(04-20-2017 06:57 AM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 09:41 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 09:26 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 09:17 PM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

Anyone can list what they want....

some of those are laughable when you look at pictures from game day. Actually most of those are 2 to 4k over and a couple (1 east & 1 west) about 13 to 17k.

I know a couple of those stadiums are large but when the lower bowls are 80% empty you know no one is sitting up top.

It seems like most of you in the West had a lot longer time in playing the numbers game...

some day us eastern schools will be able to count like that

I'm not going to insinuate other programs fudged their numbers. I believe USM, UTEP, LA Tech and probably UTSA pull numbers like that. As for North Texas, I have season tickets, so I see the crowds. We pulled around 20K a game over the entire season. We had some game with lower attendance, but we also had some games with higher attendance. I believe our average is accurate. If you watched the HOD last season, then you know we can put fans in the seats.

And, I'll stand by my statement. Most of the reports about ADs and programs wanting to examine a merger are coming from the east, and overall, those programs are having a harder time with attendance.

Yeah. Or maybe it has to do with average relative humidity. I've noticed most of those western schools are located in more arid climates whereas the eastern schools are more humid. Sure you have the gulf state schools like USM who's students taking classes in the summer probably feel like they're swimming to class but we've seen two articles now advocating for realignment so maybe there is something to it.

Or maybe it has to do with population density. No. I'm sticking with the humidity thing.

Don't be absurd, mturn, humidity has nothing to do with it. I'm near certain it is explained by their choice of undergarments.

It is a well known fact that those residing in the western regions prefer tighter, testicle-grabbing underpants, as compared to the looser boxers preferred by eastern fans (or the full commando style by those in Florida). This naturally leaves those poor, uncomfortable souls in the west less freedom of thought when it comes to notions of realignment.

Humidity, bah! I'm certain it is their tighty-whities that fully explains their disdain for realignment.

(It may also explain those attendance figures. After all, a confining stadium seat is nothing to worry about for someone whose balls haven't moved even a centimeter in the last 40-plus years.)

Could be on to something but you must remember AM, most of these people have never had a proper exposure to pork bbq. I mean brisket is great but if you can't appreciate a pulled pork sandwich I really don't expect you to appreciate the idea of realignment.

(04-20-2017 07:34 AM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 07:26 AM)JMUsince89 Wrote:  With JMU having a athletic budget of over $40 million and a average attendance of 21K last year we would do the conference a good deed. At the National Championship game JMU had over 12K in attendance in Frisco Tx. We travel well and with past wins over FBS opponents prove we can play in the FBS world. Bring on that merger and expansion.

Count me among the minority (I think, but it's close) of ODU posters who agree. JMU would be a terrific addition to CUSA.

JMU missed the very last train out of FCS when they snubbed the belch. Coastal gladly grabbed that ticket.

(04-20-2017 07:26 AM)JMUsince89 Wrote:  With JMU having a athletic budget of over $40 million and a average attendance of 21K last year we would do the conference a good deed. At the National Championship game JMU had over 12K in attendance in Frisco Tx. We travel well and with past wins over FBS opponents prove we can play in the FBS world. Bring on that merger and expansion.

That's very solid, especially for fcs, but I do wonder about schools with high student fee income and also high numbers for income/expenses labeled "not allocated by gender/sport". Maybe someone can explain that which has a high number for both ODU and JMU.

equity in athletics

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 12:44 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 08:52 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I'd really like to know which ADs are pushing this merger idea. From the article it appears like ODU and MT are at the very least mulling the idea. I didn't realize they were having financial struggles. ODU has the largest budget in C-USA. Why are they struggling?

Because we aspire to actually be good. Easy to not have budget issues when your programs are at the bottom of the league.

...and I think you are confusing budget problems, with budget constraints. We have no problems funding our AD. We have the best basketball arena in the league and are building a new football stadium. We also just built a football training center and a basketball training center. The constraint is that we want to do better, not that we can't afford to just show up for games in CUSA like some schools.

As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

I wish you or a mod would fix that outrageously-sized sig photo of yours. What's up with that? Challenged in other areas? Geez.

(04-20-2017 02:18 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  You and I both know that 2015 was a anomaly for Ark St. So one or two things took place.

