(01-21-2012 01:18 AM)PATiger Wrote:  Considering that everyone in CUSA uses charter flights for the football team, geography isn't quite as much of a concern.

I disagree. The travel for the other sports, and for fans who like to follow the team, is also a factor. The UNT fan made a similar point below.

I believe we want to get into large cities for ease of travel for our scholar athletes, and places where Southwest Airlines flies for the rest of our fans. It is fast and easy to get between Houston and El Paso, but not so much between Houston and Greenville.

I like Georgia State, UNT, and UTSA.

(01-21-2012 10:01 AM)MeanGreenGem Wrote:  My bad...

Yet our students voted to fund a large portion of our new stadium and to also fund year to year increase of our athletic budget and $22M now and $24M next year are the numbers I've read on our board. Still our geographical location with less air travel expenses because of it still saves us what other schools undoubtedly have to increase their budgets since that part of their budgets are not just for football, but all men and womens varsity sports travel expenses. I guess the main question is: Where can a link of updated FBS athletic dept. budgets for 2010 or even better, 2011 be found on the internet?

But this link even has the 2011 CUSA football champion even under or close to several SBC schools and (seriously) I just don't think I understand or really believe that; that is, unless USM is the most frugal outfit in CUSA and really knows how to get more bang for their buck.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/28597...after-2010

USM does compete at a very high level in football. Baseball too. But that's about it. Their basketball team is having one of their best years in several decades, but they generally don't field an NCAA tournament team. If we wanted to add a school as football-only and they chose to sink the bulk of their resources into that one sport, they could compete. But we don't need a part-time member and we don't need a member that sacrifices every other sport just for one.

No need to overdo the bold print. We can read it just fine without it.

(01-21-2012 10:09 AM)ESE84 Wrote:  I disagree. The travel for the other sports, and for fans who like to follow the team, is also a factor. The UNT fan made a similar point below.

I believe we want to get into large cities for ease of travel for our scholar athletes, and places where Southwest Airlines flies for the rest of our fans. It is fast and easy to get between Houston and El Paso, but not so much between Houston and Greenville.

I like Georgia State, UNT, and UTSA.

Temple is in Philadelphia. FIU is in Miami. ODU is in Norfolk, which is pretty easy to get to as well. I agree that it's a bit tougher to get to Greenville as the Pitt-Greenville aiport only has US Airways flights to Charlotte. It would be extremely tough for some schools to get to places like Ruston or Bowling Green.

FYI, Southwest officially announced that as part of the merger they will be taking over the AirTran gates at the Memphis airport in the near future.

(01-21-2012 10:17 AM)PATiger Wrote:  

(01-21-2012 10:01 AM)MeanGreenGem Wrote:  My bad...

Yet our students voted to fund a large portion of our new stadium and to also fund year to year increase of our athletic budget and $22M now and $24M next year are the numbers I've read on our board. Still our geographical location with less air travel expenses because of it still saves us what other schools undoubtedly have to increase their budgets since that part of their budgets are not just for football, but all men and womens varsity sports travel expenses. I guess the main question is: Where can a link of updated FBS athletic dept. budgets for 2010 or even better, 2011 be found on the internet?

But this link even has the 2011 CUSA football champion even under or close to several SBC schools and (seriously) I just don't think I understand or really believe that; that is, unless USM is the most frugal outfit in CUSA and really knows how to get more bang for their buck.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/28597...after-2010

USM does compete at a very high level in football. Baseball too. But that's about it. Their basketball team is having one of their best years in several decades, but they generally don't field an NCAA tournament team. If we wanted to add a school as football-only and they chose to sink the bulk of their resources into that one sport, they could compete. But we don't need a part-time member and we don't need a member that sacrifices every other sport just for one.

No need to overdo the bold print. We can read it just fine without it.

(01-21-2012 10:09 AM)ESE84 Wrote:  I disagree. The travel for the other sports, and for fans who like to follow the team, is also a factor. The UNT fan made a similar point below.

I believe we want to get into large cities for ease of travel for our scholar athletes, and places where Southwest Airlines flies for the rest of our fans. It is fast and easy to get between Houston and El Paso, but not so much between Houston and Greenville.

I like Georgia State, UNT, and UTSA.

Temple is in Philadelphia. FIU is in Miami. ODU is in Norfolk, which is pretty easy to get to as well. I agree that it's a bit tougher to get to Greenville as the Pitt-Greenville aiport only has US Airways flights to Charlotte. It would be extremely tough for some schools to get to places like Ruston or Bowling Green.

FYI, Southwest officially announced that as part of the merger they will be taking over the AirTran gates at the Memphis airport in the near future.

