(01-20-2023 05:19 PM)inutech Wrote: ... It's cool when college football twitter is buzzing about a MACtion snow game or shootout or stud player or crazy ending or unusual play. That's really fun for all of us general college football fans (and we wouldn't get nearly as much if all their games were streaming somewhere, even on ESPN+ on Saturday against our own schools and all the big names). But I doubt it ever pays off past that.
"Exposure" is a really nebulous term. Of course more people will see the game and over time maybe(????) that has a tangible payoff. But it hasn't seemed that way for the MAC.
With my limited knowledge, I look at the pros and cons and lean (very much) one way. But the CUSA brain trust saw it differently (and they got to see the numbers - and are the ones buying the soccer team's uniforms). ...
I'll set the "doubt whether CUSA had a better deal on the table" to one side. There's no place this side of the Big Rock Candy Mountain where CUSA, after the realignment it just went through, would get a better deal than this, in terms of either revenue or exposure.
As far as the impact on the conference, the question is whether the impact you are looking at is the perceived benefit to the football team, or the perceived benefit to the school as a whole. I expect that the Presidents of the MAC schools that value and invest in football the most would say they would rather have the exposure on TV over the larger attendance for those ~2 home games.
Now for my Golden Flashes, they probably are just raising their hands for the contract that gets a bigger distribution and gets all of the home basketball games on ESPN+ or better (when a while back there were games that were not available even for the fans who were looking to watch them). After flirting with raising the priority they place on football after the "flash in the pan" 2012 season, things settled down again and the decision was made that our priority was going to be basketball after all.
But for the more football-first schools, where a lot of fans would be complaining even more loudly about the midweek games ... if the midweek games and the revenue that goes with those game were cut, and most games were played on Saturday afternoon on ESPN+/ESPN3, those fans still wouldn't generate the revenue to replace the ESPN #MACtion revenue.
Whether wise or foolish, he who pays the piper often calls the tune. Even at those schools, it's the Presidents who are in effect paying for and requiring students to pay for the school to play at the FBS level, and they clearly prefer the exposure.
