We all seem to dislike the current leadership (or lack thereof). If you were in charge, what would be your plan of action? My mostly basketball related inputs are below.
TV Deal
I would ask Netflix and Prime Video to pick up the rights, whoever would pay more (even if it is peanuts). The only stipulations I have are this. Every major sporting event (Football, Men's basketball, select Women's events) is streamed live and archived. Every game is available in 4K. We wouldn't get much if anything $$$ wise out of this early on, as any payout would be in the form of infrastructure, but we would be one of the first conferences to the 4K party and would vastly improve our brand recognition (being the only sports options on those platforms). Forget traditional TV, forget Facebook. We need to partner with a streaming service that is already on every smart TV and box in the world.
Pods/Scheduling
Ditch the Pods and have every team play each other once (including travel partners) and alternate home and away each year. Play more OOC games at home against lower tier teams (similar to what UNT did this year). Play as many neutral court and home and home against P5 as you can. Eventually you change the perception about your conference because of your winning percentage and computer ratings. You also spend less time beating each other up in conference play.
Conference Tournament
Unless something drastic happens to change the geography of the conference, let the better seed host all the way through, and use the OVC concept to protect your top teams with double byes. You should see better attendance, less upsets, and your best teams making the NCAA Tournament which gives the conference the best chance at earning valuable credits.
Scrap it and start over. I thought it was quite telling that when CUSA went on FB to gleefully announce they struck a deal to keep the tournament in Frisco, nearly every comment was bashing the decision, the conference etc. I don't think anyone likes being in this conference. Its the island of misfit toys and we're all just looking for a life raft off of it thats still FBS.
(03-12-2019 11:13 AM)monarx Wrote: [ -> ]Scrap it and start over. I thought it was quite telling that when CUSA went on FB to gleefully announce they struck a deal to keep the tournament in Frisco, nearly every comment was bashing the decision, the conference etc. I don't think anyone likes being in this conference. Its the island of misfit toys and we're all just looking for a life raft off of it thats still FBS.
That’s the case in every G5 conference except the MAC. Looks like they like where they’re at and know their ceiling.
I would be OK with everything on ESPN3, ESPN+, or Stadium. I just don't like paying a subscription to ESPN+ and then having important games on CBSSN. Just get a format and go with it. Unless ESPN1 picks up our games, the revenue isn't going to be worth the trouble of having fans not able to watch.
Pods/Scheduling
I like your idea. I still think an East-West Format would make this conference easier to negotiate. We need to adopt some sort of scheduling code that raises the bar. Everyone should strive for a difficult OOC schedule, and if your team isn't good enough to compete with said schedule, sobeit.
Conference Tournament
Split the conference into East and West just like in football. Have the top Eastern and Western teams host the tournament at their sites, and have the East and West Champs play at the highest remaining seed. This will:
1.) Reward the regular season champ with a distinct advantage.
2.) Cut down on travel costs.
3.) Increase fan involvement (and revenue).
I would be OK with everything on ESPN3, ESPN+, or Stadium. I just don't like paying a subscription to ESPN+ and then having important games on CBSSN. Just get a format and go with it. Unless ESPN1 picks up our games, the revenue isn't going to be worth the trouble of having fans not able to watch.
Pods/Scheduling
I like your idea. I still think an East-West Format would make this conference easier to negotiate. We need to adopt some sort of scheduling code that raises the bar. Everyone should strive for a difficult OOC schedule, and if your team isn't good enough to compete with said schedule, sobeit.
Conference Tournament
Split the conference into East and West just like in football. Have the top Eastern and Western teams host the tournament at their sites, and have the East and West Champs play at the highest remaining seed. This will:
1.) Reward the regular season champ with a distinct advantage.
2.) Cut down on travel costs.
3.) Increase fan involvement (and revenue).
I like the conference tournament idea, especially if we stay as spread out as we are now. There is a reason the Big East remnants didn't go Nationwide with San Diego State, Boise State, etc. when the conference split. It just doesn't make sense to stretch from El Paso to Miami to Huntington. We need to start emulating the MAC. That includes no more call-ups. More geographically-centric conferences. Single TV partners (splitting games across 4-5 platforms is confusing and punishes your fans by making them subscribe to every service out there).
Annex the Texas schools. East forms own conference, add Georgia St. and Georgia Southern. Have conf. tournament alternate between Atlanta and Nashville. Top two teams get double byes into semifinals.
Expand to 20 teams. Split into 10-team divisions. Play everyone in-division twice. After that, top team in East plays top team in West in a home-and-home for the NCAA bid. Point differential and road points are tiebreakers. Second team in East plays second team in West, same deal down the rankings. They can play for the Flint Michigan MEGABOWL.
Or: Get down to 10 or 11 teams. Double-round robin. Regular season champion gets the bid. No tournament.
OR: GLOUCESTERSHIRE CHEESE ROLL. Top seed gets 14 players, second seed gets 13, all the way down to the last-place team that gets one. Conference champion is whoever gets the cheese.
(03-12-2019 02:01 PM)Cyniclone Wrote: [ -> ]Expand to 20 teams. Split into 10-team divisions. Play everyone in-division twice. After that, top team in East plays top team in West in a home-and-home for the NCAA bid. Point differential and road points are tiebreakers. Second team in East plays second team in West, same deal down the rankings. They can play for the Flint Michigan MEGABOWL.
Or: Get down to 10 or 11 teams. Double-round robin. Regular season champion gets the bid. No tournament.
OR: GLOUCESTERSHIRE CHEESE ROLL. Top seed gets 14 players, second seed gets 13, all the way down to the last-place team that gets one. Conference champion is whoever gets the cheese.