1. Ark St changed the way they kept records
2. Took in a few one time donations

I know Western does not count donations unless it's tied to HAF. Other words if the Medical Center was putting up 20 million to build a indoor practice field. Western does not count that. From the looks of it ARK ST counted everything for 2015. Something changed and you don't get that huge of a jump without counting donations for building funds or something like that.

edit: I see you explained a lot in your post. For some reason I did not see most of that. SO I will read it but not till in the morning....just took a quick glance before editing this. But it is something I do want to read..closely

2015 was the first year AState hit 10,000 season tickets in football which we repeated in in 2016.
2015 the new press box opened and with that opening new suites, club seats and loge boxes delivered the first year of new revenue that was tied to 7 year seat contracts and each of those has a waiting list.

(04-20-2017 01:36 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:05 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 12:37 AM)Ourland Wrote:  The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

So you are a rice fan? If so do you really think it matters east or west? I can show you pictures of Rice playing Tech and Rice playing Western. Wont see much difference. Both will be awful. Hell I can show you picture of Rice hosting Baylor and there will not be over 1500 more Rice fans at that game than vs Western.

Western's attendance is not good. Especially for a back to back CUSA championships and a top 5 offensive team. But Rices actual attendance is flat out awful. We are talking FIU awful no matter what the numbers say.

For Western I don't think playing a west vs east team is that much of a difference as far as attendance goes. And to be honest I don't think there would be over 1,000 difference for any of our schools...

playing west or east team.

With one exception and that would be a rival. But in the overall pictures we all kind of suck as far as attendance goes. In the larger picture....

a extra 5k is not making that big of a difference. The most important part of attendance is paid. Then that's not as important as total dollars from those paid attendance. Some schools will discount a ticket to almost nothing.

In the SBC Ark St use to do this...

they averaged 26k (honestly I forgot the real number but it was close to that) and Western 18k. Yet Western took in $2,098,880 on tickets sold and $3,379,547 in donations to Ark st $1,398,414 on tickets sold and $403,388 in donations

If you are giving tickets away just to get butts in the seats. It will devalue your season tickets and the donation that goes with those tickets. We all can live with low butts in the seats. We can't if the dollars match those low butts. Any AD would choose the dollars over butts. Both would be better but if you had to choose....

Dollars will win out

Rice knows that it's attendance is awful. There are a lot of reasons why that is that are largely out of Rice's control, no matter how good or bad the product on the field.. The point I'm making is that playing schools within your region can only help attendance, not hurt it, even if those games are against Sun Belt schools. A home game against Texas State is going to reasonate with Houston sports fans much more so than a home game against Western Kentucky, even if y'all are undefeated. That will be the case any day of the week, time and time again. I have two Texas State alums in my family, and I see Texas State bumper stickers all over the bay area.They have a very large alumni base here, as does ULL. Someone please tell me a good reason why we are still playing WKU or FAU, when we could play the other two and attract 5,000 more fans to each game.

Because it's about more than just attendance. It's about playing better opponents in a better conference so that you can recruit better and if you can do well in said conference, you might be able to eventually move to an even better one.

If Rice wants to even dream of someday rejoining it's former SWC foes, playing TxSt and ULM isn't how you do it.

(04-20-2017 10:09 AM)TechRocks Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 12:44 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 08:52 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I'd really like to know which ADs are pushing this merger idea. From the article it appears like ODU and MT are at the very least mulling the idea. I didn't realize they were having financial struggles. ODU has the largest budget in C-USA. Why are they struggling?

Because we aspire to actually be good. Easy to not have budget issues when your programs are at the bottom of the league.

...and I think you are confusing budget problems, with budget constraints. We have no problems funding our AD. We have the best basketball arena in the league and are building a new football stadium. We also just built a football training center and a basketball training center. The constraint is that we want to do better, not that we can't afford to just show up for games in CUSA like some schools.

As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

I wish you or a mod would fix that outrageously-sized sig photo of yours. What's up with that? Challenged in other areas? Geez.

I never noticed it was large. I guess things are just bigger in a Texas.

Since you bring it up, I'm not a big fan of your pooping acrobat, but it is a free country and you are entitled to your choices.

(04-20-2017 04:05 PM)techdawg28 Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:36 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:05 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 12:37 AM)Ourland Wrote:  The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

So you are a rice fan? If so do you really think it matters east or west? I can show you pictures of Rice playing Tech and Rice playing Western. Wont see much difference. Both will be awful. Hell I can show you picture of Rice hosting Baylor and there will not be over 1500 more Rice fans at that game than vs Western.

