ACC swoons over Miami

[The CPC]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by IslandBoy:
<B>Reporter Gregg Doyel wrote this today in the Charlotte Observer:

"IF THE DOMINOES FALL

Should the ACC add Miami, Syracuse and Boston College, the impact would extend far and wide. Consider:

• Big East drops football and adds Charlotte, Marquette, DePaul and St. Louis from Conference USA

• Conference USA adds Temple from the Atlantic 10 while the Big Ten adds Pittsburgh from the Big East to grow to 12 teams

• The Pac-10 adds Fresno State from the WAC and Utah from the Mountain West to grow to 12 teams

• The WAC and Mountain West merge to form a 14-team league and take the Big East's automatic BCS bid."

Pony fans should find the last bullet point VERY intriguing...

[This message has been edited by IslandBoy (edited 05-06-2003).]</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Virginia Tech and West Virginia would drop football? Why does CPC not see that happening? and its not real likely that C-USA would add Temple and bypass either Tech or WV either. More likely that C-USA would pick those 2 schools, and that they would take the BCS bid along with them.

[Nacho]

Good point CPC. How could a writer from NC have left out those 2 schools?

It was a fun scenario while it lasted--about 5 minutes.

I'm not sure how I would feel about a WAC-Goat merger. Usually marriages between exes don't work out.

No way, no how will Fresno ever go to the PAC-10. We have a better chance of going to the Big 12. Utah--maybe.

[This message has been edited by Nacho (edited 05-06-2003).]

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[EastStang]

Remember the BCS agreement says that members need to meet the qualification standards of top ten teams one out of four years. So the BE would continue to be a BCS team until they fall out four years from now. Given that Virginia Tech has a good team returning with another Vick under center, they could very well be a top 10 team this year and next year. Thus, the BE has the upper hand in negotiating with other schools and you're right CPC, VT, Pitt and W Va. ain't giving up football. They would be more likely to invite in C-USA teams such as Army, East Carolina, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Memphis, as well as Navy. Bottom line, they'll stay the Big East to keep the BCS status and invite other teams in.

[Charleston Pony]

Navy & Crimson: the mid-majors of the old SWC would not likely refuse an opportunity to play UT or A$M because those games represent a huge paycheck with minimal travel expenses and after all, these kind of moves will be all about football and athletic dept finances.

East Stang: your comment about Bill & Mary's history caught my attention. When I was in school at SMU, one of our late Trustees (after years of watching us get slaughtered by Texas) had proposed that SMU approach TCU, Rice & Baylor with a suggestion we all drop to I-AA and form a conference together along with other regional schools (I'm pretty sure he had UNT in mind to join us). Obviously, the decision was made to bring in Ron Meyer and try to beat the big boys at their own game, which we did for a while...but I've often wondered what that I-AA conference might look like today and whether Ownby would have been renovated/rebuilt years before it was...and whether SMU would have won a national championship or at least hosted that game by now.

[NavyCrimson]

CP - that's my whole point:

we & the other mid-majors refuse to play them which calls their bluff...

then something may get accomplished as far as including the other 30+ teams into the BCS-BS.

[Charleston Pony]

Meanwhile, now there's some talk of the Big East mounting a counter-offensive by changing their by-laws to require football & bball from it's members. Don't know if the football schools have the voted needed, but imagine a Big East featuring: UConn, Syracuse, Rutgers, Pitt, BC & W.Va in one division with Louisville, Cincy, Va Tech, Miami and maybe S.Fla and ECU. The ACC would have nothing on that group!

That kind of move would leave the Big East bball schools to merge with CUSA bball schools and possibly some A-10 schools to form a strong bball conference whose members play I-AA football, if they play football at all.

[NavyCrimson]

good point......i'm so surprise that tran-geese (or the conference in general) doesn't become more 'active' instead of 'reactive' which how they are currently conducting themselves...strike first with new member schools vs. waiting to be cherry-picked by the acc thus putting the acc in the corner?

