(03-07-2018 06:05 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 05:15 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Two possibilities
1) The MWC has done no homework, and needs to be educated on the recruiting and marketing potential in Houston and on the existence of the University of Rice.
2) The MWC has considered Houston's potential, and inviting Rice to join, but isn't interested.

One of these is wishful thinking.

The third possibility is that they are interested in Rice. There's just no evidence for that.

Variation on third possibility: Not only are they interested, MWC invited Rice! Rice said no; we're holding out for better.

That's what we told the SEC, but that was a long time ago.

(03-07-2018 05:44 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 05:00 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 04:43 PM)Ourland Wrote:  Everyone is waiting to see what comes of the Big 12. It's future will determine who moves where

This, unsurprisingly, isn't true. Gonzaga and 5 other schools are currently making moves. Statements of wishful thinking don't make them happen.

In general, it is true. This is a basketball move by the MWC. No full memberships that we know of are being discussed. If so, Rice looks more attractive than most of the other candidates. I doubt seriously there will be another wave of realignment / merging until after the Big12 renegotiates a new television contract. I do hope Rice has a couple years to improve before things shake up again, but I'm confident it could get into the MWC today, if not. No statements of wishful thinking are necessary.

Confident based on what? I assure you our pathetic 200k per year from CUSA isn't what is keeping us here vs the MWC.

They likely don't want us because we add nothing to them.

(03-07-2018 06:08 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:05 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 05:15 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Two possibilities
1) The MWC has done no homework, and needs to be educated on the recruiting and marketing potential in Houston and on the existence of the University of Rice.
2) The MWC has considered Houston's potential, and inviting Rice to join, but isn't interested.

One of these is wishful thinking.

The third possibility is that they are interested in Rice. There's just no evidence for that.

Variation on third possibility: Not only are they interested, MWC invited Rice! Rice said no; we're holding out for better.

That's what we told the SEC, but that was a long time ago.

Variation of 2 is the Houston potential angle is no longer as valuable as it once was/projected to be. On demand is making large inroads into the captive cable market.. so interest is no longer geographical.

Without Houston's market, Rice offers nothing. And thus they aren't interested.

(03-07-2018 06:11 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 05:44 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 05:00 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 04:43 PM)Ourland Wrote:  Everyone is waiting to see what comes of the Big 12. It's future will determine who moves where

This, unsurprisingly, isn't true. Gonzaga and 5 other schools are currently making moves. Statements of wishful thinking don't make them happen.

In general, it is true. This is a basketball move by the MWC. No full memberships that we know of are being discussed. If so, Rice looks more attractive than most of the other candidates. I doubt seriously there will be another wave of realignment / merging until after the Big12 renegotiates a new television contract. I do hope Rice has a couple years to improve before things shake up again, but I'm confident it could get into the MWC today, if not. No statements of wishful thinking are necessary.

Confident based on what? I assure you our pathetic 200k per year from CUSA isn't what is keeping us here vs the MWC.

They likely don't want us because we add nothing to them.

If the MWC wanted to expand into Texas, it would take Rice based solely on the fact that Houston is an enormous media hub, let alone the fact that Rice has invested millions in athletics infrastructure and is one of the best schools in the south. Rice is a name brand.

(03-07-2018 07:15 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:11 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 05:44 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 05:00 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 04:43 PM)Ourland Wrote:  Everyone is waiting to see what comes of the Big 12. It's future will determine who moves where

This, unsurprisingly, isn't true. Gonzaga and 5 other schools are currently making moves. Statements of wishful thinking don't make them happen.

In general, it is true. This is a basketball move by the MWC. No full memberships that we know of are being discussed. If so, Rice looks more attractive than most of the other candidates. I doubt seriously there will be another wave of realignment / merging until after the Big12 renegotiates a new television contract. I do hope Rice has a couple years to improve before things shake up again, but I'm confident it could get into the MWC today, if not. No statements of wishful thinking are necessary.

Confident based on what? I assure you our pathetic 200k per year from CUSA isn't what is keeping us here vs the MWC.

They likely don't want us because we add nothing to them.

If the MWC wanted to expand into Texas, it would take Rice based solely on the fact that Houston is an enormous media hub, let alone the fact that Rice has invested millions in athletics infrastructure and is one of the best schools in the south. Rice is a name brand.

