Conference USA proves again that it’s a failing model

By Patrick Magee
pmagee@sunherald.com

Conference USA football can celebrate placing a record nine teams in bowl games this season, but there’s little joy for the league when you consider fan interest.

The disappointing crowd in Boca Raton for Saturday’s C-USA title game reinforces a worrying trend. The conference announced 14,258 at FAU Stadium, but the actual figure appeared to be significantly lower.

When the title game was played at WKU in Bowling Green a year ago, C-USA announced a crowd of 13,213. The actual attendance may have been half that figure.

Lane Kiffin’s successful first season at FAU provided national buzz for the program and conference, but that didn’t deliver big crowds. A year after averaging 10,073 fans, FAU jumped to 18,568.
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(12-05-2017 10:10 PM)trojanbrutha Wrote:  Conference USA proves again that it’s a failing model

By Patrick Magee
pmagee@sunherald.com

Conference USA football can celebrate placing a record nine teams in bowl games this season, but there’s little joy for the league when you consider fan interest.

The disappointing crowd in Boca Raton for Saturday’s C-USA title game reinforces a worrying trend. The conference announced 14,258 at FAU Stadium, but the actual figure appeared to be significantly lower.

When the title game was played at WKU in Bowling Green a year ago, C-USA announced a crowd of 13,213. The actual attendance may have been half that figure.

Lane Kiffin’s successful first season at FAU provided national buzz for the program and conference, but that didn’t deliver big crowds. A year after averaging 10,073 fans, FAU jumped to 18,568.
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Interesting read. I think that this is a good idea for a reshuffling of G5 schools into more geographically aligned groupings.

why aren't CUSA and SunBelt merging? makes too much sense. What is impeding this?

(12-05-2017 10:48 PM)GSUALUM17 Wrote:  why aren't CUSA and SunBelt merging? makes too much sense. What is impeding this?

Those that believe their station in life is higher than others...#HarvardOfTheSouth

(12-05-2017 10:54 PM)trojanbrutha Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 10:48 PM)GSUALUM17 Wrote:  why aren't CUSA and SunBelt merging? makes too much sense. What is impeding this?

Those that believe their station in life is higher than others...#HarvardOfTheSouth

which schools?

Wow...where are the loser tech fans?

(12-05-2017 11:03 PM)GSUALUM17 Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 10:54 PM)trojanbrutha Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 10:48 PM)GSUALUM17 Wrote:  why aren't CUSA and SunBelt merging? makes too much sense. What is impeding this?

Those that believe their station in life is higher than others...#HarvardOfTheSouth

which schools?

Emory

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Being much more regional conference won’t magically fix our attendance. It will bump it some, but I doubt more than 10%. The average fan might gain one game in a drivable distance.

(12-05-2017 11:06 PM)OsageJ Wrote:  Wow...where are the loser tech fans?

CUSA PLACES NINE TEAMS IN BOWL GAMES! More than ANY other G5 conference!

That is what the headline SHOULD read. FAU struggles with attendance for sure, but there is no arguing that placing 9 out of 10 bowl eligible teams in actual bowl games is a huge success story for our conference.

I have no clue of who the writer of this article is, or what axe he has to grind with CUSA, but I DO know that in the last four matchups between La Tech and Sun Belt teams, the results were all blow-out wins for La Tech, and one of those was over Sun Belt champion Ark St in the New Orleans Bowl. The fact that you would inject Tech into this thread shows that, once again, you're thinking about us. Time heals all wounds. You'll get over that ass kicking some day.

(12-06-2017 05:01 AM)BRtransplant Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 11:06 PM)OsageJ Wrote:  Wow...where are the loser tech fans?

CUSA PLACES NINE TEAMS IN BOWL GAMES! More than ANY other G5 conference!

That is what the headline SHOULD read. FAU struggles with attendance for sure, but there is no arguing that placing 9 out of 10 bowl eligible teams in actual bowl games is a huge success story for our conference.

I have no clue of who the writer of this article is, or what axe he has to grind with CUSA, but I DO know that in the last four matchups between La Tech and Sun Belt teams, the results were all blow-out wins for La Tech, and one of those was over Sun Belt champion Ark St in the New Orleans Bowl. The fact that you would inject Tech into this thread shows that, once again, you're thinking about us. Time heals all wounds. You'll get over that ass kicking some day.

That game had nothing to do with. I just know you idiots come over sticking your nose in every chance you get. Lol...and we are thinking of you..Lol.

CUSA is falvored in two of its nine bowls. Having 14 teams helps prop up a conference especially when three of them have 7+ Conference losses.

Honestly though I haven’t seen many of their games due to lack of TV coverage.

Is CUSA everything "they" thought it would be? No way, they have the worst TV deal anyone has ever seen and huge amounts of dead weight. Most Marshall and USM fans have their skins crawling in that conference.

Is the SBC better? No, while we have a way more accessible TV deal, we have our own dead weight. The difference in our dead weight is they have improved and don't appear hopeless. Dropping Idaho and NMSU will now also free incurred travel costs further enhancing our overall improvement.

I believe we are about to enter into a few parity years in the SBC in which every team wins 3 Conference games and our best teams have trouble getting to nine wins on the season, unfortunately outsiders will say we are down with those results.

