http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/spor...54165.html

Looks like Baylor is trying to position themselves for a better conference once the Big 12 implodes by building a new on-campus stadium. BE related because Baylor has been mentioned by some as a possible BE expansion candidate.

Who mentioned Baylor as a BE expansion candidate?

FCS is getting old, since we have to spend the money anyways we finally are bringing it to campus. Its long been rumored so hopefully it happens soon.

We have a good showing for our size and especially so when you consider how long the drought was. Our Ath Dept finally got its head on straight when McCaw came in with regards to football so those types of years are likely to be an abberation from now on.

(12-26-2010 04:19 PM)Rich52c Wrote:  Who mentioned Baylor as a BE expansion candidate?

That's my question as well. I've seen no mention of Baylor by any reputable media outlet, which it surely would have been if the story had any legs at all. Since it didn't, any claims about Baylor being a BEast expansion candidate are dubious at best...

Baylor has never been a Big East candidate, even going back to the Big 12's near collapse. Just another reason to try and rain on Houston's parade. I'm starting to think more and more that the Big 12 is here to stay so they're probably trying to improve themselves within the conference.

Baylor's strategy always has and always will be to use money and politics to hold Texas and A&M hostage to them.

Waco and Baylor absolutely depend on the Longhorns and Aggies (both just a little over an hour from Baylor) coming in to town every year for football, basketball and baseball to sell out their games for them.

Baylor absolutely freaked out when the possibility of no longer having annual games with the two Flagships was becoming a real possibility and went on the mother of all temper tantrums: making up BS reports about how vital their BCS athletics are to the state and how their legislators would slash all public funding for A&M and Texas and that their big money Bears would shift all their funding to ANY candidate (read Democrat) who promised to force the Texas 4 to remain together.

Its a sad state of affairs when a PRIVATE school can threaten the future welfare of STATE schools just so they can have those schools continue to essentially fund their athletic department for them (UT and A&M fans ought to have the Baylor stadium named after them for all the money they give buying up 80% of it it each year for their games) and remain AQ long after natural selection would have taken it away from them.

Look I'm not a big Baylor fan but outside of Football, they have a respectable program. Football team is going to a Bowl for the first time since the 94 Alamo Bowl. The basketball team made the Sweet 16 last year. The women's basketball team won the NC in 2005. The baseball team has been good over the last 5-10 years and they have a fairly new park to play in.
They averaged 40,043 in 2010 which is higher than the 39,614 UCF averaged, higher than the 38,248 UConn averaged, higher than the 35,067 Cincy averaged and higher than the 31,728 UH averaged. Even if you exclude the A&M game they still averaged 39,034.

Yes, I will agree that former Texas Gov Ann Richards( Baylor Alumni) forced UT to take Baylor to the Big 12. They don't have anyone powerful enough in office to force UT to take them wherever they go. The PAC-10 has already stated that they didn't want Baylor because of the Baptist affiliation.

The reason I mentioned Baylor in the 1st place is because I have read that some fans would like to have a combo of Kansas/Kansas St/Missouri/Baylor and Iowa St added as members of the Big East. If Baylor becomes available, they certainly bring more to the table than some of the other school mentioned.

Hey, what about Akron? I heard the Zips' soccer team is pretty legit! Akron for Big East?

Baylor makes up it's attendance. It gave away 12,000 tickets to it's home opener this year.

(12-26-2010 10:19 PM)canewton Wrote:  Baylor makes up it's attendance. It gave away 12,000 tickets to it's home opener this year.

Do you have a link to support that claim? I do know that they are buying up Bowl tickets and will have a large presence in the Houston Bowl something that 50 other FBS teams can't say because they are sitting at home during the holidays. It remains to be seen if they can beat last years 69K for Missouri vs Navy.

http://www.illinoisloyalty.com/GoIllini/...es_surging

http://www.baylorbears.com/sports/m-foot...10aaa.html

(12-26-2010 07:05 PM)10thMountain Wrote:  Baylor absolutely freaked out when the possibility of no longer having annual games with the two Flagships was becoming a real possibility and went on the mother of all temper tantrums: making up BS reports about how vital their BCS athletics are to the state and how their legislators would slash all public funding for A&M and Texas and that their big money Bears would shift all their funding to ANY candidate (read Democrat) who promised to force the Texas 4 to remain together.