Western's attendance is not good. Especially for a back to back CUSA championships and a top 5 offensive team. But Rices actual attendance is flat out awful. We are talking FIU awful no matter what the numbers say.

For Western I don't think playing a west vs east team is that much of a difference as far as attendance goes. And to be honest I don't think there would be over 1,000 difference for any of our schools...

playing west or east team.

With one exception and that would be a rival. But in the overall pictures we all kind of suck as far as attendance goes. In the larger picture....

a extra 5k is not making that big of a difference. The most important part of attendance is paid. Then that's not as important as total dollars from those paid attendance. Some schools will discount a ticket to almost nothing.

In the SBC Ark St use to do this...

they averaged 26k (honestly I forgot the real number but it was close to that) and Western 18k. Yet Western took in $2,098,880 on tickets sold and $3,379,547 in donations to Ark st $1,398,414 on tickets sold and $403,388 in donations

If you are giving tickets away just to get butts in the seats. It will devalue your season tickets and the donation that goes with those tickets. We all can live with low butts in the seats. We can't if the dollars match those low butts. Any AD would choose the dollars over butts. Both would be better but if you had to choose....

Dollars will win out

Rice knows that it's attendance is awful. There are a lot of reasons why that is that are largely out of Rice's control, no matter how good or bad the product on the field.. The point I'm making is that playing schools within your region can only help attendance, not hurt it, even if those games are against Sun Belt schools. A home game against Texas State is going to reasonate with Houston sports fans much more so than a home game against Western Kentucky, even if y'all are undefeated. That will be the case any day of the week, time and time again. I have two Texas State alums in my family, and I see Texas State bumper stickers all over the bay area.They have a very large alumni base here, as does ULL. Someone please tell me a good reason why we are still playing WKU or FAU, when we could play the other two and attract 5,000 more fans to each game.

Because it's about more than just attendance. It's about playing better opponents in a better conference so that you can recruit better and if you can do well in said conference, you might be able to eventually move to an even better one.

If Rice wants to even dream of someday rejoining it's former SWC foes, playing TxSt and ULM isn't how you do it.

Great response.

(04-19-2017 10:17 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 12:44 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 08:52 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I'd really like to know which ADs are pushing this merger idea. From the article it appears like ODU and MT are at the very least mulling the idea. I didn't realize they were having financial struggles. ODU has the largest budget in C-USA. Why are they struggling?

Because we aspire to actually be good. Easy to not have budget issues when your programs are at the bottom of the league.

...and I think you are confusing budget problems, with budget constraints. We have no problems funding our AD. We have the best basketball arena in the league and are building a new football stadium. We also just built a football training center and a basketball training center. The constraint is that we want to do better, not that we can't afford to just show up for games in CUSA like some schools.

As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

When exactly did it become stupid for university leaders to push for things that were in the best interest of their employer?
That's basically a requirement of their employment isn't it?

And the eastern part of the US is quite different than "middle America"
Dallas is more similar to Houston than DC is to Philadelphia even though Dallas and Houston are more miles apart.

Your experiences probably don't translate for a Marshall or ODU fan because there is that difference.

It became stupid when some of the ADs publicly spoke to reporters. It is stupid because this entire dialog is only drawing divisions between programs in our conference. It is stupid because now we have Sun Belt fans, like yourself, coming over here further promoting versions of this agenda, and trying to tell C-USA fans what is in our best interest. The votes are not there. This merger/realignment isn't a real long term solution anyway. The only thing that will improved our lot in the college football world will be winning with the current C-USA lineup, or a reduced 12 team coalition of the current lineup.

I don't care that the eastern division is different. The administrators from new additions understood the structure of the conference when they joined C-USA. If they didn't want to live with this configuration, they should have stayed where they were. To be honest 14 is a little too big anyway. If 2 eastern programs wanted to walk away and try their luck with the Sun Belt, that's fine by me. I would rather have that, then merge or realign with the Sun Belt.

Of course my experiences don't translate for a Marshall fan. Marshall got left behind. They didn't choose to join this version of C-USA. They had to help select the best available options to rebuild the conference. I can understand their wanted to restructure, but not with the Sun Belt. In my defense, I'm not reading a lot of Marshall fans pushing to merge with the Belt. North Texas has been playing football for over 100 years, so I guess it is fair to say I can't relate to an ODU fan's situation either. But, ODU hasn't been in the FBS long enough to have developed any meaningful rivalries within C-USA. They need to allow time to develop those rivalries. That is how you grow meaningful interest in your program.

