Chryst was in attendance at the UT/BG game. It was nice to see that he could find his way in from Huntington. Amazingly, you could see Pruett's ass marks on his lips all the way out on the center of the field from the stands. He wasn't introduced to the crowd. Probably a good thing.

I'm not sure how old you are, but how many MAC commissioners have you experienced? Since being a MAC fan since 1974, I'll tell you right now Chryst has done more during his helm than all of the others combined over the prior 30 years.

Under his leadership, the MAC now has a "big-time" post-season basketball tourney at The Gund with record crowds, instead of a few thousand at some cracker-box gym (or worse-- at a Big 10 arena).

We now have two bowl games instead of none.

Those two accomplishments alone have done wonders for the conference that no other prior MAC commish can touch.

<a href='http://www.heralddispatch.com/2002/November/10/LNspot.htm' target='_blank'>Have you read this?</a>

How many games were the Chips involved with in that deal? Who benefitted most while the rest of the schools foot the bill? For the record, I am plenty old enough to remember our past leadership. I'm not impressed.

Okie,
Don't you know, its hate Marshall all the time regardless of the reason.

Huntington got a new waste water treatment plant, ****, Marshall cheats>


The Crime rate is down in Huntington, Hell Marshall must have been out of town.

A Sun spot caused a car crash involving two cars, going opposite directions on I 68 near Huntington. Both cars were full of Toledo fans. Rick Chryst was seen hovering in a Helicopter over the scene.

More from the spaceship that is the Herdhaters bible to come.

Quote:Have you read this?

That's a fairly lengthy article. I presume you are referring to the "Other Problems" section, stating it cost MAC schools to have the MCB accept 2000 MACC Champion Marshall instead of Toledo.

Let's play an ethics exercise.
Team "A" wins the league championship.
Team "B" doesn't win the championship, but it has a better record.
Which team should the league present as its bowl representative?
If you are the commissioner, who do you pick and why?

Note: The above is not intended to have a right or wrong answer. I sincerely wish to know why some persons would pick Team "A" and others Team "B".

Sorry, but that game has been played ad nauseum. But, that wasn't all that I was referring to. Chryst took a surplus and turned it into a negative balance putting one MAC team on TV four different times this season. The rest of the conference will foot that bill and have to make up the deficit. That one team will reap the benefits of Chryst's decision. The rest of us will pay to get our noses rubbed in it. Personally, I'm not too thrilled about our commissioner paying to reinforce the mistaken impression that Marshall is the FSU in this conference, and the rest of us are Duke football. That may be okay with some folks, but it doesn't sit well with me.

How many times was CMU on ESPN this season?

DOOOOOKIE!! :D

Rick Chryst is the best commissioner this league has ever had.

I agree with those who think Bowling Green-Toledo would have been a much better game for television than Marshall-Ball State. More was at stake.

I should also say that Heisman hype has always gotten on my nerves. I can't think of a scenario where I would tune into a game I otherwise wouldn't watch because it features a "Heisman candidate."

(Exception: If we are talking about, say, Steve McNair's Alcorn State, I might tune in simply for the weird pleasure of seeing a truly random team like Alcorn State play on ESPN).

But, obviously, ESPN saw the value of the Bowling Green-Toledo game differently than most of us.

I think we have to keep in mind that the 2000 Bowling Green-Toledo game *was* on television. Obviously, the game's ratings didn't blow ESPN's doors off -- or the 2001 game would have been on television, too.

Had Bowling Green still been ranked, I've got to think ESPN would have opted to show the game. Enough people would have been curious about the Falcons to make the game worthwhile.

But this argument is pointless. Not only does it seem clear that Chryst had absolutely nothing to do with the decision and would have preferred to see Bowling Green-Toledo on ESPN -- he voted with his feet, choosing to spend Saturday night at the Glass Bowl.

I shudder to think of the bile our special friend from Toledo would have spewed had Mr. Chryst spent the evening in Huntington, W.Va.

:rolleyes:



<!--EDIT|RochesterFalcon|Dec 2 2002, 07:47 AM-->

Well said RF.

RochesterFalcon Wrote:But the argument is pointless. Not only does it seem clear that Chryst had absolutely nothing to do with the decision and would have preferred to see Bowling Green-Toledo on ESPN -- he voted with his feet, choosing to spend Saturday night at the Glass Bowl.

I shudder to think of the bile our special friend from Toledo would have spewed had Mr. Chryst spent the evening in Huntington, W.Va.

:rolleyes:

It seems clear that Chryst preferred BG/UT? Gee, how do you figure that? Since the MAC paid for and chose the game, it takes a special kind of stupid to infer that. Even a certain Marshall homer with ESPN ties has made it clear that a) Marshall did not pay for this game, and B) ESPN took the game Chryst wanted on. So, genius, what do you base your claim on?

