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Perhaps I am posting something already shared, but this article was new to me. Hopefully, this leads to a first among equals for AAC Champion and for much greater TV and media exposure for all AAC FB programs. Concentrating our membership in Metro areas has helped.

ESPN wants the AAC to be good at football

"Once viewed as a worrisome adversary, AAC teams, fans and administrators should now see ESPN as a powerful ally in its quest to regain major conference status in college football."

http://www.theuconnblog.com/2014/8/13/5 ... est-friend

Once the dust settled on the Big East/AAC fiasco, our TV deal with ESPN was the best thing to happen to SMU athletics in a very long time. We've never enjoyed this level of exposure for our football and basketball programs. The $$$ isn't great but if the league continues to surpass expectations on the field we may be able to negotiate a better deal at a later date.

StallionsModelT wrote:Once the dust settled on the Big East/AAC fiasco, our TV deal with ESPN was the best thing to happen to SMU athletics in a very long time. We've never enjoyed this level of exposure for our football and basketball programs. The $$$ isn't great but if the league continues to surpass expectations on the field we may be able to negotiate a better deal at a later date.

Totally agree, especially with your last sentence. We need a "UCF-like" team every year with 1 or 2 considered to be serious competitors also. Will one of them be SMU? I don't know. Cincy and Houston look right now to be the closest as much as it pains me to say about the Coogies. If we have any chance whatsoever, it's got to be done on the field. (of course, the dependency/constraint that launched thousands of threads is JJ's status and recruiting ability). Although we missed one major boat already of course (getting into a P5 conference), I'm still holding out hope we may be able to join the "big boys" again but it will only happen with a few stellar seasons and the stars aligning correctly for us IMHO.

StallionsModelT wrote:Once the dust settled on the Big East/AAC fiasco, our TV deal with ESPN was the best thing to happen to SMU athletics in a very long time. We've never enjoyed this level of exposure for our football and basketball programs. The $$$ isn't great but if the league continues to surpass expectations on the field we may be able to negotiate a better deal at a later date.

I agree.

ESPN does not care about the AAC, the rising value of live sports and competition for them are the AAC's best friend. Navy was a great value add. Having one or two of the major media market teams going on run every year is the best bet for more money. No one is going to pay for Tulsa.

This was a blog with no substance to it.

B1GPonyFan wrote:This was a blog with no substance to it.

Thanks, I won't take it personally.

I still see an AAC/MWC merger of some sort in the near future. There are programs in both conferences that will not and cannot mimic the actions of a P5 athletic department. I think there will be 12-14 teams that have those kind of resources and financial commitment.

East

UCONN, Navy, East Carolina, Cincinnati, USF, UCF

West

BYU, Boise State, Air Force, SMU, Houston, Memphis

B1GPonyFan wrote:This was a blog with no substance to it.

Quite similar to the majority of your posts.

StallionsModelT wrote:I still see an AAC/MWC merger of some sort in the near future. There are programs in both conferences that will not and cannot mimic the actions of a P5 athletic department. I think there will be 12-14 teams that have those kind of resources and financial commitment.

East

UCONN, Navy, East Carolina, Cincinnati, USF, UCF

West

BYU, Boise State, Air Force, SMU, Houston, Memphis

Take out ECU, move Memphis to the east and add San Diego State. Maybe even replace Navy with Temple. As long as they can have a decent football program they would help with basketball.

SDSU is a California state school that has zero money. Fresno State is in that boat as well. These programs will not survive the next purge.

Water Pony wrote:

B1GPonyFan wrote:This was a blog with no substance to it.

Thanks, I won't take it personally.

You shouldn't. I just don't like the fact that the writer was trying to pass this off as something more than it was. Having said that, I think SMT made a very good point about the exposure from this partnership with ESPN for the conference.

The best part of the deal is the fact that ESPN won't order its on-air talent to rip the AAC at every turn.

Digetydog wrote:The best part of the deal is the fact that ESPN won't order its on-air talent to rip the AAC at every turn.

At least not until negotiations start again

Espn needs to fill their time slots at 11am with AAC. We get garbage times usually but appreciate that I can watch every game as opposed to time warner cable with 50 viewers. ESPN cares about ESPN only and P5