(04-20-2017 06:46 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 10:17 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 12:44 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  

(04-09-2017 08:52 AM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I'd really like to know which ADs are pushing this merger idea. From the article it appears like ODU and MT are at the very least mulling the idea. I didn't realize they were having financial struggles. ODU has the largest budget in C-USA. Why are they struggling?

Because we aspire to actually be good. Easy to not have budget issues when your programs are at the bottom of the league.

...and I think you are confusing budget problems, with budget constraints. We have no problems funding our AD. We have the best basketball arena in the league and are building a new football stadium. We also just built a football training center and a basketball training center. The constraint is that we want to do better, not that we can't afford to just show up for games in CUSA like some schools.

As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

When exactly did it become stupid for university leaders to push for things that were in the best interest of their employer?
That's basically a requirement of their employment isn't it?

And the eastern part of the US is quite different than "middle America"
Dallas is more similar to Houston than DC is to Philadelphia even though Dallas and Houston are more miles apart.

Your experiences probably don't translate for a Marshall or ODU fan because there is that difference.

It became stupid when some of the ADs publicly spoke to reporters. It is stupid because this entire dialog is only drawing divisions between programs in our conference. It is stupid because now we have Sun Belt fans, like yourself, coming over here further promoting versions of this agenda, and trying to tell C-USA fans what is in our best interest. The votes are not there. This merger/realignment isn't a real long term solution anyway. The only thing that will improved our lot in the college football world will be winning with the current C-USA lineup, or a reduced 12 team coalition of the current lineup.

I don't care that the eastern division is different. The administrators from new additions understood the structure of the conference when they joined C-USA. If they didn't want to live with this configuration, they should have stayed where they were. To be honest 14 is a little too big anyway. If 2 eastern programs wanted to walk away and try their luck with the Sun Belt, that's fine by me. I would rather have that, then merge or realign with the Sun Belt.

Of course my experiences don't translate for a Marshall fan. Marshall got left behind. They didn't choose to join this version of C-USA. They had to help select the best available options to rebuild the conference. I can understand their wanted to restructure, but not with the Sun Belt. In my defense, I'm not reading a lot of Marshall fans pushing to merge with the Belt. North Texas has been playing football for over 100 years, so I guess it is fair to say I can't relate to an ODU fan's situation either. But, ODU hasn't been in the FBS long enough to have developed any meaningful rivalries within C-USA. They need to allow time to develop those rivalries. That is how you grow meaningful interest in your program.

LOL, where are all these rivalries and fan interest you've developed over 100 years?

(04-20-2017 07:59 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 06:46 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 10:17 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 12:44 PM)Monarchblue Wrote:  Because we aspire to actually be good. Easy to not have budget issues when your programs are at the bottom of the league.

...and I think you are confusing budget problems, with budget constraints. We have no problems funding our AD. We have the best basketball arena in the league and are building a new football stadium. We also just built a football training center and a basketball training center. The constraint is that we want to do better, not that we can't afford to just show up for games in CUSA like some schools.

As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

When exactly did it become stupid for university leaders to push for things that were in the best interest of their employer?
That's basically a requirement of their employment isn't it?

And the eastern part of the US is quite different than "middle America"
Dallas is more similar to Houston than DC is to Philadelphia even though Dallas and Houston are more miles apart.

Your experiences probably don't translate for a Marshall or ODU fan because there is that difference.

It became stupid when some of the ADs publicly spoke to reporters. It is stupid because this entire dialog is only drawing divisions between programs in our conference. It is stupid because now we have Sun Belt fans, like yourself, coming over here further promoting versions of this agenda, and trying to tell C-USA fans what is in our best interest. The votes are not there. This merger/realignment isn't a real long term solution anyway. The only thing that will improved our lot in the college football world will be winning with the current C-USA lineup, or a reduced 12 team coalition of the current lineup.

I don't care that the eastern division is different. The administrators from new additions understood the structure of the conference when they joined C-USA. If they didn't want to live with this configuration, they should have stayed where they were. To be honest 14 is a little too big anyway. If 2 eastern programs wanted to walk away and try their luck with the Sun Belt, that's fine by me. I would rather have that, then merge or realign with the Sun Belt.