[Horseradish]

Diehard,
Thanks for the response. Having high aspirations is a good thing, there's nothing wrong with having high goals. But to reach any goal you first have to deal with the reality of where you are, and where you're actually going.
I agree that alot of promises were probably made to Phil Bennett when he took the job. I just dont agree that there's any kind of guarantee those promises will come true. The 10 million dollars a year of university funds wasnt something new, it was an agreement by the school to continue funding athletic scholarships for 5 years, and continue covering the athletic departments 4.5 million dollar deficit every year, for 5 years. It wasnt the infusion of cash it was portrayed to be, it was a promise not to cut the athletic department off at the knees. Not for awhile.
I dont think things are utterly hopeless, but I see a clock thats ticking fast. If something is going to happen it needs to be soon, and it has to be something real that catches the eye of people outside of SMU. We're past the time when promises and pledges are anything more than words. It has to be something you can sink your teeth into.

[Charleston Pony]

Agreed. Bennett speaks of the "Miami" model and it would be great to see SMU return to a high level of play, but can we realistically compete with UT and A$M for the type of recruits necessary to make that happen? We tried to beat them at their own game years ago and it got us the death penalty. Anyone who believes the top programs in Division I are doing it "by the rules" is incredibly naiive.

[PX]

So Cal I dont know why some decisions were made or not made. Why things were done or not done. I only know what I've thought and said for a long time. My opinions were not shared by people who made the actual decisions, and I cant speculate on thought processes that didnt make sense or seemed illogical to me. I'm not going to try to argue about these kinds of things anymore, because I dont see that there is anything I can do to change things. I have a feeling that my current opinions will offend alot of people, and I dont see a point in starting arguments, so i'm going to keep them to myself. I'm just going to show up and watch the games. As far as I can see, thats all thats left to do.

Charleston, the last expense and revenue numbers I saw that SMU reported for football were $5.6 million in expenses, and $5.7 million in revenue. Understanding how those numbers were arrived at, though, requires more than a degree in accounting. The revenue numbers include the money that the school contributes to cover the athletic departments deficits, and because of that the numbers will always be close to break even without giving any indication of what actual revenue is. I can give you a rough idea by doing some quick math, but its only an estimate.
The football teams official attendance numbers last season were about 18,250 people per game. If you assume an average ticket price of $15.00, over 6 home games that comes to ticket revenue of $1,642,500.00. The luxury boxes in the stadium were close to sold out, so that plus parking and concessions brings total stadium game day revenues to around $2.6-2.7 million. TV revenue is pretty weak, but TV and the conferences bowl split probably brings total revenue to around 3 million, but there are some grey areas. Accounting can be a fairly creative endeavor.
I think I am being pretty generous with the average ticket price of $15.00. The face value on most tickets is higher than that, up to $25.00, but SMU makes special promotions and large giveaways for every game. Average ticket price may actually be closer to $10-12.00. Seats in the Club Level cost several times that, but they are accounted for as $25.00 tickets because of an NCAA rule on how attendance is counted. To meet the D-1 minimum of 15,000 paid attendees per game, give aways tickets and huge discounts dont count. To count as paid attendance, a ticket must be sold for no less than 1/3rd the price of the games most expensive ticket. So, if our most expensive ticket is $25.00, then a ticket discounted to $8.35 can still count as paid attendance to meet the NCAA minimum requirements. The rest of the price for a Club Level ticket is accounted for under concessions, as that money is paying for the meal, drinks, and snacks that Club Level fans get free during the game. Another grey area is the students, their admission to all SMU sporting events is covered by a flat charge thats part of their student fees. Every student pays the same thing regardless of how many (or few) games he actually attends. I can't tell you how that revenue is accounted for, what sports get accredited for how much, or what a student ticket "costs" when it is used.
Thats the best I can do for you. There are only a handful of people who get to see the actual hard numbers, and none of them will talk about it. I think my estimate is reasonable, though, based on what I can see.

[EastStang]

Wow, you're burning the midnight oil, PX. Thanks for your informative post. I agree with you that its too late to snipe at history. Hopefully, Copeland and Turner have some chits out there to call. But reality is not looking good right now. Let's just hope that we have some wins next fall. My fear is that decisions will already have been made by fall. Looking at things in a raw and dispassionate manner, we don't bring to the table what a conference wants, namely a sold out stadium and gobs of TV audience.