(02-09-2019 11:30 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(02-09-2019 11:10 AM)f1do Wrote:  https://www.heraldextra.com/sports/colle...ab607.html

Quote:With regards to the television deal, Holmoe simply said that he was “in discussions right now,” but frequently referred to the partnership with the sports media giant when he talked about bowl bids and game start times.

“We played Saint Mary’s (in men’s basketball) last week on ESPN2 at 9 p.m.,” Holmoe said. “I had to take a nap at 6 p.m. to make it, but after the game I had friends that I had made from being on the basketball committee and from around the country texting me, congratulating us on the win. If we are not on ESPN or ESPN2, they aren’t going to see that.”

BYU is going into their final year of the TV deal they signed when the first went independent in football for the 2011 season. The 2019 deal includes a bowl game tie in to the Hawaii Bowl if BYU is bowl eligible after being an at large bid the previous two seasons.

ESPN picked up the contract option year for 2019 so it is believed they viewed that as cheaper than if they declined and renegotiated a year earlier. No breaking news yet but it will be interesting to see what the deal ends up looking like.

Personally, I feel like BYU needs a conference. Not just any conference, but one that can match both football and basketball against consistently good competition. I think there will be an opportunity for that should the major powers of the Big 12 leave in the next several years.

A rebuilt Big 12, perhaps with a few schools from multiple regions and partial members in certain sports, could be a strong and stable economic engine.

BYU is not in any danger of fading too quickly, but their independence could end up being an Achilles heel should their product slip on a consistent basis. That means their TV value would slip and ESPN would be less inclined to give a strong contract. At that point, it begins to be a cycle and getting into a decent conference becomes even harder.

The numbers say they have already slipped. I had calculated a weighted trailing five year average Sagarin rating since 2011. These are BYU's ratings:

2011 79.2
2012 78.7
2013 78.5
2014 76.1
2015 76.6
2016 77.0
2017 72.0
2018 70.9

A few more years in that direction and ESPN isn't going to be happy. They may not be willing to sign a long term deal until they see if BYU can turn this around.

(02-09-2019 01:01 PM)esayem Wrote:  The Mountain West grew too quickly when Utah left. Instead of inviting everyone and their mother they should have circled the wagons and stayed small with high quality, flagship schools. The MWC was successful in the first place because they took the best of the WAC.

SJSU and Utah St had very nice 2012 seasons just in time for the decision by Thompson to go 12 or stay at 10.

Had they not been picked up I guess Utah St accepts a FB only SBC offer and San Jose St drops completely.

It might make sense at this point for a couple of the more valuable MWC properties (e.g. Hawaii, Boise, SDSU) to follow BYU's lead and just get out all together.

I believe that Hawaii could make independence work. They already have a separate home for Olympic sports and, even as a member of the MWC, they usually schedule a non-conference game or two in October or November (and even December, before the MWC championship game). They've done so every year for at least the last decade, plus '19, '20, '22 and '24.

With the Week 0 flexibility, they can play 5 games in the non-conference season before October (6 games in some years) and could fairly easily get BYU and NMSU on the late schedule every year. Add 1 or 2 out of Army, Liberty, and UMass in the back-half schedule....and you only need 2-3 more games - FCS home opponent and 1-2 others in October or November. Even easier if SDSU and Boise were to make the move.

(02-12-2019 08:11 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(02-09-2019 11:30 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(02-09-2019 11:10 AM)f1do Wrote:  https://www.heraldextra.com/sports/colle...ab607.html

Quote:With regards to the television deal, Holmoe simply said that he was “in discussions right now,” but frequently referred to the partnership with the sports media giant when he talked about bowl bids and game start times.

“We played Saint Mary’s (in men’s basketball) last week on ESPN2 at 9 p.m.,” Holmoe said. “I had to take a nap at 6 p.m. to make it, but after the game I had friends that I had made from being on the basketball committee and from around the country texting me, congratulating us on the win. If we are not on ESPN or ESPN2, they aren’t going to see that.”