Repeating it doesn't make it true.but hey, shoving your head in the sand and trumping non-existent PR points has been the modus operandi for Rice for decades. I guess you really loved the plan by Slick rick to laugh at UH and sit back and do nothing?

But, please humor us on how the best schools in the south and enormous media hub etc. has worked out. I guess the move from the SWC to the WAC to CUSA to what basically is the Sunbelt now is progress?

(03-07-2018 07:38 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 07:15 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:11 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 05:44 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 05:00 PM)Antarius Wrote:  This, unsurprisingly, isn't true. Gonzaga and 5 other schools are currently making moves. Statements of wishful thinking don't make them happen.

In general, it is true. This is a basketball move by the MWC. No full memberships that we know of are being discussed. If so, Rice looks more attractive than most of the other candidates. I doubt seriously there will be another wave of realignment / merging until after the Big12 renegotiates a new television contract. I do hope Rice has a couple years to improve before things shake up again, but I'm confident it could get into the MWC today, if not. No statements of wishful thinking are necessary.

Confident based on what? I assure you our pathetic 200k per year from CUSA isn't what is keeping us here vs the MWC.

They likely don't want us because we add nothing to them.

If the MWC wanted to expand into Texas, it would take Rice based solely on the fact that Houston is an enormous media hub, let alone the fact that Rice has invested millions in athletics infrastructure and is one of the best schools in the south. Rice is a name brand.

Repeating it doesn't make it true.but hey, shoving your head in the sand and trumping non-existent PR points has been the modus operandi for Rice for decades. I guess you really loved the plan by Slick rick to laugh at UH and sit back and do nothing?

But, please humor us on how the best schools in the south and enormous media hub etc. has worked out. I guess the move from the SWC to the WAC to CUSA to what basically is the Sunbelt now is progress?

I'm not looking for a snarky back and forth here. I feel like Rice would be a top candidate right now if the MWC were looking to expand into Texas. I wish that wasn't offensive to you, but I don't care if it is.

If college conferences were purely about maximizing revenue for their members, the MWC would go down to 10 members by kicking Hawaii and either Wyoming or SJSU out and still hold a CCG, just like the Big XII does. That they haven't done so indicates that there are other considerations and criteria beyond just the purely economic that go into a certain set of schools deciding to associate together athletically. And I do think we have cards to play on that score that nobody else could match - Houston/Texas and USNWR#15 being chief among them - and then, as I have suggested, deeper pockets that could (in theory) allow us to more or less buy our way in past cash-strapped public schools.

In other words, IF the MWC wanted to add in football, then holistically we bring as much if not more to the table than anyone else. NMSU? ArkSt? N. Ill.? UTEP? UTSA? TxSt? UNT? La Tech? ULaLa?

The trick is why would they want to expand at all when the crop of candidates seems so blah.

There may be something with the AAC trying to brand itself as a "Power 6" conference. The MWC could feel like adding schools gives it more chances for someone to pull a UCF in any given season, and then they too could make the "Power 6" claim? But right now this does seem driven more by basketball and the fact the MWC has an odd number of members for all sports other than football (Hawaii is football-only).

I agree with illiniowl in that Rice brings just as much and more to the MWC as any other Texas candidate. My guess is that UTEP and Rice are desirable to them, but you can't add schools without knowing the fate of potential members like BYU, and old members like Colorado State, both of whom could very likely end up in a reformed Big12. UH, Memphis, Cincinnati, and UCF are also top potential candidates for a new Big12. That's the heart of the AAC. Without those schools, the AAC is nothing. SMU, Tulsa, and Tulane are looking for a new home. Maybe CUSA West takes them in and forms a regional conference that's better than what we could have in the MWC. There are possibilities out there, but the Big12 needs to decide what it wants to do. No matter what happens, I don't see us in the current form of CUSA four years from now. We'll be in the MWC, or in a new regional conference.

(03-07-2018 06:19 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:08 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:05 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 05:15 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Two possibilities
1) The MWC has done no homework, and needs to be educated on the recruiting and marketing potential in Houston and on the existence of the University of Rice.
2) The MWC has considered Houston's potential, and inviting Rice to join, but isn't interested.

One of these is wishful thinking.

The third possibility is that they are interested in Rice. There's just no evidence for that.

Variation on third possibility: Not only are they interested, MWC invited Rice! Rice said no; we're holding out for better.

That's what we told the SEC, but that was a long time ago.

Variation of 2 is the Houston potential angle is no longer as valuable as it once was/projected to be. On demand is making large inroads into the captive cable market.. so interest is no longer geographical.