I'm sure the P5 would love that. Used to be that 20 schools would equate to 2.5 NCAA bids. Under your proposal it would be just one. Maybe we could combine some of the MAC and Sunbelt and do 2 x 16-team mega divisions instead. That would put teams like 14-17 (6-12) Georgia Tech squarely on the bubble.
(03-12-2019 01:42 PM)WKUFan518 Wrote: [ -> ]Annex the Texas schools. East forms own conference, add Georgia St. and Georgia Southern. Have conf. tournament alternate between Atlanta and Nashville. Top two teams get double byes into semifinals.
Not bad. Or we could have the east form its own conference but trade FIU/FAU to the SB for Ga. St, App. St. Its time we realized CUSA isn't much better than the SB anyway. At least we'd get one program that cares about basketball and two teams that are much better geographical fits.
(03-12-2019 02:01 PM)Cyniclone Wrote: [ -> ]Expand to 20 teams. Split into 10-team divisions. Play everyone in-division twice. After that, top team in East plays top team in West in a home-and-home for the NCAA bid. Point differential and road points are tiebreakers. Second team in East plays second team in West, same deal down the rankings. They can play for the Flint Michigan MEGABOWL.
Or: Get down to 10 or 11 teams. Double-round robin. Regular season champion gets the bid. No tournament.
OR: GLOUCESTERSHIRE CHEESE ROLL. Top seed gets 14 players, second seed gets 13, all the way down to the last-place team that gets one. Conference champion is whoever gets the cheese.
I'm sure the P5 would love that. Used to be that 20 schools would equate to 2.5 NCAA bids. Under your proposal it would be just one. Maybe we could combine some of the MAC and Sunbelt and do 2 x 16-team mega divisions instead. That would put teams like 14-17 (6-12) Georgia Tech squarely on the bubble.
I no longer know what the procedure for breaking off and starting a conference is with regards to continuity, but it theoretically would set the stage for the divisions to become conferences on their own.
Otherwise, I mean, we're not going to a time where you can create or join six- or eight-team conferences that get their own bid. With that in mind, at least a large conference allows for more concise divisional play. Would you rather play all 18 conference games against East Coast teams or do you want to mix a couple of trips west of the Mississippi in there?
(btw I listed my options in ascending order of desire; clearly the cheese-wheel race is my top choice)
(03-12-2019 01:42 PM)WKUFan518 Wrote: [ -> ]Annex the Texas schools. East forms own conference, add Georgia St. and Georgia Southern. Have conf. tournament alternate between Atlanta and Nashville. Top two teams get double byes into semifinals.
Not bad. Or we could have the east form its own conference but trade FIU/FAU to the SB for Ga. St, App. St. Its time we realized CUSA isn't much better than the SB anyway. At least we'd get one program that cares about basketball and two teams that are much better geographical fits.
Agree. The two divisions should split. Each side could then pull new members from the Sun Belt. Geographically compact conferences are the only way to go for programs outside the power structure.
Bus leagues save money, and compelling rivalries against nearby schools sell tickets.
(03-12-2019 01:42 PM)WKUFan518 Wrote: [ -> ]Annex the Texas schools. East forms own conference, add Georgia St. and Georgia Southern. Have conf. tournament alternate between Atlanta and Nashville. Top two teams get double byes into semifinals.
Uh.... the Texas schools are already a part of the conference, so you can't annex them. Now, if you are looking to divorce from the Texas schools, that would be odd, since the C-USA headquarters is locate in Irving TEXAS.
As you stated, the unhappy eastern programs are always welcome to leave and form a new regional eastern conference, but I personally think that would be a mistake for those programs.
Poor F_U. Can barely get passed post #10 in a conference improvement thread before getting put on the chopping block. At least they lasted longer than Texas this time.
C-USA needs to develop a real conference owned network. We need to partner with an actual network (AT&T Sports Net), and have our games available on traditional TV, streaming, and mobile app. AT&T Sports Net is owned by Directv, which is owned by AT&T. They have the needed infrastructure, an we would basically be cutting out the middle men (ESPN, FOX, Sports, CBS Sports, NBC Sports,...) and signing directly with the distributor AT&T/Directv). Our programs would have to invest serious money into developing better production quality to keep up with the latest changes in technology (4K,...). The programs that could not afford this shift or are not interested in spending the money on the shift, would have to think about the direction of their program, and if C-USA is the right conference for them.
Pods/Scheduling
I have not seen enough of the impact from Pod scheduling yet. After a season or two, maybe I will have an educated opinion. As for scheduling, I think football should have a very simple guideline (1 P5 home & home, 2 alternating home & homes between AAC/MWC, and 1 buy a win home game vs either FCS /NMSU). C-USA bylaws should be amended to ban our programs from signing bodybag games. The simple truth is that our media right would be worth more if we actually host more P5 at our stadiums. For basketball, I think our top teams need to host a few "Classics" against some of the better programs from the West Coast, Valley, and Ohio Valley, during the OOC schedule. The marginal to bad programs just need to focus on scheduling winnable games until they get better coaching and recruit better talent.
Conference Tournament
I'd like the tournament to move to neutral site cities. I would select two cities that were a bit smaller than the large "pro oriented" type cities that don't pay attention to us. I'd start with Beaumont Texas and Columbus Georgia. Each division would have a neutral site, and I would have the ladies and men's tournament alternated sites each year, so each city gets to host a tournament every year. I think these cities would really roll out the red carpet for a chance to have their city get some national TV attention during the title games. Both Beaumont and Columbus have airports, convention centers (game sites), and local colleges with suitable basketball arenas. Neither of these cities have big events beating own their doors. And, we should see a good amount of local support at our games too.