Of course my experiences don't translate for a Marshall fan. Marshall got left behind. They didn't choose to join this version of C-USA. They had to help select the best available options to rebuild the conference. I can understand their wanted to restructure, but not with the Sun Belt. In my defense, I'm not reading a lot of Marshall fans pushing to merge with the Belt. North Texas has been playing football for over 100 years, so I guess it is fair to say I can't relate to an ODU fan's situation either. But, ODU hasn't been in the FBS long enough to have developed any meaningful rivalries within C-USA. They need to allow time to develop those rivalries. That is how you grow meaningful interest in your program.

LOL, where are all these rivalries and fan interest you've developed over 100 years?

I'm glad you brought that up...

North Texas hasn't been able to establish real rivalries, due to continuous change in conferences and conference lineups. It is one of the major reasons I am opposed to any merger/realignment. In the last 80 years alone, North Texas has played in 6 different conferences and also in that time twice played as an independent. That averages out to 10 seasons per situation. You can't build rivalries like that.

Despite our lack of rivals, we have been able to generate interest. Just look at out attendance numbers from the 2 Heart of Dallas Bowl appearances. We have fans, we just need to develop into a consistently winning program and enjoy conference stability. Littrell seems to be the right man for that job.

2013


2016


Again any program that doesn't want to play in this configuration of C-USA, should not have joined. Right now and for the foreseeable future, the only option for those programs is to leave.

(04-20-2017 07:34 AM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 07:26 AM)JMUsince89 Wrote:  With JMU having a athletic budget of over $40 million and a average attendance of 21K last year we would do the conference a good deed. At the National Championship game JMU had over 12K in attendance in Frisco Tx. We travel well and with past wins over FBS opponents prove we can play in the FBS world. Bring on that merger and expansion.

Count me among the minority (I think, but it's close) of ODU posters who agree. JMU would be a terrific addition to CUSA.

I'd rather have vcu

(04-20-2017 08:43 PM)bladhmadh Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 07:34 AM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 07:26 AM)JMUsince89 Wrote:  With JMU having a athletic budget of over $40 million and a average attendance of 21K last year we would do the conference a good deed. At the National Championship game JMU had over 12K in attendance in Frisco Tx. We travel well and with past wins over FBS opponents prove we can play in the FBS world. Bring on that merger and expansion.

Count me among the minority (I think, but it's close) of ODU posters who agree. JMU would be a terrific addition to CUSA.

I'd rather have vcu

I really regret adding to this thread, but why would VCU be better than JMU?

(04-20-2017 09:24 PM)NTGreen Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 08:43 PM)bladhmadh Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 07:34 AM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 07:26 AM)JMUsince89 Wrote:  With JMU having a athletic budget of over $40 million and a average attendance of 21K last year we would do the conference a good deed. At the National Championship game JMU had over 12K in attendance in Frisco Tx. We travel well and with past wins over FBS opponents prove we can play in the FBS world. Bring on that merger and expansion.

Count me among the minority (I think, but it's close) of ODU posters who agree. JMU would be a terrific addition to CUSA.

I'd rather have vcu

I really regret adding to this thread, but why would VCU be better than JMU?

Hell, why add either?

(04-20-2017 04:05 PM)techdawg28 Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:36 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:05 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 12:37 AM)Ourland Wrote:  The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

So you are a rice fan? If so do you really think it matters east or west? I can show you pictures of Rice playing Tech and Rice playing Western. Wont see much difference. Both will be awful. Hell I can show you picture of Rice hosting Baylor and there will not be over 1500 more Rice fans at that game than vs Western.

Western's attendance is not good. Especially for a back to back CUSA championships and a top 5 offensive team. But Rices actual attendance is flat out awful. We are talking FIU awful no matter what the numbers say.

For Western I don't think playing a west vs east team is that much of a difference as far as attendance goes. And to be honest I don't think there would be over 1,000 difference for any of our schools...

playing west or east team.

With one exception and that would be a rival. But in the overall pictures we all kind of suck as far as attendance goes. In the larger picture....

a extra 5k is not making that big of a difference. The most important part of attendance is paid. Then that's not as important as total dollars from those paid attendance. Some schools will discount a ticket to almost nothing.