Without Houston's market, Rice offers nothing. And thus they aren't interested.

The Houston market is enormously desirable to the MWC, even given all the chord cutting. It's the fourth largest city in the country right now. Houston would be the largest city in their repetoire. It's a massive media center that provides central timezone games and access to hundreds of recruits. If the MWC really wants to get into Texas, a call to Rice is the first one Thompson makes.

(03-07-2018 11:46 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:19 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:08 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:05 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 05:15 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Two possibilities
1) The MWC has done no homework, and needs to be educated on the recruiting and marketing potential in Houston and on the existence of the University of Rice.
2) The MWC has considered Houston's potential, and inviting Rice to join, but isn't interested.

One of these is wishful thinking.

The third possibility is that they are interested in Rice. There's just no evidence for that.

Variation on third possibility: Not only are they interested, MWC invited Rice! Rice said no; we're holding out for better.

That's what we told the SEC, but that was a long time ago.

Variation of 2 is the Houston potential angle is no longer as valuable as it once was/projected to be. On demand is making large inroads into the captive cable market.. so interest is no longer geographical.

Without Houston's market, Rice offers nothing. And thus they aren't interested.

The Houston market is enormously desirable to the MWC, even given all the chord cutting. It's the fourth largest city in the country right now. Houston would be the largest city in their repetoire. It's a massive media center that provides central timezone games and access to hundreds of recruits. If the MWC really wants to get into Texas, a call to Rice is the first one Thompson makes.

And we own zero percent of that market. The only selling point previously is because Rice was IN Houston the conference would be broadcast to that many homes on cable.

With cord cutting TCU fans can see TCU in Houston. So can Utah fans or Wisconsin fans... It's available online. So Rice, which again, owns zero percent of Houston, adds nothing at all. They don't need us for broadcast rights anymore

You keep talking about Houston, large, desirable, repertoire etc. Why does this matter? It doesn't bring them any $$$ to add us - they aren't going after Largest City bragging rights.

Finally, please cite a source or a trend or anything to justify that Rice is the MWCs first choice if they expanded out to Texas. You repeat it like it is a fact when as far as we can tell, it is an opinion and one, given what's posted above, not very likely.

(03-08-2018 12:08 AM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 11:46 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:19 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:08 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:05 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  Variation on third possibility: Not only are they interested, MWC invited Rice! Rice said no; we're holding out for better.

That's what we told the SEC, but that was a long time ago.

Variation of 2 is the Houston potential angle is no longer as valuable as it once was/projected to be. On demand is making large inroads into the captive cable market.. so interest is no longer geographical.

Without Houston's market, Rice offers nothing. And thus they aren't interested.

The Houston market is enormously desirable to the MWC, even given all the chord cutting. It's the fourth largest city in the country right now. Houston would be the largest city in their repetoire. It's a massive media center that provides central timezone games and access to hundreds of recruits. If the MWC really wants to get into Texas, a call to Rice is the first one Thompson makes.

And we own zero percent of that market. The only selling point previously is because Rice was IN Houston the conference would be broadcast to that many homes on cable.

With cord cutting TCU fans can see TCU in Houston. So can Utah fans or Wisconsin fans... It's available online. So Rice, which again, owns zero percent of Houston, adds nothing at all. They don't need us for broadcast rights anymore

You keep talking about Houston, large, desirable, repertoire etc. Why does this matter? It doesn't bring them any $$$ to add us - they aren't going after Largest City bragging rights.

Finally, please cite a source or a trend or anything to justify that Rice is the MWCs first choice if they expanded out to Texas. You repeat it like it is a fact when as far as we can tell, it is an opinion and one, given what's posted above, not very likely.

There are no literary sources to cite. It's very obvious how conferences benefit from having Texas members, especially in large cities like Dallas and Houston. The same is true of Tulane in New Orleans. SMU and Tulane's behinds were saved because of their market, and nothing else.

(03-08-2018 03:42 AM)Ourland Wrote:  

(03-08-2018 12:08 AM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 11:46 PM)Ourland Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:19 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-07-2018 06:08 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  That's what we told the SEC, but that was a long time ago.

Variation of 2 is the Houston potential angle is no longer as valuable as it once was/projected to be. On demand is making large inroads into the captive cable market.. so interest is no longer geographical.

Without Houston's market, Rice offers nothing. And thus they aren't interested.

