New Conference-USA

[50's PONY]

UCF eager for move to C-USA

By Alan Schmadtke | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted June 6, 2004

Laughter rolled through a resort hotel ballroom in Destin at the first official gathering of Conference USA's new collection of athletic coaches and leaders.

Commissioner Britton Banowsky makes introductions, gives a welcome and outlines his hopes and dreams for a 12-school league that can grow into national prominence.

A few minutes later come polite cheers. Then, finally, loud, extended applause.

The Up With C-USA program has begun.

"We're all pretty excited about the conference we've created," Houston Athletic Director Dave Maggard said.

After a year of riding an emotional roller coaster that saw seven original members and two other schools leave and six new members -- including UCF -- come aboard, C-USA prepares for a year of transition.

On July 1, the league office relocates from Chicago to Dallas. On July 1, 2005, the conference roster gets reinvented. In place of a 15-school hybrid will be a 12-member league in which every school plays football -- the sport that triggered last year's sweeping round of conference realignments.

UCF called a 'sleeping giant'

UCF, one of six schools moving to C-USA next summer, has a year to ramp up the biggest jump in its athletic history. The school is by far the largest in the reconfigured conference but, at 41 years old, is the second-youngest of the 12 -- older than UAB by six years, younger than Houston by 36 years.

With just over a year on the job, Banowsky calls UCF "a sleeping giant," even though it hasn't played in a bowl game since moving to I-A in 1996. The Golden Knights are here because their potential exceeds their tradition and because some long-term dreams soon should be coming to fruition. A convocation center, an indoor practice facility and an Olympic Village concept that includes dorms and retail shops are on the drawing board.

Almost every day, UCF Athletic Director Steve Orsini talks up the dream, starting with his hopes for a football program now headed by George O'Leary. As part of the new C-USA, UCF is promised for the first time a significant slice of a league revenue. Net revenue projections run between $725,000 and $1 million annually.

"We're involved in something pretty special," Orsini said. "Everyone involved brings something to the table."

At the conclusion of his spring meetings, Banowsky asked about the reaction in Central Florida of UCF's new conference tie. The answer: The school and its fans are ready for an all-sports affiliation immediately.

Orsini and others desperately don't want to offend the Atlantic Sun, in which most of UCF's teams play, or the Mid-American Conference, which gave the Knights their first football home in 2002. Still, they barely can contain their anticipation for C-USA.

"Pretty much everybody is excited about the move because of the other schools in the conference," said Brandon Helwig, who runs UCF-based message boards and a Web site for Rivals.com. "People just don't think it's a big deal having somebody like [Atlantic Sun rival] Belmont coming in to play basketball. But Memphis, Southern Miss, Tulane -- those are schools UCF fans have seen before.

"Most people see it as an upgrade. There are a few [fans] who still wish UCF had gotten into the Big East in football, but most of them like the fact all the sports are in the same conference."

O'Leary, after seven seasons at Georgia Tech and two years in the NFL, said his team will have its hands full in the program's final football season in the MAC this year and will have its hands full again the first year in C-USA in 2005.

In basketball, Coach Kirk Speraw is hopeful to field a team that can keep its head above a rising tide that includes Memphis, UAB and Tulsa.

Baseball, a sport rarely discussed nationally, figures to be C-USA's strongest sport. Rice is the defending College World Series champion. Tulane, East Carolina, Houston, Southern Miss and UCF have become national players.

Beyond the financial rewards -- and those should be substantial, even at first -- the Golden Knights are ecstatic about sports solidarity on campus.

"That, to me, is a big plus," Orsini said. "That's the real major benefit -- more exposure and competition against schools that our fans are going to see all the time in all the sports, not just football and not just basketball."

Long term, C-USA members have to do the heavy lifting, but it's is up to Banowsky, a Californian by birth and a lawyer by training, to prime the pump for C-USA's security before then.

During the next 12 months, he'll hammer out agreements that will shape the size and scope of the new C-USA for a period likely to coincide with a new Bowl Championship Series agreement -- probably from 2005-09.

