU instead of Louisville will haunt the Big 12 for a long time. Adding Memphis to replace WVU would be a very good move. The reasons why Houston isn't in the Big 12 is pretty much the same reasons why SDSU isn't in the Pac-12 and it has more to do with how adding those schools wouldn't add to the TV population numbers for those lucrative TV contracts although it would make sense for recruiting purposes and alumni relations. Another move could be a potential SDSU & ASU pairing to the Big 12.
It seems like Navy is finding out what Army found out when you are in a conference with those schools in the AAC and move back to independent football.
I believe contraction is more likely than expansion. The Big 12 is doing good with just 10 schools and the Sun Belt Conference is the hottest G5 conference with just 10 schools. I think the C-USA is going to be broken up at some point this decade if not the next decade because they just don't have much money to spread among 14 members. You have to wonder if Western Kentucky & Southern Miss really belongs in the C-USA or not and would be better off in the Sun Belt Conference or in WKU's case the MAC. The Atlantic Sun and WAC FCS conferences are talking about moving up to FBS by the end of this decade.
With my deep dive into FCS football this spring, I believe I will have a much better understanding of the entire D1 landscape in May/June and I will revisit this thread. Expect a large post if it is not broken up into a couple or few medium sized posts.
Boise State does not have the population to help add to a conference's TV contract. Big Ten is probably having buyer's remorse over Nebraska. BYU's Mormon supporters were once thought to be big but it turned out not to be quite as big as thought. SDSU at this point would be more likely to join the Pac-12 than those two at this time as their stature within SD will grow after the departure of the Chargers. CSU wasn't mentioned but they could be used as a travel partner for CU. It's going to be awhile before the Rams are considered for Pac-12 expansion if ever. Given their fanbase, it's never going to happen. UNLV is another school that could be said they are making the move but with Las Vegas adding a NFL team and possibly a NBA team in the future, the stature of UNLV will shrink within LV much like TCU, SMU, Houston, and Rice did once the Cowboys & Oilers (now Texans) joined the AFL/NFL.
The Big 12 or West Virginia needs to decide if they will be sticking around with the other. WV the state is facing serious long term economic challenges and WVU might have to eventually leave the Big 12 for the AAC if not independence. The decision to add WVU instead of Louisville will haunt the Big 12 for a long time. Adding Memphis to replace WVU would be a very good move. The reasons why Houston isn't in the Big 12 is pretty much the same reasons why SDSU isn't in the Pac-12 and it has more to do with how adding those schools wouldn't add to the TV population numbers for those lucrative TV contracts although it would make sense for recruiting purposes and alumni relations. Another move could be a potential SDSU & ASU pairing to the Big 12.
It seems like Navy is finding out what Army found out when you are in a conference with those schools in the AAC and move back to independent football.
I believe contraction is more likely than expansion. The Big 12 is doing good with just 10 schools and the Sun Belt Conference is the hottest G5 conference with just 10 schools. I think the C-USA is going to be broken up at some point this decade if not the next decade because they just don't have much money to spread among 14 members. You have to wonder if Western Kentucky & Southern Miss really belongs in the C-USA or not and would be better off in the Sun Belt Conference or in WKU's case the MAC. The Atlantic Sun and WAC FCS conferences are talking about moving up to FBS by the end of this decade.
With my deep dive into FCS football this spring, I believe I will have a much better understanding of the entire D1 landscape in May/June and I will revisit this thread. Expect a large post if it is not broken up into a couple or few medium sized posts.
I always thought it would be interesting if the PAC 12, MWC, and WAC negotiated something internally (with different voting rights and # of shares) to form WSPN (Western Sports Programming Network), hire TV talent, run a sports center type show, and then the universities could build a western sports empire. Western states would run its own May madness tournament, its own CFB championship. Once established, you start buying TV rights to AFC and NFC west NFL games. Basically become ESPN out west. You could also do it with a partner like Apple or Amazon.
Next round of TV contracts are going to force a lot of things to happen.
With cable TV struggling, with ESPN and some other making serious cuts to their expenditures we may be looking at some conferences facing a shock to their expectations.
Everything is going to come down to revenues. Any potential expansion of conferences has to be looked at from a standpoint of does the school being added bring enough value to justify giving them their share of conference revenues.
Schools like Boise and San Diego State may win a lot of games but the simple fact is that they don't drive ratings to justify a bigger contract. Boise dominates it's market but the market is small. San Diego is a huge market but nobody they pays attention. UNLV is in a similar situation in Nevada.
It may eventually come down to contraction. Does Iowa State generate enough revenue? The Kansas schools? We laugh about Nebraska but win or more often lose those people turn on a TV set no matter where in the country they have escaped to.
With issues coming up like paying players (and thus all the other athletes) football may just become to expensive for some schools to justify. What happens if schools are held liable for the cost of injuries including CTE?
It is going to take some time but eventually college sports will likely look very different than it does right now. And as a CU fan I don't think this looks good for us down the road either.
With cable TV struggling, with ESPN and some other making serious cuts to their expenditures we may be looking at some conferences facing a shock to their expectations.
