I'm glad this happened. It just didn't make sence for Boise State (or for that matter SD St.) to be in the Big East. This is also a bad thing as the Big East continues to get weaker. I wonder what this means for other schools and conferences such as ETSU?

If the Big East survives, then the Big East is the new Conference USA.

Supposedly, when ETSU dropped football, they were cockeyed enough to believe they'd be a good fit for the C-USA at this point. They called them and asked to be considered for membership, and the C-USA laughed at them and said their facilities were dreadful.

And that's when ETSU decided to build new facilities. Unfortunately, they did it the "college administrator way," where the soccer stadium is as important as the multiple event arena the area so desperately needs. The facilities were built in favor of the needs of the Atlantic Sun (soccer, softball, baseball) rather than the community.

But here's my own cockeyed vision. And it's ETSU in the Big East. After all, it's the new Conference USA.

The problem is, why would the Big East want them? No football, and even if it starts up it won't be really at the level they want it to be at until 2020 at the absolute soonest and that is tremendous cockeyed optimism. The basketball team stinks. The TV market is top 100 but it's going to be a sales job to make that out to be a positive. Not saying it can't be, but it's a sales job.

Still, I just think that it's not that unreasonable a goal for ETSU to be an athletic program on the level of East Carolina, Memphis, UCF and USF, Connecticut, Tulane, Temple, Houston, SMU, and Navy in 10-15 years.

(01-01-2013 06:11 PM)PittsburghBucs Wrote:  And that's when ETSU decided to build new facilities. Unfortunately, they did it the "college administrator way,"

The Big East needs teams, you say? I know of one that's looking to move up...

More Old News:San Diego State is now offically staying in Mountain West.

Who knows, maybe the execs at the Big East are crazy enough to consider ETSU. I would consider the Big East to be an upgrade from C-USA.. It's still basketball heavy. I'll cross my fingers and start praying.

(01-21-2013 04:05 PM)Youre my boy blue! Wrote:  Who knows, maybe the execs at the Big East are crazy enough to consider ETSU. I would consider the Big East to be an upgrade from C-USA.. It's still basketball heavy. I'll cross my fingers and start praying.

it would definitely be a step up from the ASun and SoCon, but we probably aren't even on their radar. They are probably looking at App State though

(01-21-2013 04:48 PM)etsudolfan Wrote:  

(01-21-2013 04:05 PM)Youre my boy blue! Wrote:  Who knows, maybe the execs at the Big East are crazy enough to consider ETSU. I would consider the Big East to be an upgrade from C-USA.. It's still basketball heavy. I'll cross my fingers and start praying.

it would definitely be a step up from the ASun and SoCon, but we probably aren't even on their radar. They are probably looking at App State though

Obviously you haven't seen our new tennis score board.. We're on a lot of people's radars right now. LOL

(01-21-2013 04:05 PM)Youre my boy blue! Wrote:  Who knows, maybe the execs at the Big East are crazy enough to consider ETSU. I would consider the Big East to be an upgrade from C-USA.. It's still basketball heavy. I'll cross my fingers and start praying.

The Big East will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER take us, for reasons that have nothing to do with quality of play.

These are the media markets that the Big East's long-term members bring in (national rank in parentheses):

Temple - Philadelphia (4)
Southern Methodist - Dallas (5)
Houston - Houston (10)
South Florida - Tampa (13)
Central Florida - Orlando (19)
Connecticut - Greater Hartford (30)
Cincinnati - Cincinnati (34)
Memphis - Memphis (48)
Tulane - New Orleans (53)


They rely on those large media markets to get them more TV money. That's the biggest issue in the loss of the Catholic Seven: five of them are in top 10 media markets, plus #35 Milwaukee (Marquette) and #53 Providence. That's a lot of potential eyeballs lost. The Tri-Cities ranks 92nd nationally, which is way below what the Big East is looking for. They won't even consider ETSU.

That makes a lot of sense after looking at the revenue breakdown for FBS schools on mommabears post. Tv deals accounted for something like 18% of income.

Where does Knoxville rank as far as tv markets go? The Tri is roughly the size of Knox right? UT seems to be in a Pretty good position as far as tv markets go

(01-22-2013 05:08 PM)Youre my boy blue! Wrote:  That makes a lot of sense after looking at the revenue breakdown for FBS schools on mommabears post. Tv deals accounted for something like 18% of income.

Where does Knoxville rank as far as tv markets go? The Tri is roughly the size of Knox right? UT seems to be in a Pretty good position as far as tv markets go

Knoxville is 59th over 200,000 larger then the Tri-Cities in 92nd place.

hmmm... I never would have guessed that. I lived in knoxville for a long time and always got the sense that it was a smaller metro.

Maybe the big east is looking for larger markets but plenty of schools succeed without being in huge cities. Either way people like to watch teams that win... we're not even doing that with any consistency against the Majors in basketball let alone any mid majors.