BYU is going into their final year of the TV deal they signed when the first went independent in football for the 2011 season. The 2019 deal includes a bowl game tie in to the Hawaii Bowl if BYU is bowl eligible after being an at large bid the previous two seasons.

ESPN picked up the contract option year for 2019 so it is believed they viewed that as cheaper than if they declined and renegotiated a year earlier. No breaking news yet but it will be interesting to see what the deal ends up looking like.

Personally, I feel like BYU needs a conference. Not just any conference, but one that can match both football and basketball against consistently good competition. I think there will be an opportunity for that should the major powers of the Big 12 leave in the next several years.

A rebuilt Big 12, perhaps with a few schools from multiple regions and partial members in certain sports, could be a strong and stable economic engine.

BYU is not in any danger of fading too quickly, but their independence could end up being an Achilles heel should their product slip on a consistent basis. That means their TV value would slip and ESPN would be less inclined to give a strong contract. At that point, it begins to be a cycle and getting into a decent conference becomes even harder.

The numbers say they have already slipped. I had calculated a weighted trailing five year average Sagarin rating since 2011. These are BYU's ratings:

2011 79.2
2012 78.7
2013 78.5
2014 76.1
2015 76.6
2016 77.0
2017 72.0
2018 70.9

A few more years in that direction and ESPN isn't going to be happy. They may not be willing to sign a long term deal until they see if BYU can turn this around.

BYU has been a nationally-known program for at least 40 years, but this decade at least they have seemed to be a program that is slowly dying on the vine.

If I was affiliated with BYU, I would have an existential concern, a concern that BYU's special status as a program with national cachet is in jeopardy.

(02-14-2019 07:23 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(02-12-2019 08:11 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(02-09-2019 11:30 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(02-09-2019 11:10 AM)f1do Wrote:  https://www.heraldextra.com/sports/colle...ab607.html

Quote:With regards to the television deal, Holmoe simply said that he was “in discussions right now,” but frequently referred to the partnership with the sports media giant when he talked about bowl bids and game start times.

“We played Saint Mary’s (in men’s basketball) last week on ESPN2 at 9 p.m.,” Holmoe said. “I had to take a nap at 6 p.m. to make it, but after the game I had friends that I had made from being on the basketball committee and from around the country texting me, congratulating us on the win. If we are not on ESPN or ESPN2, they aren’t going to see that.”

BYU is going into their final year of the TV deal they signed when the first went independent in football for the 2011 season. The 2019 deal includes a bowl game tie in to the Hawaii Bowl if BYU is bowl eligible after being an at large bid the previous two seasons.

ESPN picked up the contract option year for 2019 so it is believed they viewed that as cheaper than if they declined and renegotiated a year earlier. No breaking news yet but it will be interesting to see what the deal ends up looking like.

Personally, I feel like BYU needs a conference. Not just any conference, but one that can match both football and basketball against consistently good competition. I think there will be an opportunity for that should the major powers of the Big 12 leave in the next several years.

A rebuilt Big 12, perhaps with a few schools from multiple regions and partial members in certain sports, could be a strong and stable economic engine.

BYU is not in any danger of fading too quickly, but their independence could end up being an Achilles heel should their product slip on a consistent basis. That means their TV value would slip and ESPN would be less inclined to give a strong contract. At that point, it begins to be a cycle and getting into a decent conference becomes even harder.

The numbers say they have already slipped. I had calculated a weighted trailing five year average Sagarin rating since 2011. These are BYU's ratings:

2011 79.2
2012 78.7
2013 78.5
2014 76.1
2015 76.6
2016 77.0
2017 72.0
2018 70.9

A few more years in that direction and ESPN isn't going to be happy. They may not be willing to sign a long term deal until they see if BYU can turn this around.

BYU has been a nationally-known program for at least 40 years, but this decade at least they have seemed to be a program that is slowly dying on the vine.

If I was affiliated with BYU, I would have an existential concern, a concern that BYU's special status as a program with national cachet is in jeopardy.