The Houston market is enormously desirable to the MWC, even given all the chord cutting. It's the fourth largest city in the country right now. Houston would be the largest city in their repetoire. It's a massive media center that provides central timezone games and access to hundreds of recruits. If the MWC really wants to get into Texas, a call to Rice is the first one Thompson makes.

And we own zero percent of that market. The only selling point previously is because Rice was IN Houston the conference would be broadcast to that many homes on cable.

With cord cutting TCU fans can see TCU in Houston. So can Utah fans or Wisconsin fans... It's available online. So Rice, which again, owns zero percent of Houston, adds nothing at all. They don't need us for broadcast rights anymore

You keep talking about Houston, large, desirable, repertoire etc. Why does this matter? It doesn't bring them any $$$ to add us - they aren't going after Largest City bragging rights.

Finally, please cite a source or a trend or anything to justify that Rice is the MWCs first choice if they expanded out to Texas. You repeat it like it is a fact when as far as we can tell, it is an opinion and one, given what's posted above, not very likely.

There are no literary sources to cite. It's very obvious how conferences benefit from having Texas members, especially in large cities like Dallas and Houston. The same is true of Tulane in New Orleans. SMU and Tulane's behinds were saved because of their market, and nothing else.

A fact that does not include the effects of on demand viewing and the way it changes audiences.

This may be history, but I've been told the current Big 10 Network receives fees based on the number of homes in its "viewing" area. The annual fee is something in the neighborhood of $0.50 for each home in a market area where there is no Big 10 school. The annual fee is in the neighborhood of $3.50 for each home in a market where a Big 10 school is located. Hence the recent additions of Rutgers and Maryland adding the New York and Washington-Baltimore market areas.

I'm not implying that future contracts may not be affected by technology, but a model has been proposed where Rice brings additional TV revenue to the Big 10 (along with somewhat similar academic profiles).

A similar advantage may be in play with other conference packages.

Our football games are good to have 2,000 actual people in the stands during conference play and 1,000 people watching on Facebook Live. I don't see any potential conference affiliate getting excited over that. The fact that a Boise State or a Wyoming would be coming to visit us instead of a Western Kentucky or F_U isn't going to move that needle one bit. TV metrics are changing by the day and media markets will soon be a thing of the past.

Outside of a potential re-marriage with the SWC remnants via a Big12 redesign, we are never going to have a lot of butts in the seats or eyeballs on the television because a) we don't have a huge local following b) we don't have that many alums and 75% of them could not care less about athletics c) most of our conference competition is a plane flight away so we will never see visitors bring a lot of people (the only decent visiting crowds we have had is UNT, UTSA, and the service academies). Being involved in a geographically disparate conference like the WAC/CUSA/MWC has shown this time and time again.

The only way a conference is going to invite us to play ball is if we get our revenue sports out of the dumpster (and maybe make them revenue sports for a change). The football team and MBB are essentially bottom decile at the moment performance wise and have been for the last few years (decades for MBB). If we can't at least acheive a P50 level of performance w/ the revenue sports more often than not, no one is going to be knocking on our door. Football looks like P50 is attainable maybe even next year, but MBB has shown nothing even at its very best in the last decade+. Barely getting into the NIT and then getting blown out as our best season is not a good look. It would be nice if baseball could return to perennial top25 or top10 status, but that is a wildcard at the moment w/ coaching in flux and the competitive landscape changing as the P5 conferences have stepped up their baseball game in the past 10 years. At the end of the day, the performance between the lines on football and MBB has to improve or we will be sunbelt/cusa for life.

(03-08-2018 12:39 PM)flash3200 Wrote:  Our football games are good to have 2,000 actual people in the stands during conference play and 1,000 people watching on Facebook Live. I don't see any potential conference affiliate getting excited over that. The fact that a Boise State or a Wyoming would be coming to visit us instead of a Western Kentucky or F_U isn't going to move that needle one bit. TV metrics are changing by the day and media markets will soon be a thing of the past.

Outside of a potential re-marriage with the SWC remnants via a Big12 redesign, we are never going to have a lot of butts in the seats or eyeballs on the television because a) we don't have a huge local following b) we don't have that many alums and 75% of them could not care less about athletics c) most of our conference competition is a plane flight away so we will never see visitors bring a lot of people (the only decent visiting crowds we have had is UNT, UTSA, and the service academies). Being involved in a geographically disparate conference like the WAC/CUSA/MWC has shown this time and time again.