Have heard some rumors in past year that PGV in Greenville is close to getting flights to DC and Philly with another carrier but cannot remember the new proposed carrier (and I am not even sure they released who the carrier would be unofficially). Wouldn't help that much with direct connections to anyone but Temple but would at least give two more large airports to fly into to get to Greenville.

Another thing to consider is that schools outiside major cities, like UNT in Denton and MTSU in Murfreesboro, would require a flight and a pretty significant drive by fans. Adding another hour on the ground after flying a couple of hours would make it more inconvenient to get to these schools for both athletes and fans.

(01-21-2012 01:18 AM)PATiger Wrote:  Folks, let's try to keep this one smack-free. We had a good discussion going for a while.

This is the current map of the remaining 17 CUSA and MWC teams.

Wow Hawaii is really on an island in this conference! /badpun

(01-21-2012 10:35 AM)PATiger Wrote:  Another thing to consider is that schools outiside major cities, like UNT in Denton and MTSU in Murfreesboro, would require a flight and a pretty significant drive by fans. Adding another hour on the ground after flying a couple of hours would make it more inconvenient to get to these schools for both athletes and fans.

Actually, the DFW International Airport is almost the same distance to UNT as it is to SMU and probably an easier drive. Their new stadium is right next to the Interstate as well.

SMU is 10 miles closer to DFW than UNT is. SMU is closer to Dallas Love Field (where Southwest has a HUGE presence) than DFW, so it's not true that it's just as easy to get to UNT as it is to get to SMU.

Not that SMU matters, since they will be going to the Big East.

(01-21-2012 08:57 AM)PATiger Wrote:  

(01-21-2012 08:39 AM)ECUgradstudent Wrote:  I think you make good points. Obviously the three you mentioned are big tv markets, but what is their current athletic department budgets as that is important as you mentioned? If you are going to consider ODU (which is FCS), I think you have to include Ga State too.

I still think the merger might be looking at going to 20 teams to have 9 conference games in football (since alot of other conferences are playing 9 conference games, there will be less options for a 4th OOC game so that will be important and the merger could play no non divisional games in basketball/baseball and other olympic sports with a round robin divisional only home&home for conference games totaling 18 games). If the tv payout per team justified going to 20 teams total, UTEP could stay east and add one of the teams above along with SJSU and Utah State OR UTEP could be put in west with selecting SJSU or Utah State and then two in the east (preferrably the two would help ECU and Marshall with geography).

Someone posted a mpa with all the possible expansion candidates so if someone can post that, we could compare geography to other teams while considering tv market and budget.

Georgia State has a significantly smaller athletic budget than ODU, so I'd consider ODU much quicker than GSU. Plus, GSU has a lot more competition in their market than ODU does.

20 teams are too many. A nine game conference schedule is not balanced. There would be some teams with more home games than road games and others with more road games than home games. 18 teams allows for a balance of four home and four road conference games.

Geography is less of an issue as teams will charter flights to games. If it's only 2 hours and 15 minutes from Greenville to Houston, then teams do not have to be located in the geographic center of the conference. FIU is a short hour and a half flight from Greenville. It's also a two hour flight from Houston. ODU is a two and a half hour flight from Houston and a two hour and fifteen minute flight from Tulsa. Contrary to some unusual posts by the fans of non-CUSA schools, this is not a bus league and it never will be.

Honestly, I'd use athletic budget and market size as the first two cut-off points in selecting new candidates. They need to offer us a decent market in order to negotiate better television contracts and they need to have an adquate budget to compete in all sports in CUSA. If they don't have those two, I'd have to vote them down.

For example, La Tech is mentioned quite a bit. If they were to join, they would have an athletic budget several million dollars lower than Southern Miss (who is near the bottom). They would also be the smallest market with 58,349 in Lincoln and Jackson parishes, or roughly 40% of the size of the Hattiesburg market. There is absolutely no way they would have either the market to benefit the other nine teams with a new television contract nor the resources to compete on a regular basis. They would be a resounding NO.

You make a lot of sense. We need to put you on any expansion committee the Alliance comes up with. Additionally, I would agree that if expansion goes beyone 1 or 2 teams, we need to look at schools like ODU, GSU and even UNCC, if those schools want to move up in FB. Basketball and markets are essential ingredients because that's going to be a good part of any tv contract.