In the SBC Ark St use to do this...

they averaged 26k (honestly I forgot the real number but it was close to that) and Western 18k. Yet Western took in $2,098,880 on tickets sold and $3,379,547 in donations to Ark st $1,398,414 on tickets sold and $403,388 in donations

If you are giving tickets away just to get butts in the seats. It will devalue your season tickets and the donation that goes with those tickets. We all can live with low butts in the seats. We can't if the dollars match those low butts. Any AD would choose the dollars over butts. Both would be better but if you had to choose....

Dollars will win out

Rice knows that it's attendance is awful. There are a lot of reasons why that is that are largely out of Rice's control, no matter how good or bad the product on the field.. The point I'm making is that playing schools within your region can only help attendance, not hurt it, even if those games are against Sun Belt schools. A home game against Texas State is going to reasonate with Houston sports fans much more so than a home game against Western Kentucky, even if y'all are undefeated. That will be the case any day of the week, time and time again. I have two Texas State alums in my family, and I see Texas State bumper stickers all over the bay area.They have a very large alumni base here, as does ULL. Someone please tell me a good reason why we are still playing WKU or FAU, when we could play the other two and attract 5,000 more fans to each game.

Because it's about more than just attendance. It's about playing better opponents in a better conference so that you can recruit better and if you can do well in said conference, you might be able to eventually move to an even better one.

If Rice wants to even dream of someday rejoining it's former SWC foes, playing TxSt and ULM isn't how you do it.

But playing Charlotte and Western Kentucky is?

(04-20-2017 02:31 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 02:08 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:36 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:05 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 12:37 AM)Ourland Wrote:  The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

So you are a rice fan? If so do you really think it matters east or west? I can show you pictures of Rice playing Tech and Rice playing Western. Wont see much difference. Both will be awful. Hell I can show you picture of Rice hosting Baylor and there will not be over 1500 more Rice fans at that game than vs Western.

Western's attendance is not good. Especially for a back to back CUSA championships and a top 5 offensive team. But Rices actual attendance is flat out awful. We are talking FIU awful no matter what the numbers say.

For Western I don't think playing a west vs east team is that much of a difference as far as attendance goes. And to be honest I don't think there would be over 1,000 difference for any of our schools...

playing west or east team.

With one exception and that would be a rival. But in the overall pictures we all kind of suck as far as attendance goes. In the larger picture....

a extra 5k is not making that big of a difference. The most important part of attendance is paid. Then that's not as important as total dollars from those paid attendance. Some schools will discount a ticket to almost nothing.

In the SBC Ark St use to do this...

they averaged 26k (honestly I forgot the real number but it was close to that) and Western 18k. Yet Western took in $2,098,880 on tickets sold and $3,379,547 in donations to Ark st $1,398,414 on tickets sold and $403,388 in donations

If you are giving tickets away just to get butts in the seats. It will devalue your season tickets and the donation that goes with those tickets. We all can live with low butts in the seats. We can't if the dollars match those low butts. Any AD would choose the dollars over butts. Both would be better but if you had to choose....

Dollars will win out

Rice knows that it's attendance is awful. There are a lot of reasons why that is that are largely out of Rice's control, no matter how good or bad the product on the field.. The point I'm making is that playing schools within your region can only help attendance, not hurt it, even if those games are against Sun Belt schools. A home game against Texas State is going to reasonate with Houston sports fans much more so than a home game against Western Kentucky, even if y'all are undefeated. That will be the case any day of the week, time and time again. I have two Texas State alums in my family, and I see Texas State bumper stickers all over the bay area.They have a very large alumni base here, as does ULL. Someone please tell me a good reason why we are still playing WKU or FAU, when we could play the other two and attract 5,000 more fans to each game.

You really don't have a clue, do you? But Rice could be playing Texas St and ULL ...join the SBC. But as I said you don't know your team or fans.

So does UNT resonate with Houston sports fans? 2014 Attendance: 18,430 vs UNT

VS ODU Attendance: 17,558
VS UTEP Attendance: 18,164
VS UTSA Attendance: 19,464

2015 VS Western Attendance: 20,124
vs S. miss Attendance: 18,656
vs Tech Attendance: 18,010
vs Army Attendance: 24,409
vs UNCC Attendance: 16,539

2016 VS UNT Attendance: 20,792
VS UTSA Attendance: 20,134
VS UTEP Attendance: 19,148
VS FAU Attendance: 19,892
VS Baylor Attendance: 27,047

You and I both know 85% of the 27k were Baylor fans

Are you okay?

You should be asking yourself that question....

you seem to have a problem just saying, I made a mistake and don't know what in the hell I'm talking about.