BYU averages 5 to 6 "P5 Games" a year, 3 to 4 MWC games a year, and spreads out the remaining games among the AAC, the MAC, other G5 conferences, and at least 1 FCS game a year. Their problem at this time appears the scheduling of those P5 games most of which are scheduled the first 4 weeks. Perhaps that has something to do with their "withering on the vine" as they disappear from the national limelight after the middle of the season with late regional scheduled night games after the east coast turns off their tv's and people go to bed. Playing their Olympic Games on west coast time in the WWC does not help their national image either. Returning to the MWC won't help either as the tv's east of the Mississippi start going off under that situation too. They will continue on the vine hoping to turn their programs around while they wait for the next round of realignment and wait out the B-12 which still might have openings available in 2025 giving them P5 status and national attention again. After all they are ND WEST in their view with their own tv station too and I see nothing wrong with that.

(02-17-2019 05:42 PM)panite Wrote:  BYU averages 5 to 6 "P5 Games" a year, 3 to 4 MWC games a year, and spreads out the remaining games among the AAC, the MAC, other G5 conferences, and at least 1 FCS game a year. Their problem at this time appears the scheduling of those P5 games most of which are scheduled the first 4 weeks. Perhaps that has something to do with their "withering on the vine" as they disappear from the national limelight after the middle of the season with late regional scheduled night games after the east coast turns off their tv's and people go to bed. Playing their Olympic Games on west coast time in the WWC does not help their national image either. Returning to the MWC won't help either as the tv's east of the Mississippi start going off under that situation too. They will continue on the vine hoping to turn their programs around while they wait for the next round of realignment and wait out the B-12 which still might have openings available in 2025 giving them P5 status and national attention again. After all they are ND WEST in their view with their own tv station too and I see nothing wrong with that.

BYU needs to improve their recruiting in both football and basketball. They are just not getting the talent that they used to get. They have had five players selected in the NFL draft in the past eight years and no player selected in the NBA draft since Jimmer Fredette in 2011.

The ESPN TV deal, which was supposed to be paying them between $800,000 and $1.2 million per ESPN home game, is better than the MWC. No one knows what they are getting paid in the WCC. BYUtv televised two BYU football games this past season and 14 of the 16 regular season home games in basketball are on BYUtv. The other two were on ESPN2 (Gonzaga and St. Mary's). There is no information on any revenue from BYUtv. I think where they are at right now is not bad financially for a G5 school.

The early season P5 games are tough, but they won at Arizona and at Wisconsin this season. I don't see the relevance of "tv's east of the Mississippi." That does not seem to bother Gonzaga or Boise State. It does not matter if it is the NBA or NHL or MLB or college football or college basketball. The games have always started at the same time in the west and things have worked out just fine. Starting times of games in the west is an east coast issue.

(02-13-2019 05:30 PM)YNot Wrote:  I believe that Hawaii could make independence work. They already have a separate home for Olympic sports and, even as a member of the MWC, they usually schedule a non-conference game or two in October or November (and even December, before the MWC championship game). They've done so every year for at least the last decade, plus '19, '20, '22 and '24.

With the Week 0 flexibility, they can play 5 games in the non-conference season before October (6 games in some years) and could fairly easily get BYU and NMSU on the late schedule every year. Add 1 or 2 out of Army, Liberty, and UMass in the back-half schedule....and you only need 2-3 more games - FCS home opponent and 1-2 others in October or November. Even easier if SDSU and Boise were to make the move.

Not gonna happen. I have no doubt independence would kill UH football and there’s no hint the UH administration feels differently.

It’s the geography. Coaches of teams in non-MWC conferences won’t schedule UH after conference play begins because the long trip puts them at a disadvantage in their next game and consequently in their title hunt. Fellow MWC schools don’t like the travel either but put up with it because they know that having to make the trip four times puts UH at an even greater disadvantage in conference play.

If UH were to leave the MWC for independence the only home games it could land after early October would be against other independents, and such a limited schedule combined with no conference title to play for would wipe out fan interest and destroy recruiting. Nope, UH is exactly where it wants to be and isn’t going anywhere, even at the price of continuing to pay travel subsidies.