A revamped TV contract, a deal that in the past has assured C-USA members an end-of-the-year financial windfall, is coming. After the BCS is finalized, other bowl tie-ins will take priority. In between -- or possibly tied to TV negotiations -- C-USA will decide whether to hold a football championship game.

"The brand has a lot of value," Banowsky said. "There's been a lot of hard work produced by people before me to make this a great conference, and we're seeing some of the benefits of that. Our goal is to build on that success."

At this point, Banowsky is no different than an inventor ready to hit the Home Shopping Network. He has to sell something he created.

"There's a lot we don't know yet," Maggard said. "We have to get some questions answered, but the good news is, we have time to get those answers and to act on them."

C-USA's answers will come this summer when it sits down with current TV partners ESPN and ESPN Regional Television. The league has an eight-year, $80.6 million contract in place through 2008-09 but has acknowledged that its lineup changes necessitate a new deal.

As always, the next TV agreement is crucial both to the conference's visibility and viability. In 2002-03, the league pulled in $30.1 million in revenues, and TV rights fees were the largest single source, $7.5 million, according to the league's informational return to the Internal Revenue Service.

ESPN and ESPN Regional recently concluded a contract with the Atlantic Coast Conference, and it has deals in the works with the Big East, Mountain West and Western Athletic conferences.

"College athletics is a big mosaic," Banowsky said. "It's all interconnected. We're part of that mosaic."

The mosaic includes spreadsheets. ESPN has books documenting ratings performances for football and basketball teams around the country. It will have little difficulty assigning value to C-USA now that Rice recently affirmed its commitment to I-A membership, assuring the conference of 12 members. That's not to say ESPN is ready to broadcast its thoughts.

"It will work itself out, and we'll go from there," said Dave Brown, ESPN director of programming and acquisitions, declining to comment on C-USA's place in the national college sports market. "Obviously, some of the guys coming in have a good track record. The great thing about college football [is], you go undefeated, all of a sudden you're a huge story. You make the sport look great, and the fans can follow that. Any Conference USA team will have a chance to be that."

Football vital to league's future

Football is integral to C-USA's future. Football accounted for $58 million of the league's current TV deal, though C-USA left $1.5 million a year on the table by not staging a football championship game.

Even with TV stars Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette and DePaul in tow, basketball was worth just $22.1 million of the deal.

Football bowl games are worth more to C-USA in exposure than they are in cash. A league summary of bowl agreements obtained by the Sentinel shows the deals negotiated by former C-USA Commissioner Mike Slive are marginally profitable.

In all, the league is assured at least $4.1 million in payouts from the Liberty, GMAC, Hawaii, New Orleans and Fort Worth bowls. (It made nearly $4.6 million in 2002-03, IRS records show.) But either the league or its teams must pay $3.85 million back to the same bowls in ticket guarantees or partnership fees.

"Slive was told, 'Get us into bowl games no matter what it costs. We have to be on TV,'" said an official with a C-USA bowl partner who asked not to be identified because of his relationship with the league. "Bottom line, he got Conference USA into five bowl games, same as the Big East."

The conference carries its five bowl agreements into the 2004 season and is guaranteed four in 2005. The Liberty, which hosts C-USA's champion and matches it against the Mountain West champ, has a deal that ends after this season but holds three one-year options on continuing the arrangement, Liberty Bowl Executive Director Steve Ehrhart said.

The bowl is committed to being a C-USA partner but like many bowls is exploring ways to move up into a BCS conference pecking order.

C-USA may have more options in the future. The NCAA certified 28 bowls for 2004, but three new organizers (Denver, Indianapolis and Miami) have expressed interest in growing the number to 31 for the 2005 season.

"We're marketing ourselves now," said Orsini, who serves on the league's football committee. "It has to be a win-win. How can we help the bowl? How can the bowl help us? Because ultimately that's in all of our best interests. We want to find ways not only to keep the bowl partnerships we have but to grow those."

Orlando's Tangerine Bowl has interest. T-Bowl agreements with the ACC and Big 12 run out after the 2005 season, and bowl organizers have pledged to be aggressive in finding ways to boost ticket sales to the longtime goal of 40,000.

