http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/04/2...ategy.html

(05-05-2012 12:54 AM)panama Wrote:  http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/04/2...ategy.html

Come on Benson!!!!! Lets make this happen ASAP.

Some times you just have to look past the market size of a University and focus more on other positives they have to offer a conference. App. is like the Alabama of the the FCS. They are considerably strong every year in football and have a strong foundation in their athletics. They are well known, if not the most popular FCS school in the North & South-East regions. They have a good fan-base that is growing considerably each year.

This is a great opportunity for the Sun Belt to reach out and offer them a home. It would be dumb not too. Conference Realignment is not over and the MWC, C-USA, & Sun Belt are going to be raided again...Georgia Southern & App State would be a great addition.

Man, you guys love you some App and Southern. LOL!

What sticks out for me is not market size but rather 2.5 hour drive from airport. If I am in Texas, Louisiana or Arkansas I might not like to have to take two planes and then a 2.5 hour drive.

App State will continue to be a better program than all the recent SunBelt adds.

Just shows how idiotic realignment has become.

Appalachian State's jerseys are awesome.

aren't there any smaller airports closer to Boone than Charlotte?

WVU teams fly out of a small airport about 25 or 30 miles south of Morgantown and not out of Pittsburgh which is about an hour or so away

(05-05-2012 08:03 AM)panama Wrote:  Man, you guys love you some App and Southern. LOL!

What sticks out for me is not market size but rather 2.5 hour drive from airport. If I am in Texas, Louisiana or Arkansas I might not like to have to take two planes and then a 2.5 hour drive.

Our yardsticks for travel are Idaho and NMSU. Because of this....I'm not feeling any App State airport hate.

(05-05-2012 11:54 AM)Theodoresdaddy Wrote:  aren't there any smaller airports closer to Boone than Charlotte?

WVU teams fly out of a small airport about 25 or 30 miles south of Morgantown and not out of Pittsburgh which is about an hour or so away

That may change in the very near future. They're trying to get approval to extend the runway, so that it's long enough to accomodate larger charther flights. Once that happens, large planes will be able to fly into Morgantown and the drive from Clarksburg/Pittsburgh won't be neccessary...

(05-05-2012 11:54 AM)Theodoresdaddy Wrote:  aren't there any smaller airports closer to Boone than Charlotte?

WVU teams fly out of a small airport about 25 or 30 miles south of Morgantown and not out of Pittsburgh which is about an hour or so away

Tri-Cities (Tennessee) is the closest to Boone (less than an hour as the crow flies, well over an hour with the roads) but with limited connection cities (Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, Cincinnati). Asheville (NC) has a lot of connections (two hours), as does the Triad Airport (Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point) and mainly four lane roads. Greenville (SC) has Southwest flights and really isn't that far.

(05-05-2012 11:57 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(05-05-2012 08:03 AM)panama Wrote:  Man, you guys love you some App and Southern. LOL!

What sticks out for me is not market size but rather 2.5 hour drive from airport. If I am in Texas, Louisiana or Arkansas I might not like to have to take two planes and then a 2.5 hour drive.

Our yardsticks for travel are Idaho and NMSU. Because of this....I'm not feeling any App State airport hate.

I guess as a fan or Olympic sports team it depends on how many flights and how many miles I have to drive. NMSU and Idaho are not gone be fun either. NMSU is slightly better in that you can fly to El Paso and drive 35 mins. For you guys I imagine its Memphis to Charlotte and then 2.5 hrs assuming any airlines in Memphis fly directly to Charlotte. I am guessing ULM and Louisiana would have to fly to Atlanta to connect and then fly to Charlotte or Greensboro and then drive. I think you need a Space Shuttle to Idaho.

App State to the Sun Belt OR MAC would be a great move for them.

Charlotte had the ace up the sleeve because of being a former CUSA member. Its not 100% Charlotte market for them.