Everything is going to come down to revenues. Any potential expansion of conferences has to be looked at from a standpoint of does the school being added bring enough value to justify giving them their share of conference revenues.
Schools like Boise and San Diego State may win a lot of games but the simple fact is that they don't drive ratings to justify a bigger contract. Boise dominates it's market but the market is small. San Diego is a huge market but nobody they pays attention. UNLV is in a similar situation in Nevada.
It may eventually come down to contraction. Does Iowa State generate enough revenue? The Kansas schools? We laugh about Nebraska but win or more often lose those people turn on a TV set no matter where in the country they have escaped to.
With issues coming up like paying players (and thus all the other athletes) football may just become to expensive for some schools to justify. What happens if schools are held liable for the cost of injuries including CTE?
It is going to take some time but eventually college sports will likely look very different than it does right now. And as a CU fan I don't think this looks good for us down the road either.
I think SMU and Houston make a lot of sense to expand into two massive population centers and get a foothold in one of the most important recruiting States in the country.
I'm not too concerned about the Pac-12 not getting a bump in pay with their new media rights deals because there are more players especially from the streaming side of things with the likes of Amazon Prime, Apple+, DAZN, FloSports, Netflix (there has been rumblings that they want to get into sports), Youtube TV, etc. When there are more players, it is going to drive up the price for the winning bidder. The bigger concern is what happens to the P12N and I have here stated my desire for the P12N to go away. I don't think the P12 will be signing another 13 year deal but a shorter deal this time around.
In the EA Sports College Football thread in the Games section, I did link an article about a NIL bill that would force schools to be responsible for medical expenses for injured athletes up to four years after they are done playing. CU should be okay with that because the school basically will cover any shortfalls since it values its relationship with the Pac-12 schools in the P12 academic alliance. CU would be doing the same thing had it gone to the Big Ten due to the value of the Big Ten academic alliance plus they can get a specific sponsorship deal to cover some of those expenses. CU athletics is pretty much an advertising expense for the school itself.
Iowa State, KU, and KSU will not be pushed out of the Big 12 because ISU & KU are AAU schools and doing so will have UT pack its bags for the Pac-12 or the Big Ten. KSU's research rankings is higher than it has been thanks to KSU getting the National Argro Biosecurity center which means more federal funding for the college and an VHRU ranking which means a Pac-12 and maybe a Big Ten membership is within reach. I also found out that Oklahoma State has finally achieved that VHRU status so that means all four OK-TX schools now meet the minimum Pac-12 requirements so a Pac-16 would be closer to actually happening than when CU first joined the Pac-12. With more Californians moving to Texas and possibly Oklahoma, that move might happen in the media rights deal that happens after this upcoming one so I think the 2030s would be that time frame when it does in fact happen. But at the same time it seems like only the ACC, SEC, and Big Ten can handle more membership schools. If the population numbers of the school's location were that big of a deal, Nebraska would not be in the Big Ten, Oregon State & WSU would not be in the Pac-12, Memphis could be in the SEC in place of Mississippi State, Wake Forest & and Duke might not be in the ACC because UNC & NCSU are already in the conference. But those schools are there because their academic & research dollars are up there.
I am going to take hard looks at the FCS MVFC and CAA conferences because they have consistently have been the stronger FCS conferences despite some members not being part of those conferences. The MVFC members are from three different conferences (MVC, Summit, and Horizon (YSU)) while the CAA has schools from the CAA plus the American East and A10 conferences. It is because the Summit, Horizon, American East, and A10 do not sponsor football. You also have the Big South which has Big South schools plus ASUN schools but Big South football is being split up soon anyway. Maybe we need to see some conferences like that at the FBS level and I think it's long overdue given the money football gets relative to the rest of the sports. That might be the answer to your question about football being too expensive for some schools and many athletic budgets rely on the success of the football team. That means another homework for me where I try to realign all of Division 1. That will take some time and work via Google Sheets and I could post the results based on what I believe the criteria is.
If CSU wasn’t such a total hot mess, they’d actually be a good travel partner for us, especially if BYU was added for Utah. As it stands, their colossal mismanagement of that athletic department has likely doomed them to perpetual mediocrity and messed up what could have been a good thing for us at the same time.
The Pac-12 is not kicking any school out, especially ASU. I stopped reading there.
From a cultural fit of universities in the west that are Carnegie Tier 1 in research intensity, the options are CSU, Nevada, UNLV and New Mexico.
If we went by football & MBB, then Boise State, BYU and SDSU are all better options in the West.
That's the problem for the P12.
If we went by football & MBB, then Boise State, BYU and SDSU are all better options in the West.
That's the problem for the P12.
As a CU fan, yes, the past decade + has been painful. From an objective point of view, the past 5 years or so have been fine. We’ve been to 2 bowl games, played for one conf championship, and in general, we show pretty well in non-conference games and then are meh in conference...which I think the conference is ok with.
Personally, I think the conference looks at UCLA’s “meh” performance over the last 10 years as more appalling.
And our basketball is ok.
Personally, I think the conference looks at UCLA’s “meh” performance over the last 10 years as more appalling.
And our basketball is ok.