"We're going to explore all our options," T-Bowl Director Matthew Sign said. "We think there's going to be some interest in our game, and we're still a destination city."

Florida Citrus Sports, which runs the T-Bowl, would have the most interest in C-USA's champion, but the bowl would have to hike its payout from the NCAA-minimum $750,000 to above $1 million to have a chance at the team.

C-USA's keeping or adding to its bowl lineup might mean another round of deals in which the conference makes little money.

"Maybe they have to trade more exposure for less dollars at first," said another bowl official who asked not to be identified. "Maybe they just need to get themselves up and running, show off what they have and hope that down the line they can prove their value. That's really what they did the first time."

C-USA has history of success

C-USA was born April 24, 1995, after a merger of Houston, the majority of the Great Midwest Conference and the bulk of the Metro Conference.

The merger provided conference security for schools that needed it for their football programs, and schools sensed a chance to generate big dollars from a TV contract for basketball and from NCAA Tournament berths. Eventually, that happened.

This year, C-USA sent six teams to the NCAAs, and UAB advanced to the Sweet 16. That paves the way for the league to reap financial rewards from the NCAA over the next six years, under the NCAA's revenue-sharing formula.

"The conference has a history of success, of being able to grow itself," UAB AD/football coach Watson Brown said. "We're a changed conference, but everyone here is still pretty competitive. We'll grow again. That's kind of our nature."

While legislation currently running through the NCAA will enable the new C-USA -- and other realigned conferences -- to keep its automatic NCAA tourney bid, the league almost certainly will see the value of its TV basketball package drop. The challenge for the next go-around: UCF, Marshall and others are being asked to raise their basketball profiles.

"The philosophy is, 'Let's build our basketball programs collectively up,'" Orsini said. "There's traditional strength in Memphis, Tulsa, UAB and others, and there are other programs, like ours, that are growing into that."

Said Marshall AD Bob Marcum: "We've been pretty good in football, but we know we have an obligation to get better in basketball and in some other areas."

C-USA, which generated more than $1.3 million from its men's basketball tournament in Louisville in 2003, will play next year's tournament in the new FedEx Forum in Memphis. Trying to ensure good crowds in the league's best basketball town, athletic directors asked Banowsky to begin negotiating toward putting the 2006 and 2007 tournaments in Memphis as well.

"The sense is that we've lost some really powerful schools, but they've been replaced by some very good schools," new Southern Miss basketball Coach Larry Eustachy said. "So I think it's far more equal now from top to bottom, and people are excited about that. That's an attraction."

Beyond ensuring TV dollars and national exposure, C-USA's sales pitch for 2005 and beyond goes to its grass roots -- schools convincing fans that conference games of all manner are worth paying to see.

"The biggest challenge is rivalries," Maggard said. "We need to have games that our fans really can get excited about, games our fans can get passionate about."

Once upon a time, UCF harbored hopes of playing USF in every sport while in the same conference. The Knights have USF scheduled for the schools' first football games in 2005 and '06. The schools play baseball against each other, but the Bulls declined to play UCF in men's basketball last season, and apparently the two won't play in 2004-05.

UCF's divisional opponents in football will be Marshall, East Carolina, UAB, Memphis and Southern Miss.

In Memphis, the Tigers saw two longtime rivals bolt for the Big East. Starting in 2005-06, Memphis-Louisville and Memphis-Cincinnati still will happen, but there won't be as much at stake.

"Those were great for us," Memphis football Coach Tommy West said. "We have to re-educate our fans a little bit, but that will happen."

C-USA kept one rivalry and imported another through expansion. Although TCU leaves for the Mountain West, SMU-TCU will stay within C-USA's borders now that the Mustangs are on their way in. Marshall-UCF, a two-year football rivalry that shows some spark, could provide color to the MAC East.

"One of my goals is to make Rice-Houston a community event for the city of Houston," Maggard said. "Play it at the start of the season where you can have some buildup and some excitement. Games like that are what's going to help the conference grow."

[Mustangs35SMU]

Im so happy that we've moved to CUSA *dances*