App. State AD gets it and it's time for The Belt to make that move. Let's make it about winning football games. People want to watch good football. They don't care about what market you are in.

(05-05-2012 12:44 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(05-05-2012 11:54 AM)Theodoresdaddy Wrote:  aren't there any smaller airports closer to Boone than Charlotte?

WVU teams fly out of a small airport about 25 or 30 miles south of Morgantown and not out of Pittsburgh which is about an hour or so away

That may change in the very near future. They're trying to get approval to extend the runway, so that it's long enough to accomodate larger charther flights. Once that happens, large planes will be able to fly into Morgantown and the drive from Clarksburg/Pittsburgh won't be neccessary...

I hope that measure fails, not because of my disdain for WVU, but because it would be a waste of tax payer dollars.

The Morgantown airport has some of the lowest traffic out of any commercial airport. It cannot compete with a major airport only an hour away.

To be honest, it should probably be removed from the EAS program because of this proximity.

I certainly can feel App's pain, and have a great deal of sympathy for what their fans are going through. Seeing programs who haven't accomplished what yours has, who don't have the fan support yours has move past you for no other reason than location is frustrating beyond belief. Quite frankly it bothers me at my core that we are contributing to it, but I don't have any say.

On the ASU travel to App if it happened, I imagine we would bus. We bus to every SBC school not in Florida.

(05-05-2012 08:03 AM)panama Wrote:  Man, you guys love you some App and Southern. LOL!

What sticks out for me is not market size but rather 2.5 hour drive from airport. If I am in Texas, Louisiana or Arkansas I might not like to have to take two planes and then a 2.5 hour drive.

Hickory and tri-cites are both an hour away.

So is App the ECU of the SoCon?

Markets make no sense to me.

(05-05-2012 07:59 PM)mufanatehc Wrote:  

(05-05-2012 12:44 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(05-05-2012 11:54 AM)Theodoresdaddy Wrote:  aren't there any smaller airports closer to Boone than Charlotte?

WVU teams fly out of a small airport about 25 or 30 miles south of Morgantown and not out of Pittsburgh which is about an hour or so away

That may change in the very near future. They're trying to get approval to extend the runway, so that it's long enough to accomodate larger charther flights. Once that happens, large planes will be able to fly into Morgantown and the drive from Clarksburg/Pittsburgh won't be neccessary...

I hope that measure fails, not because of my disdain for WVU, but because it would be a waste of tax payer dollars.

The Morgantown airport has some of the lowest traffic out of any commercial airport. It cannot compete with a major airport only an hour away.

To be honest, it should probably be removed from the EAS program because of this proximity.

I could care less about opinions on air travel from people around Huntington. If it weren't for the people in Huntington, there would be a large hub airport, accomodating both Charleston and Huntington, sitting in Teays Valley. The leaders for the City of Huntington almost killed the city. No interstate through town, no airport, no mall, no nothing worth talking about. The only reason the city still exists is because of Marshall...

The biggest reason the Morgantown airport receives so little traffic is because people drive to Clarksburg or Pittsburgh to catch the cheaper flights. If there was a decent airport in Morgantown, it would be twice as busy as the airport in Huntington. It would probably be as busy as Charleston's airport, with a decent runway...

From the sound of it, Appalachian State is picking up an invite from the SBC and they are now #1 on the SBC expansion list.

http://csnbbs.com/showthread.php?tid=568845


I'm not sure if the MAC has offered here or not but it sounds like both ASU and JMU are prepared to declare intentions next week.

(05-06-2012 08:58 PM)Louis Kitton Wrote:  From the sound of it, Appalachian State is picking up an invite from the SBC and they are now #1 on the SBC expansion list.

http://csnbbs.com/showthread.php?tid=568845


I'm not sure if the MAC has offered here or not but it sounds like both ASU and JMU are prepared to declare intentions next week.

You cant use an unsubstantiated post on another part of the same site to make a point. Space time may fold in on itself.