Utah having hard time ... (very good thread...)

[NavyCrimson]

on the c-usa board re/ utah's & mwc's inability to sell liberty bowl tix......it also implies a tough situation the purble good would be in if & when they move to the mountain goat conference...in other words, the move could beautifully backfire on them....

here's the article ... but also check the thread b/c some very good points are made about the mwc's predicament...a true legend in their own minds...lol

"Utah has hard time selling bowl"

Fans are showing little interest in trip to Memphis game
By Loren Jorgensen
Deseret Morning News

The University of Utah athletic department is finding out something that Colorado State and BYU already knew. Getting fans to travel to Memphis, Tenn., for a bowl game in late December — or even getting people to buy tickets without traveling — is tough.
Fewer than 3,000 tickets have been sold by the U. for the Liberty Bowl on Dec. 31. Utah — like CSU and BYU before them — won't come close to selling the 10,000 that are the responsibility of the Mountain West Conference's champion as part of the league's agreement with the Liberty Bowl. Each unsold ticket — at $42 per — will come out of Utah's $1.2 million share for playing in the game against Conference USA champion Southern Mississippi. Utah's updated, realistic goal is to sell between 4,000 and 5,000 tickets.
MWC commissioner Craig Thompson is well aware of the inherent problems teams from his league have had in trying to sell tickets to the Liberty Bowl. Getting to Memphis from MWC cities, frankly, isn't easy. There aren't any commercial non-stop flights from Salt Lake City to Memphis. The flights that are available aren't cheap, and driving the 1,600 miles is not a realistic possibility for most fans.
It begs the question: Wouldn't having the MWC champ play in a bowl game closer to home make more sense?
That question will be one of the topics of conversation today when the eight MWC athletic directors meet with Thompson to discuss a number of concerns — like expansion, a new television contract and the league's strategy in gaining more access in the Bowl Championship Series after the current contract expires in two years.
"We have so many new athletic directors in the league that a lot of it is just going to be educational," said Thompson. "But it will be a very comprehensive meeting."
One thing is for certain. The MWC champion will again go to the Liberty Bowl following the 2004 season — since it's already under contract. Beyond that, any number of things could occur.
"The Liberty Bowl and the Las Vegas Bowl contracts both expire after the '04 season," said Thompson. "We're going to talk about both of them. I don't anticipate a hard and fast decision on what we're going to do will be made on Wednesday, but we're going to air it out. Should we stay? Should we go? Who gets our conference champion if it's not Liberty? It will be just a good, timely, healthy conversation."
Thompson has mixed feelings about the league's dealings with the Liberty Bowl over the years.
"I like the revenue the Liberty Bowl produces," Thompson said. "But I wish it were closer geographically."
The Las Vegas and San Francisco bowls — the other two games the MWC has current contracts with — are much easier travel destinations for fans of Utah, BYU and other MWC schools. But neither one pays participants nearly as well as the Liberty Bowl. The San Francisco Bowl's payout is the NCAA minimum of $750,000 per team. The Vegas Bowl pays $800,000.
The MWC would love to send its champion to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, but it doesn't appear that will happen anytime soon.
"The Holiday Bowl people have shared good will with us, but they've basically said that, 'We're not giving up the Pac-10 and the Big 12,' " Thompson said. "They could have had the Mountain West right from the get-go but decided to go a different way."
So the question is, if the MWC champ doesn't go to the Liberty Bowl, where else is there?
One possibility would be to have the Vegas Bowl become the game for the MWC champion — but that won't be a possibility if it won't increase its payout.
"We are not going to send our champion to play the fifth-place team in the Pac-10 for $800,000," said Thompson. "That's just not going to happen."
In other MWC news, the league is still likely to expand by at least one school — but the announcement will come later than previously stated. Thompson had said that the expansion issue would be decided sometime between Thanksgiving and the new year.
"I thought we could get it done," Thompson said of an expansion decision before the new year. "But we're going to miss that deadline. The BCS has taken a front-burner . . . No one wants to get the expansion done more than I do so that I can get on to other projects. But it's something that isn't as timely right now as some other issues."
Since the expansion won't take place until the 2005-06 season and schools need to give a one-year notice of plans to move from their current leagues, the actual drop-dead date for expansion is June 30. It likely will happen sometime before then, however.
Thompson met with the commissioners of the other non-BCS schools last week, interviewing consulting groups to lead them into negotiations with the BCS. While the current BCS contract runs for two more years, Thompson said the non-BCS schools "have about 60-90 days to get options on the table" in an attempt to get greater access to the major bowls and national championship.
"I'm not saying there needs to be an absolute, complete overhaul of the BCS system, but there needs to be a lot of change to fix the problems," Thompson said. "We're going to present several models to the BCS that would be acceptable changes and conducive to a better postseason in college football. They will have, hopefully, options of their own. Then we'll blend and mix the proposals and come up with one that everyone can live with . . . It needs to be something that would allow greater access for the five non-BCS champions."


http://www.killerfrogs.com/cusa/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=9981&s=6593b0112c709802cc8d62154f775c82

<small>[ 12-17-2003, 08:06 AM: Message edited by: Navy&Crimson ]</small>