smupony94 wrote:Whole conference. And then the p4 negotiate a single contract in 2024 and realign conferences.
Alright, fine, I'm bored.
Right now you have 65 P5 schools (including Notre Dame). I think 4x18 is the most likely scenario with the Big 12 dissolving and the seven current G5 schools getting the call up to the big show. Fortunately for us, the wheels on this won't get set in motion for a few years, so we'll have some time to get the football program rolling while the basketball program hopefully improves its upward trajectory under Larry. Conferences are going to be looking for schools in big markets that have made significant commitments to football and are well supported.
G5 schools competing for those spots, in no particular order:
BYU- definite shoe-in. Huge fan base, great facilities, great fan support. They may have to relent on the playing on Sundays deal but in 2020 if it's a choice between that and being relegated to basically FCS for eternity, I think money talks.
Cincinnati- probably a shoe-in. Great facilities, recent track record of success in football and basketball, decent-sized market.
Memphis- see Cincy, sans the facilities. (although I think they recently announced some proposed improvements)
Houston- Well positioned with recent success in football, good fan support, new stadium, and being in the Houston market.
Boise State- probably out because of their market; it's just not big enough and no current P5 teams are going to want to play up there because it doesn't help you in recruiting. Kind of amazing given their recent run of success in football and maybe I'm wrong, but they've got a lot working against them. Telling that they've never been mentioned in any Big 12/Pac-12 expansion scenarios ever
Colorado State- Maybe? I think they're building a new stadium and they've been supported well in the past, but does Colorado get a second team in? Not sure on this one.
Fresno, San Diego State- would probably be a lot of pressure from California politicians to get them in, but you'd have to think Cal, UCLA, Stanford, and USC would be dead set against it.
UCF and USF- I'd think they're both in, although UCF has a decided leg up on USF at this stage. Big TV markets, great recruiting bases, and both are well-supported when playing well.
UConn- great basketball program, football has hit a wall since that Fiesta Bowl a few years ago, not much fan support and they don't really deliver the NYC market. I think it's more than likely that they take their basketball program to the Big East and relegate football to the MAC or FCS during the next round of realignment, especially if AAC schools are leaving. No one up there really seems all that interested in football
Tulane, Tulsa, Temple- no, no, no.
So where does that leave us? With some work to do. Fortunately, I think all of the Grant of Rights agreements have bought us some time. We've got a couple things working against us: private school with small alumni base, a recent history of losing and no fan support. But we're located in what might be the fasted growing metropolitan region in the nation which just also so happens to be the one of the nation's hottest recruiting hotbeds for football. Teams across the country would love to come to Dallas every other year and be able to sell that to DFW-area recruits. Now granted, some already do and play at Jerryworld, but we'd give a lot of other programs that opportunity. I'm not naive enough to think we "deliver" the DFW TV market, but if we're successful I think we could get a lot of casual Dallas fans to tune in -- I believe 94 said one of the people at ESPN was surprised at how well our basketball team did in TV ratings this year, for instance. Also we're in a region with 18 (I think) Fortune 500 companies, so that's a lot of potential sponsorship revenue for other programs and conferences that's down the road from us here. Finally, we've shown were willing to make an institutional commitment to a winning football program- Chad is one of the highest paid G5 coaches and the new IPF will back this up as well.
On the surface, you'd think playing in a 30,000-seat stadium would work against us in a big way, but the future is going to be TV revenues- not ticket sales. People would much rather sit at home and watch a game on their 60" HDTV or at a sports bar than sit in the heat or cold in bleachers for three hours...I think you'll see a lot of bigger programs downsize their stadiums and replace undesirable bleacher seats with premium seating options which reduce overall capacity but maximize revenues in the future.
If, in 3-4 years, Chad has us winning 8 or 9 games a year and in contention for conference titles, and Larry can keep us nationally ranked and get us to the second weekend of the tourney at least once or twice, I think we can make as strong of a case as a lot of the other G5 schools. Bottom line- buy tickets and leave the game on your TV at home when you leave to go to Ford
Pony Up
Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 3:10 pm
