(01-04-2018 11:24 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  The AAC has put on a big marketing campaign around becoming a P6 league thinking that if they could just become a P6 all of their issues surrounding TV revenue and perception can be solved.

The simple fact of the matter is the AAC could get a contract with a bowl for itself in an expanded CFP field and a larger TV deal but that wouldn't move the needle very far with the committee who will continue to trash its scheduled.

The AAC doesn't have a money problem. The problem is it lacks elite football programs which draw 70, 80, 90 thousand or more a game. Their place in college football won't change if they have a contract bowl.

One look at the overall conference ratings from last year shows its a futile climb.

Conference/Avg. Rating
ACC/41.42
SEC/45.60
B1G/45.73
PAC/46.41
B12/48.72
AAC/66.82
MWC/83.97
MAC/84.73
CUSA/91.81
SBC/101.93

https://www.masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm

There is 3 points of gap between what is regarded by most as the strongest football conference in the SEC and the B12 which is thought to be the weak man of the P5. The gap between the B12 and AAC is 18 points a 6 times larger gap.

Half of the AAC is a "P" material conference in Cincinnati, UCF, USF, Houston, Memphis, UConn. The other half with Temple, ECU, Navy, Tulane, SMU, Tulane is not "P" material. The recruiting potential of the AAC to catch the P5 in quality simply isn't there.

Its basic advertising. The key to getting paid in the G5 is differentiion. You must make your G5 widgets stand out as different and more interesting to watch than the others. Its basically branding.

The AAC has been delivering a quality product. The relative strength numbers you posted actually tend to show the AAC as being almost as far above the top of the other G5 conferences as they are from the bottom of the P5 conferences. That means the AAC product has already separated itself from the rest of the G5 and is now a middle tier. The P6 thing is a god way of branding and promoting that difference. Effectively, P6 is about making the the AAC a better media property. Better ratings means better pay.

I suspect it wont hurt ticket sales either--which brings me to attendance. I agree on the attendance point. What Ive said for a long time is the first G5 conference to start averaging about 40K a game will begin to morph into a power conference. The reason is--at that point--the combined audience is simply too big for the media to completley ignore. Plus, if your averaging 40K--you probably have at least 2 or 3 teams posting 50K to 60K a game in order to offset some of the lower performers. You'll have some really good programs in there to act as tent post programs.