(12-06-2017 05:01 AM)BRtransplant Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 11:06 PM)OsageJ Wrote:  Wow...where are the loser tech fans?

CUSA PLACES NINE TEAMS IN BOWL GAMES! More than ANY other G5 conference!

That is what the headline SHOULD read. FAU struggles with attendance for sure, but there is no arguing that placing 9 out of 10 bowl eligible teams in actual bowl games is a huge success story for our conference.

I have no clue of who the writer of this article is, or what axe he has to grind with CUSA, but I DO know that in the last four matchups between La Tech and Sun Belt teams, the results were all blow-out wins for La Tech, and one of those was over Sun Belt champion Ark St in the New Orleans Bowl. The fact that you would inject Tech into this thread shows that, once again, you're thinking about us. Time heals all wounds. You'll get over that ass kicking some day.

that just means 8 of 9 teams will lose money playing in bowl games this year (USM might actually have a shot at being in the black)

(12-06-2017 01:18 AM)Fanof49ASU Wrote:  Being much more regional conference won’t magically fix our attendance. It will bump it some, but I doubt more than 10%. The average fan might gain one game in a drivable distance.

As stated before this would be more beneficial to us than most of y'all with us gaining 3 in state road games.

we have to think beyond just football. Our tennis/volleyball/basketball/baseball/soccer/etc. teams should not travel from Carolina to Texas, Virginia to Florida, or Arkansas to Georgia. There are enough teams between CUSA and SunBelt to divide regionally.

Is the theory that some teams like La Tech feel "superior" so they wouldn't want a realignment? I don't think there's any difference between CUSA and SBC in terms of national perception

(12-06-2017 12:46 AM)panama Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 11:03 PM)GSUALUM17 Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 10:54 PM)trojanbrutha Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 10:48 PM)GSUALUM17 Wrote:  why aren't CUSA and SunBelt merging? makes too much sense. What is impeding this?

Those that believe their station in life is higher than others...#HarvardOfTheSouth

which schools?

Emory

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

lol yes

(12-05-2017 10:10 PM)trojanbrutha Wrote:  Conference USA proves again that it’s a failing model

By Patrick Magee
pmagee@sunherald.com

Conference USA football can celebrate placing a record nine teams in bowl games this season, but there’s little joy for the league when you consider fan interest.

The disappointing crowd in Boca Raton for Saturday’s C-USA title game reinforces a worrying trend. The conference announced 14,258 at FAU Stadium, but the actual figure appeared to be significantly lower.

When the title game was played at WKU in Bowling Green a year ago, C-USA announced a crowd of 13,213. The actual attendance may have been half that figure.

Lane Kiffin’s successful first season at FAU provided national buzz for the program and conference, but that didn’t deliver big crowds. A year after averaging 10,073 fans, FAU jumped to 18,568.
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Wait so an 80% jump is a failure? I get the 18k still isn't great but seeing what it was the year before, that is an impressive increase.

(12-06-2017 09:45 AM)slycat Wrote:  

(12-05-2017 10:10 PM)trojanbrutha Wrote:  Conference USA proves again that it’s a failing model

By Patrick Magee
pmagee@sunherald.com

Conference USA football can celebrate placing a record nine teams in bowl games this season, but there’s little joy for the league when you consider fan interest.

The disappointing crowd in Boca Raton for Saturday’s C-USA title game reinforces a worrying trend. The conference announced 14,258 at FAU Stadium, but the actual figure appeared to be significantly lower.

When the title game was played at WKU in Bowling Green a year ago, C-USA announced a crowd of 13,213. The actual attendance may have been half that figure.

Lane Kiffin’s successful first season at FAU provided national buzz for the program and conference, but that didn’t deliver big crowds. A year after averaging 10,073 fans, FAU jumped to 18,568.
...
...
...

Wait so an 80% jump is a failure? I get the 18k still isn't great but seeing what it was the year before, that is an impressive increase.

That's what I was thinking. That's almost 8500 more fans per game. Every school would kill to get that many more fans out to their games.

(12-06-2017 01:18 AM)Fanof49ASU Wrote:  Being much more regional conference won’t magically fix our attendance. It will bump it some, but I doubt more than 10%. The average fan might gain one game in a drivable distance.

I was never driving to NMSU or Idaho that is for sure. I will go to CCU when the kids get a little older without a doubt.

What will fix attendance is winning OOC games more than anything. Winning is nice but when you are the lowest rated conference and only winning conference games mainly it loses its luster quite a bit. This is why I even cheer for GagStat and the Appholes OOC.

The CUSA marketzzzz experiment failed miserably but credit to them they were better than us this year. Now with the capped playoff payout having all those teams hedging against realignment hurts even worse. The Sun Belt is what it is right now but we only have to split money with ten teams and became more regional. We have much more scheduling flexibility with lower revenue sharing as well. GS might not be going to the one P5 money game if we had 12, 14 or 16 teams in this conference. CCU, GSU, GS, App, TXST, USA, have all been in the FBS for less than a decade and have a ton of growth ahead of them and were chosen mainly on merit and potential over marketzzzz.

We all know FAU is going back in the trash can when the Lane train departs the station.