(02-15-2012 03:43 PM)stever20 Wrote:  I think the ones that I'd be looking at....
1> Middle Tennessee
2> Western Kentucky
3> Florida International
4> Old Dominion

I think the key quote though was the last paragraph:
The onus will be on New Mexico, UTEP, UAB, Southern Miss, Tulsa, Marshall and any newcomer to continue to raise their game and be top 30-40 programs on a consistent basis. Short of that, and this league won't have the necessary relevance to command the media rights dollars and/or the multiple bids that are necessary for the survival of a mega-conference.

Everyone talks so much about the media rights. The NCAA tournament though is huge...
A team making the tourney 1 time and losing in rd 1- they get the next 6 years about 250,000 * 6 1.5 million dollars.

That's why like last year- the Big East- getting 11 teams in- if all 11 had lost in rd 1- 2.75 milllion * 6 - would have been worth about 16.5 million. With all the wins, last year winds up being worth... 5.5 million * 6= 33 million dollars over the next 6 years. That's roughly if split evenly about 2 million per school. Add to that 5 other years and you see 8-10 million per year just in NCAA tourney money for the Big East. Alliance, if some of the programs falter, could really hurt in that money.

I agree the NCAA tournament and the money it pumps into conference coffers is highly underrated.

The alliance should be focusing on upgrading basketball and east coast presence. From that standpoint only Temple, UMass, ODU, FIU are going to help the alliance out.

Beyond that I'm for adding North Texas in the Central pod, San Jose in the Pacific pod..I guess you could place UT-San Antonio in the Mountain pod.

I would avoid the smaller universities like La Tech or Western Kentucky.