Initial choices would be the teams you listed earlier and I think UNT has to be at or near the top. Easy to get to since the DFW International Airport is almost equal distance from UNT and SMU. The market potential is great, the recruiting area is outstanding, their FB has been very good in the past and is on the way back, they've put money into facilities, basketball is better than a lot of other candidates and basketball attendance certainly is better. Add UNT to the east and move UTEP to the west. And as you said, this is not nor will it ever be, a bus league. I feel for ECU and Marshall and if Temple can be added, great, that helps them somewhat. I doubt Temple comes though and even if they do, they will have one foot out the door towards the BE as soon as another opening occurs.

(01-21-2012 11:05 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  We need to put you on any expansion committee the Alliance comes up with.

I'd rather be on the committee that watches the cheerleader tryouts. I have an eye for "talent."

(01-21-2012 11:01 AM)PATiger Wrote:  SMU is 10 miles closer to DFW than UNT is. SMU is closer to Dallas Love Field (where Southwest has a HUGE presence) than DFW, so it's not true that it's just as easy to get to UNT as it is to get to SMU.

Not that SMU matters, since they will be going to the Big East.

That 10 miles farther is much easier travel. I've been there on those freeways and believe me, it's not enough difference to come to the conclusion that UNT is too hard to get to. They are not. And I used the SMU comparison because of the market and our experience with SMU in the past. I realize they are going to the BE but we can begin to reclaim the DFW market to some degree with UNT.

(01-21-2012 11:09 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  

(01-21-2012 11:01 AM)PATiger Wrote:  SMU is 10 miles closer to DFW than UNT is. SMU is closer to Dallas Love Field (where Southwest has a HUGE presence) than DFW, so it's not true that it's just as easy to get to UNT as it is to get to SMU.

Not that SMU matters, since they will be going to the Big East.

That 10 miles farther is much easier travel. I've been there on those freeways and believe me, it's not enough difference to come to the conclusion that UNT is too hard to get to. They are not. And I used the SMU comparison because of the market and our experience with SMU in the past. I realize they are going to the BE but we can begin to reclaim the DFW market to some degree with UNT.

The DFW market is saturated with UT, TAMU, TCU, and SMU fans. I'm not sure how much market penetration UNT would have with that much competition. The same reasoning makes me a bit hesitent about FIU. Temple has no real competition in Philly, other than the pro sports because no other univerisity in town offers FBS football. ODU doesn't have a lot of competition in their market either.

(01-21-2012 11:09 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  

(01-21-2012 11:01 AM)PATiger Wrote:  SMU is 10 miles closer to DFW than UNT is. SMU is closer to Dallas Love Field (where Southwest has a HUGE presence) than DFW, so it's not true that it's just as easy to get to UNT as it is to get to SMU.

Not that SMU matters, since they will be going to the Big East.

That 10 miles farther is much easier travel. I've been there on those freeways and believe me, it's not enough difference to come to the conclusion that UNT is too hard to get to. They are not. And I used the SMU comparison because of the market and our experience with SMU in the past. I realize they are going to the BE but we can begin to reclaim the DFW market to some degree with UNT.

SMU will have a challenge in the Big East. I would not want to be playing Boise State, Houston, UCF, and San Diego State each year plus another 3 or 4 Big East schools. Their path to a bowl game will be harder in the Big East than it was in C-USA.

If SMU finds themselves as one of the Big East bottom rung programs, it might be much easier for us to reclaim Dallas with UNT than we think.

(01-21-2012 11:24 AM)ESE84 Wrote:  

(01-21-2012 11:09 AM)MinerInWisconsin Wrote:  

(01-21-2012 11:01 AM)PATiger Wrote:  SMU is 10 miles closer to DFW than UNT is. SMU is closer to Dallas Love Field (where Southwest has a HUGE presence) than DFW, so it's not true that it's just as easy to get to UNT as it is to get to SMU.

Not that SMU matters, since they will be going to the Big East.

That 10 miles farther is much easier travel. I've been there on those freeways and believe me, it's not enough difference to come to the conclusion that UNT is too hard to get to. They are not. And I used the SMU comparison because of the market and our experience with SMU in the past. I realize they are going to the BE but we can begin to reclaim the DFW market to some degree with UNT.

SMU will have a challenge in the Big East. I would not want to be playing Boise State, Houston, UCF, and San Diego State each year plus another 3 or 4 Big East schools. Their path to a bowl game will be harder in the Big East than it was in C-USA.

If SMU finds themselves as one of the Big East bottom rung programs, it might be much easier for us to reclaim Dallas with UNT than we think.

Now that is a possibility. Most likely, they'll be in the West, playing BSU, SDSU, Houston, and a couple of other teams. The new Big East will be significantly more difficult than CUSA, and they already struggled here. In basketball, they will most likely be near the bottom of the conference standings on a regular basis.