The economic impact it has on the Waco area and the centex region is the source of the political pull. The reports were pretty legit though with the economic impact.

(12-26-2010 10:19 PM)canewton Wrote:  Baylor makes up it's attendance. It gave away 12,000 tickets to it's home opener this year.

Actually I was there for all but the KU game this year and the 40+ attendance games were legit bud despite some of the cheapest seats being dirt cheap tickets for the SHSU game only if my memory is correct.

UH fan running attendance smack? Thats a gunfight UH doesn't have the bullets to win against Baylor and that is VERY pronounced regardless of who you point to as fair comparisons. I can point to similar opponents this decade and UH vs BU against any SWC team except maybe A&M or UT that each have 70,000 alumni in your city. The results are far from even being a debate. No disrespect to UH but thats the facts.

(12-26-2010 07:36 PM)JeffRaider2000 Wrote:  Look I'm not a big Baylor fan but outside of Football, they have a respectable program. Football team is going to a Bowl for the first time since the 94 Alamo Bowl. The basketball team made the Sweet 16 last year. The women's basketball team won the NC in 2005. The baseball team has been good over the last 5-10 years and they have a fairly new park to play in.

The issues with football have been largely due to poor hires and support given by former AD Stanton. The opportunities Briles has exceeds anything his predecessors had. Its a shame that BU has struggled for so long as we fared as well as anyone not named A&M from the late 70's until the conference ended and we did it while being only one of 3 football programs to avoid any sanctions during the pony excess era.

As for the baseball stadium, it is one of the best around on several lists I have seen. Here is one: http://www.mademan.com/mm/10-best-colleg...diums.html

We have strong facilities all around and almost all has been private funding to my knowledge.

Quote:They averaged 40,043 in 2010 which is higher than the 39,614 UCF averaged, higher than the 38,248 UConn averaged, higher than the 35,067 Cincy averaged and higher than the 31,728 UH averaged. Even if you exclude the A&M game they still averaged 39,034.

This is not a suprise. BU outdrew any of the SWC 4 left behind and only UCF is significantly larger than us and without hosting A&M and OU we likely would be upper 30s so thats fair. We show up well for our size and recent history.

Quote:Yes, I will agree that former Texas Gov Ann Richards( Baylor Alumni) forced UT to take Baylor to the Big 12. They don't have anyone powerful enough in office to force UT to take them wherever they go. The PAC-10 has already stated that they didn't want Baylor because of the Baptist affiliation.

Replace Richards with Lt. Gov Bob Bullock and you have the real power player. He was instrumental in BU and TT crashing the 10 team party. TCU, UH, SMU, and Rice were never really considered seriously at the time. Right on the P10, quite a bigoted move by the "tolerant" to pass up religious schools like BU (which could have landed them all of the B12 teams they wanted as A&M would have been the only resisting party) or BYU (who makes much more financial sense than Utah).

Quote:The reason I mentioned Baylor in the 1st place is because I have read that some fans would like to have a combo of Kansas/Kansas St/Missouri/Baylor and Iowa St added as members of the Big East. If Baylor becomes available, they certainly bring more to the table than some of the other school mentioned.

We have more DFW alumni than either TCU or SMU and have 25,000 alumni in both Houston and Central Texas as well. Very few people realize this even among texans. When the B12 was formed they took the 4 largest fanbases although it is true that BU and TT used politics to crash the 10 team setup. UH is the only school with larger # of alumni that was left out but UH has in large part had fairly apathetic alumni which is evidenced by their attendance being 2/3 of ours when they are both twice our size and have far more local alumni.

I would honestly rank it for the BE as follows with all tied schools really depending on which recruiting/travel/academic/or other sports are relevant.

My list is assuming Nova says no and IF the B12 5 were in play which I also view as a scenario that is highly unlikely as it would require one or more teams pulling a 180 right now.

TT and OSU are not being left out. FOIA documents show this clearly is an extremely slim chance. UT, TT, OU, OSU are locks to stick together. Sooo given that info we have...