I will wait for you to show me those extra 5k from any school Rice plays...not named Army, or Houston or Baylor. Even those are only in th mid 20s

As I said....

you don't have a freaking clue about Rice football. I doubt if you ever been to a Rice football game. If you did you really would not be bring up attendance at all. No matter who Rice plays....

there will be between 2k and 7k sitting in the stadium that are Rice fans. Hell Rice listed 23k for attendance in a game vs UCLA. I think most people in Houston (at least football fans) heard of them.

The only words out of your mouth at this point...

I was wrong and don't know what I was talking about

You're embarrassing yourself.

(04-21-2017 12:13 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 04:05 PM)techdawg28 Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:36 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 01:05 AM)WKUYG Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 12:37 AM)Ourland Wrote:  The sooner the two divisions aren't playing each other, the happier I'll be. No offense to anyone in the East, but a merger or breakaway with the western Sunbelt schools can't happen soon enough. Every home football and basketball game against an eastern opponent is a drag on attendance. There's no interest whatsoever. You guys over there can't be thrilled to see Rice on the schedule either. Let's be honest. While a merger isn't ideal, it's much better than the current model.

So you are a rice fan? If so do you really think it matters east or west? I can show you pictures of Rice playing Tech and Rice playing Western. Wont see much difference. Both will be awful. Hell I can show you picture of Rice hosting Baylor and there will not be over 1500 more Rice fans at that game than vs Western.

Western's attendance is not good. Especially for a back to back CUSA championships and a top 5 offensive team. But Rices actual attendance is flat out awful. We are talking FIU awful no matter what the numbers say.

For Western I don't think playing a west vs east team is that much of a difference as far as attendance goes. And to be honest I don't think there would be over 1,000 difference for any of our schools...

playing west or east team.

With one exception and that would be a rival. But in the overall pictures we all kind of suck as far as attendance goes. In the larger picture....

a extra 5k is not making that big of a difference. The most important part of attendance is paid. Then that's not as important as total dollars from those paid attendance. Some schools will discount a ticket to almost nothing.

In the SBC Ark St use to do this...

they averaged 26k (honestly I forgot the real number but it was close to that) and Western 18k. Yet Western took in $2,098,880 on tickets sold and $3,379,547 in donations to Ark st $1,398,414 on tickets sold and $403,388 in donations

If you are giving tickets away just to get butts in the seats. It will devalue your season tickets and the donation that goes with those tickets. We all can live with low butts in the seats. We can't if the dollars match those low butts. Any AD would choose the dollars over butts. Both would be better but if you had to choose....

Dollars will win out

Rice knows that it's attendance is awful. There are a lot of reasons why that is that are largely out of Rice's control, no matter how good or bad the product on the field.. The point I'm making is that playing schools within your region can only help attendance, not hurt it, even if those games are against Sun Belt schools. A home game against Texas State is going to reasonate with Houston sports fans much more so than a home game against Western Kentucky, even if y'all are undefeated. That will be the case any day of the week, time and time again. I have two Texas State alums in my family, and I see Texas State bumper stickers all over the bay area.They have a very large alumni base here, as does ULL. Someone please tell me a good reason why we are still playing WKU or FAU, when we could play the other two and attract 5,000 more fans to each game.

Because it's about more than just attendance. It's about playing better opponents in a better conference so that you can recruit better and if you can do well in said conference, you might be able to eventually move to an even better one.

If Rice wants to even dream of someday rejoining it's former SWC foes, playing TxSt and ULM isn't how you do it.

But playing Charlotte and Western Kentucky is?

Yes, actually. WKU more so than Charlotte, but the way you get there is by winning consistently in your current league to make yourself as attractive as possible for a better one so that if they come looking for new members you can move up. Then rinse and repeat. So for Rice, the path would be to win here and find a way into the AAC, then win there and find your way into the Big XII. Realigning with Sun Belt teams is taking a step backwards and is not what you should be interested in doing. You should only want to change who you're associated with if you're joining better programs than the ones you left.

(04-20-2017 08:43 PM)bladhmadh Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 07:34 AM)AdoptedMonarch Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 07:26 AM)JMUsince89 Wrote:  With JMU having a athletic budget of over $40 million and a average attendance of 21K last year we would do the conference a good deed. At the National Championship game JMU had over 12K in attendance in Frisco Tx. We travel well and with past wins over FBS opponents prove we can play in the FBS world. Bring on that merger and expansion.