It's possible they'll make more money, but be less successful in athletics.

(01-21-2012 08:42 AM)PATiger Wrote:  Of the FCS schools, ODU has the biggest athletic budget at $29,048,014.00 for the 2009-2010 year. In fact, they have a bigger athletic budget than several FBS teams that are being discussed.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/n...nances.htm

In comparison:

Memphis - $39,520,842.00
ECU - $30,473,691.00
UTEP - $26,614,312.00
Marhall - $25,678,598.00
UAB - $23,839,180.00
Southern Miss - $19,641,550.00


WKU - $23,243,348.00
FIU - $22,509,591.00
MTSU - $20,800,017.00
GSU - $17,195,830.00
UNT- $17,105,046.00
La Tech - $16,481,887.00
App State - $16,185,310.00
FAU - $15,208,667.00
ASU - $13,332,956.00
UTSA - $12,948,900.00
ULL - $12,357,621.00


I understand that all of these numbers are a couple of years old. But it can be assumed that ALL of the schools spend more today than they did a couple of years ago. It is HIGHLY doubtful than any schools other than ODU significantly added to their athletic budgets enough to leap into the middle of CUSA.

Right now, the gap between the top and the bottom athletic budgets in CUSA is close to $20M. If a school does not have adequate funding in place, they have very little chance of competing across the board.

The USAToday numbers are 2 years old and incomplete guys. Get your numbers from the Gubment.

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/

Our budget is $22.6 million

(01-21-2012 11:35 AM)panama Wrote:  The USAToday numbers are 2 years old and incomplete guys. Get your numbers from the Gubment.

http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/

Our budget is $22.6 million

Even so, everyone else's budgets have gone up and your current numbers would put you near the bottom of CUSA's budgets from two years ago. ODU was at $29M two years ago, so I'd still have to take them over GSU.

(01-21-2012 11:13 AM)PATiger Wrote:  The DFW market is saturated with UT, TAMU, TCU, and SMU fans. I'm not sure how much market penetration UNT would have with that much competition. The same reasoning makes me a bit hesitent about FIU. Temple has no real competition in Philly, other than the pro sports because no other univerisity in town offers FBS football. ODU doesn't have a lot of competition in their market either.

Just some benign trolling here, however, Miami-Dade Co. is larger, population wise than 15 states and if you add Broward Co., it's larger than 1/2 the states. It is cane country but with 180,000 alumni and 44,000 students (projected to grow to 62,000 by 2015) there's probably some pent-up demand should the programs profile continue to increase. We're enclosing the north side of the stadium to make it a full bowl before 2012's first game, bringing capacity to ~25,000. Capacity is being added as demand dictates.

Also, the state of Florida annually produces nearly 400 FBS caliber football players. With 7 FBS schools vying for this talent, that's only 175 if we were to take our full allotment of 25 each year, which we clearly don't as three or four programs recruit nationally. That leaves 250 - 300 athletes for other programs to recruit; I can't imagine C-USA not having a presence in this state.

Further, recruiting and ath. dept. budgets are already very C-USA'esque. Finally, we're one of the few options with both a Law and Medical School and have close to 50 Phd programs.

Sorry about the shameless plug; I'll get back to my reading now.

As I have made clear I am completely on the ODU bandwagon. They only have 2 issues, the fact that they are FCS, and that they need to expand their football stadium. Everything else about them is at or above most of the league, and their attendance in football even with their small stadium is impressive. If they expand and move up they could easily fill 35k immediately. I know attendance doesn't matter to most, but they also have the largest market without a pro-sports team and are so far removed from the other state schools that they would really be the biggest thing going in the area.

I'd be okay with FIU. It would be an upgrade over the Orlando market, and the school has been relatively successful lately in football. The budget numbers, while still on the lower end of CUSA, are still comparable.

Like I said, my only concern was the saturation of the South Florida market.

One thing's for sure. It would be one of the better road trips for fans. South Florida is amazing.

(01-21-2012 11:57 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  As I have made clear I am completely on the ODU bandwagon. They only have 2 issues, the fact that they are FCS, and that they need to expand their football stadium. Everything else about them is at or above most of the league, and their attendance in football even with their small stadium is impressive. If they expand and move up they could easily fill 35k immediately. I know attendance doesn't matter to most, but they also have the largest market without a pro-sports team and are so far removed from the other state schools that they would really be the biggest thing going in the area.

I'd be okay with ODU as well. If they could move up to FBS, they would easily be in my top three.

I am completely against GSU. I did not even know the university existed until the Blazers played a basketball game there... and I have lived in the Atlanta area for several years.

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