1- MU - St. Louis and all sports make them the prize. Similar pull in KC to what KU gives you.
2- KU - Football and similar share of KC lets Mizzou jump them
3- KSU - KU lite and is really only #3 as they are tied to KU otherwise they'd be with the #4s.
4- BU/UCF/ISU/ECU: BU and UCF add recruiting. ECU has the best attendance. ISU is hard to quantify from a tv perspective but is very solid all around. BU can combine with TCU to give the BE over 75,000 interested alumni in the DFW for a BE network and decent sized fanbases in other parts of the state. UCF helps in the florida markets. BU strong in almost every sport. Depending on what you prioritize it could go any way IMO if I try to look at it objectively. We add far more than given credit for but we are obviously not a juggernaut.
5- UH/Memphis/SMU- Smaller fanbases than above in metro areas that have some strong suits. SMU is a very good school and if they got good again have an affluent alumni base that will support the ponies.
6- Everyone else.

(12-26-2010 11:07 PM)JeffRaider2000 Wrote:  

(12-26-2010 10:19 PM)canewton Wrote:  Baylor makes up it's attendance. It gave away 12,000 tickets to it's home opener this year.

Do you have a link to support that claim? I do know that they are buying up Bowl tickets and will have a large presence in the Houston Bowl something that 50 other FBS teams can't say because they are sitting at home during the holidays. It remains to be seen if they can beat last years 69K for Missouri vs Navy.

http://www.illinoisloyalty.com/GoIllini/...es_surging

http://www.baylorbears.com/sports/m-foot...10aaa.html

We had some VERY cheap deals to bring in Joe Waco for our early matchup vs fcs team SHSU. We still put over 40k for them and Buffalo with virtually no visiting fan presence and UConn last year with no ticket breaks.

As for the Texas Bowl, I heard Mizzou-Navy was significantly less than that and they just posted that number but I could be wrong.

If our Elite 8 showing is any indicator we should have minimum 40,000 show up if not more in green and gold.

TCU hates Baylor. Really, really, hates Baylor.

If not for its association with Texas, A&M, and Oklahoma, Baylor would be nothing.

SMU is basically the same size as Baylor, but has an infinitely better location. Better to take SMU due to it being in Dallas.

Waco is not a market worth adding, especially for a program like Baylor.

Sammy even though I am not a big fan of Baylor (griner incident last year in Lubbock) I am in big time support of you being invited to the BE. Baylor deserves to be in BCS conference and unfortunately, I think they will be left behind once the Big 12 implodes. The BE could have a big time rivalry with Baylor vs TCU.

If Baylor can put a winning product on the field, their fans will show up and show up big compared to other schools being mentioned.

(12-26-2010 11:30 PM)moron Wrote:  TCU hates Baylor. Really, really, hates Baylor.

If not for its association with Texas, A&M, and Oklahoma, Baylor would be nothing.

SMU is basically the same size as Baylor, but has an infinitely better location. Better to take SMU due to it being in Dallas.

Waco is not a market worth adding, especially for a program like Baylor.

1- SMU is half our size and we have more alums in dallas than either of you. We deliver DFW as much as either of you given equal success.

2- BU has a larger fanbase than any of TCU, SMU, UH, or Rice. We have a top overall athletic department despite football being dead for a long time. We profit from associating with UT, A&M, and OU but we are far from "nothing". That comment is like some of my fellow bu fans ripping on tcu and diminishing what they have accomplished.

(12-26-2010 11:52 PM)Sammy11 Wrote:  

(12-26-2010 11:30 PM)moron Wrote:  TCU hates Baylor. Really, really, hates Baylor.

If not for its association with Texas, A&M, and Oklahoma, Baylor would be nothing.

SMU is basically the same size as Baylor, but has an infinitely better location. Better to take SMU due to it being in Dallas.

Waco is not a market worth adding, especially for a program like Baylor.

1- SMU is half our size and we have more alums in dallas than either of you. We deliver DFW as much as either of you given equal success.

2- BU has a larger fanbase than any of TCU, SMU, UH, or Rice. We have a top overall athletic department despite football being dead for a long time. We profit from associating with UT, A&M, and OU but we are far from "nothing". That comment is like some of my fellow bu fans ripping on tcu and diminishing what they have accomplished.

1. TCU - 9,000
SMU -10,000
Baylor- 14,000

Those are the real numbers, I'm not making them up. So, yeah, you're way off on that half bit.