Nice game the other night, eh? :D

Quote:It seems clear that Chryst preferred BG/UT? Gee, how do you figure that?

Because Chryst watched BG-UT in person.

Also, because of what he told Dave Hackenberg:

"I

All I can say is that you're wrong and that Chryst lied. It's too bad that they've combined Hackenberg's recent articles online. The original one stopped just short of calling Chryst a liar. It certainly implied it, as did a few radio interviewers in recent days. So, believe what you want. I'm sure that all of those national broadcasts of the Falcons this year are clouding your judgement.

I think there are legit questions as to where the money is going.

Why does it cost the MAC so much to be on TV, when others are getting paid to be on TV? (And MU at VaTech cost the MAC??? It was highly rated to boot???)

And why is that contract so ****** that the MAC can't even get its best games on? Sure ratings will be down...if you show a boring game.

How did the losses at the Gund get so high, when attendance is so much improved?

Why can't the MAC get more than one team in the NCAA tournament? That sort of revenue could just about offset the defecits.

The MCB payout is unfortunate, and in a sense, no-ones fault (except perhaps Darnell's). But it does beg the question of why the MACC was in H'ton so often. That lack of foresight, or perhaps assertiveness by Chryst, was costly for many reasons. Frankly even MU folks can appreciate that it would have been better for the conference if WMU had gone to the MCB. And honestly, WMU would have sold more tix for the MACC than Marshall.

But there are lingering questions, and plenty of blame for individual institutions as well as Chryst.

Why wasn't BG/ut be on local TV? (Are the rights to broadcasts sold, even if ESPN doesn't air the games?)
What are universities doing to get attendance (and thus negotiating position) up?
UM's comments didn't help, I confess that BG is as much a part of the problem as the solution.

Quote:I think there are legit questions as to where the money is going.

Agreed, but the answers aren't black and white.

Quote:Why does it cost the MAC so much to be on TV, when others are getting paid to be on TV?

I don't know that non-BCS conferences are getting paid. Seems I've read that Conference USA's television money is all basketball-related.

Quote:(And MU at VaTech cost the MAC??? It was highly rated to boot???)

It was at Virginia Tech, thus, I don't believe the MAC owned rights to the game. This game was probably not aired as part of the MAC-ESPN contract, thus it came as no cost to the MAC. (Virginia Tech and/or the Big East, on the other hand, were probably paid handsomely).

The two contract games would have been Miami-Marshall and Ball State-Marshall.

Quote:And why is that contract so ****** that the MAC can't even get its best games on? Sure ratings will be down...if you show a boring game.

It's life. It's reality.

Quote:Why wasn't BG/ut be on local TV? (Are the rights to broadcasts sold, even if ESPN doesn't air the games?)

Parts of this are speculative, but this is the way I believe itworked:

It wasn't on local television because Toledo didn't want it on. They wanted a strong crowd and feared it would not be strong if the game had been on television.

Once ESPN passed on a national broadcast, the league could have tried to get it on television in agreement with Fox Sports Detroit/Ohio/Midwest/Pittsburgh etc. I don't know if this was pursued.

Failing that (or maybe in addition to that, depend on the contracts previously drawn up by the lawyers), Toledo could have "shopped" the game to a local television station. Maybe ESPN+ could have done production. Maybe the local station would have done it.

In any case, Toledo didn't want to do that. And, once ESPN, and Fox Sports/the MAC passed, the rights belonged to Toledo and Toledo alone -- unless the rules of the MAC allow visiting schools in conference games to shop television in addition to home schools. I have no idea if they do or not.

Even if Bowling Green had a right to shop the game to television, considering how pathetic our electronic media situation is right now, I don't think Bowling Green was in a position to do so. The best we could have hoped for, I would guess, is a cablecast on certain Time Warner systems.

I invite others (particularly Marshall fans) to correct or clarify what I've written here about TV rights.

RochesterFalcon Wrote:The two contract games would have been Miami-Marshall and Ball State-Marshall.

The two contract games were Marshall-Miami and Marshall-UCF. The Marshall-Ball St. game did not have to be picked up by ESPN, as they had already fulfilled their agreement..

If anyone actually belives that Chryst is responsible for the pathetic attendence the MAC has churned out this year then they morons.

Think about all of the problems mentioned in this thread:
- paying for football appearences
- wrong teams being chosen for bowls
- wrong teams being chosen for airplay
etc...

ALL of these problems are the direct result of the horrendous following most MAC schools have (especially at the National level).

I, like others, believe that the tail wags the dog. Put the games on, and you'll get a greater following. However, when local stations won't play the games how fair is it to ask national broadcasters to risk their ad revenue?

Are Miami games shown each week in Cincinnati? Are Toledo games shown each week in Northwest Ohio? Why not?