The only way a conference is going to invite us to play ball is if we get our revenue sports out of the dumpster (and maybe make them revenue sports for a change). The football team and MBB are essentially bottom decile at the moment performance wise and have been for the last few years (decades for MBB). If we can't at least acheive a P50 level of performance w/ the revenue sports more often than not, no one is going to be knocking on our door. Football looks like P50 is attainable maybe even next year, but MBB has shown nothing even at its very best in the last decade+. Barely getting into the NIT and then getting blown out as our best season is not a good look. It would be nice if baseball could return to perennial top25 or top10 status, but that is a wildcard at the moment w/ coaching in flux and the competitive landscape changing as the P5 conferences have stepped up their baseball game in the past 10 years. At the end of the day, the performance between the lines on football and MBB has to improve or we will be sunbelt/cusa for life.

Agree with your post, although FB hasn't been much better. We haven't beaten a top 50 team in 12+ years. No one shows up for that, save for the few hundred masochists we have here (me included). MBB is unquestionably awful, but I would argue FB is worse by virtue of being a higher profile sport and us doing ABSOLUTELY nothing to make another conference say, Hey! they may have potential.

We have no local following due to
1. Being terrible 2. Small alum base 3. Opponents that aren't even remotely interesting

I do not see as much appeal in a Big XII reunion. If OU/UT leave (and maybe OSU leaves with OU), we have a conference that isn't going to draw nearly as well. TCU would be their marquee team - Baylor, Kansas, Iowa State, Iowa, KSU, tech and WVU aren't going to command tens of millions a year. It will likely slowly drop to a level of the AAC - a HUGE step up from the Sunbelt dba CUSA we are in now, but not a long term sustainable future. Geography is about the only positive that comes from it, but many of these schools are riding the coat tails of UT/OU; lose them and they fall flat like we do.

The good thing about basketball is 2 good recruiting classes in a row and you can be in the NCAA tournament. It takes 2 great players and a supporting cast of good players. Football is much much slower to turn around.

(03-08-2018 01:35 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  The good thing about basketball is 2 good recruiting classes in a row and you can be in the NCAA tournament. It takes 2 great players and a supporting cast of good players. Football is much much slower to turn around.

So simple! But, for the most part, Rice basketball has been terrible for 60+ years. One could argue that it's been, historically, one of the worst 5 men's basketball programs in the history of the NCAA.

(03-08-2018 01:53 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(03-08-2018 01:35 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  The good thing about basketball is 2 good recruiting classes in a row and you can be in the NCAA tournament. It takes 2 great players and a supporting cast of good players. Football is much much slower to turn around.

So simple! But, for the most part, Rice basketball has been terrible for 60+ years. One could argue that it's been, historically, one of the worst 5 men's basketball programs in the history of the NCAA.

I have to now go figure this out. Haven't pulled the numbers for MBB before like I did for FB.

Who else would you throw in that ring for bottom 5?

(03-08-2018 02:05 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-08-2018 01:53 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(03-08-2018 01:35 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  The good thing about basketball is 2 good recruiting classes in a row and you can be in the NCAA tournament. It takes 2 great players and a supporting cast of good players. Football is much much slower to turn around.

So simple! But, for the most part, Rice basketball has been terrible for 60+ years. One could argue that it's been, historically, one of the worst 5 men's basketball programs in the history of the NCAA.

I have to now go figure this out. Haven't pulled the numbers for MBB before like I did for FB.

Who else would you throw in that ring for bottom 5?

Army?
Northwestern?

(03-08-2018 02:05 PM)Antarius Wrote:  

(03-08-2018 01:53 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  

(03-08-2018 01:35 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  The good thing about basketball is 2 good recruiting classes in a row and you can be in the NCAA tournament. It takes 2 great players and a supporting cast of good players. Football is much much slower to turn around.

So simple! But, for the most part, Rice basketball has been terrible for 60+ years. One could argue that it's been, historically, one of the worst 5 men's basketball programs in the history of the NCAA.

I have to now go figure this out. Haven't pulled the numbers for MBB before like I did for FB.

Who else would you throw in that ring for bottom 5?

I would think that The Citadel would be the worst. William & Mary might be in the discussion. Neither has ever been to the NCAA Tournament. St. Francis (NY) has not gone, but their program has some tradition.

EDIT: I'm only including programs that have been around for at least 70 years.