Count me among the minority (I think, but it's close) of ODU posters who agree. JMU would be a terrific addition to CUSA.

I'd rather have vcu

That's akin to saying "I'd rather have syphilis."

That girl may look hot and easy, but you don't want any part of her.

(04-20-2017 08:28 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 07:59 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(04-20-2017 06:46 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 10:17 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  

(04-19-2017 08:48 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  As I look for the motivations behind this stupid push for realignment, I'm beginning to think poor attendance numbers could be behind all of this. I know few programs in C-USA pull respectable attendance number, but we have quite a few well south of the 20K mark. Here is C-USA's attendance numbers from last season, along with the teams that went bowling. I put the western division teams and attendance in bold. It seems most of the calls for restructuring the conference are coming out of the east, and when you look at the attendance numbers, I think we can see why. Last season many of the eastern programs struggled to put butts in seats. Two of the three best eastern teams (WKU and MT) had issues with attendance. I have to wonder if these low numbers are the biggest influence fueling this ridiculous merger narrative.

2016
(W) Southern Miss 28,588 (Bowl)
(E) Marshall 24,760
(W) UTSA 23,038 (Bowl)
(W) UTEP 23,001
(W) Rice 21,425
(W) LA Tech 20,412 (Bowl)
(E) ODU 20,118 (Bowl)
(W) North Texas 19,878 (Bowl)
(E) WKU 17,705 (Bowl)
(E) Middle Tenn 17,243 (Bowl)
(E) FIU 16,789
(E) Charlotte 14,192
(E) FAU 10,073

When exactly did it become stupid for university leaders to push for things that were in the best interest of their employer?
That's basically a requirement of their employment isn't it?

And the eastern part of the US is quite different than "middle America"
Dallas is more similar to Houston than DC is to Philadelphia even though Dallas and Houston are more miles apart.

Your experiences probably don't translate for a Marshall or ODU fan because there is that difference.

It became stupid when some of the ADs publicly spoke to reporters. It is stupid because this entire dialog is only drawing divisions between programs in our conference. It is stupid because now we have Sun Belt fans, like yourself, coming over here further promoting versions of this agenda, and trying to tell C-USA fans what is in our best interest. The votes are not there. This merger/realignment isn't a real long term solution anyway. The only thing that will improved our lot in the college football world will be winning with the current C-USA lineup, or a reduced 12 team coalition of the current lineup.

I don't care that the eastern division is different. The administrators from new additions understood the structure of the conference when they joined C-USA. If they didn't want to live with this configuration, they should have stayed where they were. To be honest 14 is a little too big anyway. If 2 eastern programs wanted to walk away and try their luck with the Sun Belt, that's fine by me. I would rather have that, then merge or realign with the Sun Belt.

Of course my experiences don't translate for a Marshall fan. Marshall got left behind. They didn't choose to join this version of C-USA. They had to help select the best available options to rebuild the conference. I can understand their wanted to restructure, but not with the Sun Belt. In my defense, I'm not reading a lot of Marshall fans pushing to merge with the Belt. North Texas has been playing football for over 100 years, so I guess it is fair to say I can't relate to an ODU fan's situation either. But, ODU hasn't been in the FBS long enough to have developed any meaningful rivalries within C-USA. They need to allow time to develop those rivalries. That is how you grow meaningful interest in your program.

LOL, where are all these rivalries and fan interest you've developed over 100 years?

I'm glad you brought that up...

North Texas hasn't been able to establish real rivalries, due to continuous change in conferences and conference lineups. It is one of the major reasons I am opposed to any merger/realignment. In the last 80 years alone, North Texas has played in 6 different conferences and also in that time twice played as an independent. That averages out to 10 seasons per situation. You can't build rivalries like that.

Despite our lack of rivals, we have been able to generate interest. Just look at out attendance numbers from the 2 Heart of Dallas Bowl appearances. We have fans, we just need to develop into a consistently winning program and enjoy conference stability. Littrell seems to be the right man for that job.

2013


2016


Again any program that doesn't want to play in this configuration of C-USA, should not have joined. Right now and for the foreseeable future, the only option for those programs is to leave.

You went to the HOD bowl and your season ticket sales dropped the next year. Even if you didn't spend a nickel on marketing, that's damn hard to do.

I am impressed you can get a pope hat in UNT colors to inform your equity partners how to run their business.