Also, Baylor is not in Dallas. Appealing to your alums in Dallas is not the same as being able to generate interest among the general population. That task is made far easier by actually having the school in the population center that's desired. So, I can safely say that when you say Baylor would deliver the Dallas market that that's just wishful thinking on your part.

2. I did not say Baylor is nothing. I said it would be nothing if not for its association with Big 12 schools. If you don't believe me, look at the great difficulties experienced by SMU, Rice, Houston, and even TCU. Yes, TCU has been good for several years, but it long experienced its own share of difficulties. If not for the Big 12, Baylor would be in a horrible position. There's nothing wrong with admitting that.

I really don't understand how it's offensive to say that Baylor would be a shadow of what it is if not for the Big 12. Personally, I'd be grateful if I went to Baylor that my school was so fortunate.

(12-26-2010 02:46 PM)JeffRaider2000 Wrote:  http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/spor...54165.html

Looks like Baylor is trying to position themselves for a better conference once the Big 12 implodes by building a new on-campus stadium. BE related because Baylor has been mentioned by some as a possible BE expansion candidate.

Baylor can build a 100k stadium, still would not make for a ideal expansion candidate.

(12-27-2010 12:15 AM)moron Wrote:  

(12-26-2010 11:52 PM)Sammy11 Wrote:  

(12-26-2010 11:30 PM)moron Wrote:  TCU hates Baylor. Really, really, hates Baylor.

If not for its association with Texas, A&M, and Oklahoma, Baylor would be nothing.

SMU is basically the same size as Baylor, but has an infinitely better location. Better to take SMU due to it being in Dallas.

Waco is not a market worth adding, especially for a program like Baylor.

1- SMU is half our size and we have more alums in dallas than either of you. We deliver DFW as much as either of you given equal success.

2- BU has a larger fanbase than any of TCU, SMU, UH, or Rice. We have a top overall athletic department despite football being dead for a long time. We profit from associating with UT, A&M, and OU but we are far from "nothing". That comment is like some of my fellow bu fans ripping on tcu and diminishing what they have accomplished.

1. TCU - 9,000
SMU -10,000
Baylor- 14,000

Those are the real numbers, I'm not making them up. So, yeah, you're way off on that half bit.

Undergrads who actually show up and aren't loyal elsewhere:
Baylor- 12,000
SMU- 6,000
TCU- 7,500

Both of us were accurate, I focused on undergrads, you added grad students. I think undergrads is a better measure and either way the only affect it has is to strengthen smu and BU-TCU remain the same margins for the most part.

Quote:Also, Baylor is not in Dallas. Appealing to your alums in Dallas is not the same as being able to generate interest among the general population. That task is made far easier by actually having the school in the population center that's desired. So, I can safely say that when you say Baylor would deliver the Dallas market that that's just wishful thinking on your part.

I live in big D and we get every bit as much press as TCU or SMU when we are good in any major sport. We have similar numbers of people to the other two and for the record none of us deliver it. After UT and A&M even TT is wishful thinking in terms of "delivering it". My comment was delivering it as much as tcu or smu which is certainly fair given numbers of alumni and attention from the dallas press. Unless tcu is on a bcs run (congrats btw) alumni are really the only major interested parties for any of them in dfw as the casual fan gets typically scooped up by Cowboys, UT, A&M, or other larger groups.

Quote:2. I did not say Baylor is nothing. I said it would be nothing if not for its association with Big 12 schools. If you don't believe me, look at the great difficulties experienced by SMU, Rice, Houston, and even TCU. Yes, TCU has been good for several years, but it long experienced its own share of difficulties. If not for the Big 12, Baylor would be in a horrible position. There's nothing wrong with admitting that.

Our position would certainly be worse but I never considered those schools to be "nothing" and accordingly I never thought BU would be either without the other B12 south schools. You say thats nothing, I give it more credit. No real disagreement beyond using different terminology (your use of "nothing"= my use of "ok program").

Quote:I really don't understand how it's offensive to say that Baylor would be a shadow of what it is if not for the Big 12. Personally, I'd be grateful if I went to Baylor that my school was so fortunate.

I am grateful we have been fortunate. I don't know if we would be a shadow of what we are (TCU is certainly not a shadow of its SWC doormat past) but the school would certainly be financially weaker as a result and centex would be financially hurt.

(12-26-2010 11:07 PM)JeffRaider2000 Wrote:  

(12-26-2010 10:19 PM)canewton Wrote:  Baylor makes up it's attendance. It gave away 12,000 tickets to it's home opener this year.

Do you have a link to support that claim? I do know that they are buying up Bowl tickets and will have a large presence in the Houston Bowl something that 50 other FBS teams can't say because they are sitting at home during the holidays. It remains to be seen if they can beat last years 69K for Missouri vs Navy.

http://www.illinoisloyalty.com/GoIllini/...es_surging

http://www.baylorbears.com/sports/m-foot...10aaa.html

I would have evidence of that claim except you have to be registered or something with the waco tribune (although I think I was wrong, I think they distributed 12,000 tickets to last years NWST game). I do not know how many free tickets they gave away to SHSU, but I do know they sold a whole bunch of $2 tickets.

http://www.wacotrib.com/news/Baylor-want...scare.html

Also, there was a post about it on the Baylor board but I don't feel like making an account in order to search for it.



Also there is this:
Baylor v Nebraska 2009, Announced attendance: 31702





I actually have no problem talking **** about Baylor attendance in comparison to ours. We don't get to play a home slate against Kansas, Texas Tech, Kansas State, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma in a year and have their fans put an extra 10-20K fans in our stands per game.

Remember when the Big12 was seemingly falling apart and everyone was laughing at Baylor except Baylor fans? Remember when reports came out saying TCU would block Baylor's inclusion into the MWC? Everyone was laughing because they knew they'd turn into Tulane or Rice without the Big12.

(12-27-2010 01:12 AM)canewton Wrote:  Also there is this:
Baylor v Nebraska 2009, Announced attendance: 31702

That is pregame (notice the band) when the students (who run on the field before the game and make up virtually all the bu fans on that side of the stadium) have yet to get their seats as they are preparing to run and also in a lame duck year after RG3 had been hurt and we had just been blown out by OSU. Compare an actual in-game photo or 2005 NU when we were decent for a fair comparison. Also the other side was pretty full and I was there for that game. Not a good showing either way but that photo is absolutely misleading.

Quote:I actually have no problem talking **** about Baylor attendance in comparison to ours. We don't get to play a home slate against Kansas, Texas Tech, Kansas State, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma in a year and have their fans put an extra 10-20K fans per game.

UH does not have a leg to stand on in attendance comparison vs BU.

First since everyone runs to this, 10-20k is only really UT, A&M, Nebraska or OU. KSU, KU, MU, CU, OSU, and ISU do not bring that many. This equates to 2 games per year for 3 of 4 years with one game in the other year. Furthermore it is rare that the 4 schools get 20k. So even giving 20k and 2 home games (absolute best help) you get a boost of 5-6k at most. If you drop the number to 15k you get a boost of 4k overall. Now if you go with the most realistice 15 for one and 10 for the other it is only 2.5k its helping our season average. Not nearly the spike it is assumed to be although it certainly helps.

As for BU vs UH:
The data makes this completely one-sided. UH does not draw as well or even come close.

Home attendance vs similar opponents this decade without including UT or TT to be fair to UH's stadium size (games against SMU, TCU, TxSt, NW State, UAB, Army, OkState, USF, Rice 2007)
BU: 31,000
UH: 20,000

Attendance from SWC common opponents:
UH's best record years with Run & Shoot playing in the dome:
28,000 (inflates UH by 3-5k)

BU average in general- 37,000 (fair take on BU)

I can pull out more if needed but the answer is pretty clear. You don't get to play UT or A&M each year but would not match us anyway and never have for that matter. It helps our numbers but not nearly as much as rival fans think. UT, OU, A&M help but your attendance numbers are more correlated to what you bring each game than a 1 or 2 game spike from an opponent. We also show up well when we are competitive. We brought over 40k vs UConn in 09, SHSU in 10, and Buffalo in 2010 all with virtually no traveling fans. UH can probably count on one hand how many times they passed 40k without UT or A&M doing it for them. I mean no disrespect to UH but this is the truth.

Quote:Remember when the Big12 was seemingly falling apart and everyone was laughing at Baylor except Baylor fans? Everyone was laughing because they knew they'd turn into Tulane or Rice without the Big12.

BU supports the program well enough now that would not happen and we'd be right with you, smu, and tulsa at worst.